Northern mythology

NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS. 6
mare, which they let run whithersoever it wouldj and wherccver
it was found on the following* morning, there should
their church be erected. Next morning the mare was
found in a marshy spot thickly overgrown with thorns and
underwood. After having cut down and cleared all this,
they transferred their village thither, and named the
church ' Unse leve Fru up dem Perde,' or, Our Lady on
horseback.
THE DANCER,
At a splendid wedding in the old noble mansion of
Hoierswort in Eiderstedt ^, there was among the company
a young girl who was the most enthusiastic dancer far
and near ; she was, in fact, during the evening constantly
engaged in dancing. When her mother warned her against
it, she said petulantly ^' : If the devil himself were to call
me out, I would not refuse him "
! At the same instant
a stranger entered and invited her to dance. It was the
devil, to whom she had given her word. He whirled her
about so long that the blood at length issued from her
mouth, and she fell down dead. The traces are still
visible in the saloon, and are indelible. But the girl herself
has no rest. Every night as the clock strikes twelve
she must rise from her grave and enter the saloon, an infernal
music then strikes up, and the w^hole mansion is in
an uproar. Every person, who may happen to pass a
night in the saloon, she calls up to dance ; but hitherto no
one has ventured to dance with her. Yet if any Christian
man would venture, she would be released.
She once so
terrified a young dissipated fellow, that he lost all inclination
for merry-making, and whenever he heard a violin,
fancied that the spectre had again broken loose.
^
A bailiwick on the west coast of Sleswig.
b2