Northern mythology

APPENDIX. 237
to err in representing the dwarfs as thievish on such occasions,
as stealing the produce from the fields, or collecting
the thrashed-out corn for themselves ; unless such stories
are meant to signify that evil befalls men, if they offend
those beneficent beings, and thereby cause them to suspend
their efficacy, or exert it to their prejudiced
The same elemental powers which operate on the fruits
of the earth also exercise an influence on the well-being of
living creatures. Well-known and wide-spread is the tradition
that the dwarfs have the power, by their touch,
their breathing, and even by their look, to cause sickness
or death to man and beast. That which they cause when
they are offended they must also be able to remedy.
Apollo, who sends the pestilence, is at the same time the
healing god. Hence to the dwarfs likewise is ascribed a
knowledge of the salutary virtues of stones and plants.
In the popular tales we find them saving from sickness
and death ; and while they can inflict injury on the cattle,
they often also take them under their care. The care of
deserted and unprotected children is also ascribed to them,
and in heroic tradition they appear as instructors^. At
the same time it cannot be denied that tradition much
more frequently tells a widely different tale, representing
them as kidnapping the children of human mothers and
substituting their own changelings, ^ dickkopfs ' or ' kielkropfs^.^
These beings are deformed, never thrive, and,
in spite of their voracity, are always lean, and are, moreover,
mischievous. But that this tradition is a misrepresentation,
or at least a part only, of the original one, is
evident from the circumstance, that when the changeling
is taken back the mother finds her o^ti child again safe
and sound, sweetly smiling, and as it were waking out of
1 MiiUer, p. 336.
2 Of this description was Regin, the instructor of Sigurd. See p. 95.
3 See page 46.