Northern mythology

128 NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS.
nail the real body to a tree, and fire at it thrice in the
name of the devil. When you have so done, you may fire
away into the blue sky, and bring down whatever you
will *." The young man allowed himself to be seduced,
and in this manner became a Freischutz.
of gamekeeper he w ould frequently show his
In his character
dexterity by
w^ay of sport, and sometimes when in the long winter
evenings he had company with him, he would ask them
what they would eat ? a roasted hare, or fawn, or a
partridge ? he w^ould then take his gun, shoot out of the
window and say " Go into the garden,^^ or, " go into the
:
yard,^^ or, "the street; there it lies.^^ And when they
went where he had said, there they found it. Not unfrequently,
too, he would ask "
: Where shall it lie ? '^ and
every time it would be found lying where they had said.
A person once requested him to teach him the art ; but
he W'Ould not until the other had sworn never to teach
any one besides, or to reveal how he himself had become
a Freischiitz. He continued his course for many years.
At last, w^hen lying on his death-bed, he started suddenly
up, rushed through the chamber like a maniac, crying :
" No, devil ! not yet ! thou shalt not have me yet !
" But
to what purpose ? In the midst of his crying he fell dowTi
dead ; and on examination it appeared that his neck had
been wrung, and around it there was a blue stripe like a
blue string. It was now^ that the man above-mentioned
related what had taken place betw^een him and the gamekeeper.
In the
THE OLDENBURG HORN 2.
year 990 after the birth of Christ, Count Otto^
1
See vol. ii. p. 194.
2 Dobeneck's Volksglauben, i. 83, from Hamelmann's Oldenburger
Chronik, 1599, folio, where an engraving of the horn is given. See also
Grimm, D. S. 541.
3 In Kuhn and Schwartz (p. 280) the story is told of Count Anthony
Giinthcr.