Northern mythology

NORTH GERMAN CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 153
;
etc.^ in order to steal unobserved into houses and seek out
their booty. If a person makes three crosses with his
hand against them, he is safe from them. Camern.
To protect cattle against harm in the Twelfths, something
of steel should be concealed in their provender, a
sithe or the like; they should also be fed with stolen
kale.
Grabow in Meklenburg.
In the Twelfths magpies should be shot and burnt to a
powder, which is good for the ague. Lausitz.
SUPERNATURAL BEINGS OF TWELFTHTIDE.
In the greater part of the north of Germany the belief
is not yet wholly defunct, particularly among the peasantry,
of the wandering of certain supernatural beings
during the tvv elve days of Christmas ; although, in place
of the old heathenish idea with regard to such beings, we
have now usually the harmless threat only of certain
punishments for those who, by working, especially by
spinning, violate the injunction to keep this time holily.
The name, however, of these beings is, although often in
mere joke, still combined with the threatened punishment,
but the belief in them is now almost everywhere regarded
as superstition ; and not unfrequently, instead of the old
prohibitory formula, a facetious one is used, like the following
:
" Those who do not spin in the Twelfth may not
wind on the thirteenth. ^^
In Usedom and Wollin they say, " the Waud will come,"
when all is not spun off.
In the Twelfths Fru Gode makes her tour
and befouls
the distaffs of those who have not spun all off on Twelfthday.
Neighbourhood of Neu-Strelitz as far as Robel. In
the territory of Schwerin the same is said of Frii AYod
in Thymen and Godendorf, of Fru Was, or Fru Wiisen^
In the Twelfths Fru Gaue makes her tour at the head
^ See pp. 74, 75, and vol. ii. p. Ill, No. 48, and p. 270, No» 10.
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