Northern mythology

APPENDIX. 291
According to a well-known popular tale, there is a subterranean
cavern, in which innumerable lights burn : these
are the life-tapers of mortals. When a light is burnt out,
the life of the person to whom it belonged is at an end,
and he is the property of Death ^.
How do the souls of the departed arrive at their destined
abode ? German tradition assigns the office of receiving
the souls of mortals at their death to dwarfs.
Middle High German poems, and also the behef still
existing among the people, regard Death as a person,
under various
names, who when their hour arrives, conducts
mortals away by the hand, on a level road, dances
with them 2, sets them on his horse, receives them in his
train, invites them to his dwelling, lays them in chains, or
—which is probably a later idea—fights with them, and
with spear, dart, sword or sithe, slays them ^.
In some parts of Germany it is a custom to place a
piece of money in the mouth of a corpse"^, probably to
pay the passage-money, or defray the expenses of the
journey ^.
As the dead in the nether world continue their
former
course of life ^, it naturally follows that they are not
1 See K. and H. M. No. 44. Muller, p. 404. The same idea is contained
in the popular superstitions. On Christmas eve the light may not be
extinguished, else some one will die. Grimm, Abergl. Nos. 421, 468. In
the Albthal, on a wedding-day, during the service, a triple t^\^sted taper
is borne by each of the bridal party : the person whose taper is first
burnt out will be the first to die. Schreiber's Taschenbuch, 1839, p. 325.
2 According to the preface to the Heldenbuch, a dwarf fetches Dietrich
*'
of Bern with the words : Thou slialt go with me, thy kingdom is no more
in this world."
According to Christian ideas, angels or devils receive the
departed souls, an ofiice particularly assigned to Michael.
3 The dance of death cannot, however, be traced farther back than the
fifteenth century. Miiller, p. 405.
4 Grimm, D. M. 1st edit. Abergl. No. 207. Mark. Sagen, Nos. 19, 30.
5 Midler, p. 408.
6 Manv of the German popular stories make the dead to appear as they
o 2