Northern mythology

;
238 EPITOME OF GERMAN MYTHOLOGY.
a deep sleep. It had, consequently, found itself very
comfortable while under the care of the dwarfs, as they
themselves also declare, that the children they steal find
better treatment with them than with their ovm parents.
By stripping this belief of its mythic garb, we should probably
find the sense to be,
that the dwarfs take charge of
the recoveiy and health of sick and weakly children*.
Hence it may also be regarded as a perversion of the
ancient belief, when it is related that women are frequently
summoned to
render assistance to dwarf-wives in labour
although the existence of such traditions may be considered
as a testimony of the intimate and friendly relation
in which they stand to mankind. But if we reverse
the story and assume that dwarf-vvdves
are present at the
birth of a human child, we gain an appendage to the
Eddaic faith—that the Norns, who appeared at the birth
of children, were of the race of dwarfs.
In the traditions
it is, moreover, expressly declared that the dwarfs take
care of the continuation and prosperity of families.
Presents
made by them have the efi'ect of causing a race to
increase, while the loss of such is
followed by the decline
of the family- ; for this indicates a lack of respect towards
these beneficent beings, which induces them to vrithdraw
their protection. The anger of the dwarfs, in any way
roused, is avenged by the extinction of the ofiender^s
race^.
We have here made an attempt, out of the numerous
traditions of dwarfs, to set forth, in a prominent point of
view, those characteristics which exhibit their nobler nature,
in the supposition that Christianity may also have vilified
these beings as it has the higher divinities. At the same
time it is not improbable that the nature of the dwarfs,
even in heathen times, may have had in it something of
1 Miiller, p. 337. ^ See vol. iii. p. 51.
3 Vol. ii. p. 239, and MuUer, p. 339.