Northern mythology

1.2 NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS.
Alversdorf declared that he knew it accurately and would
settle it on oath. For this purpose he went to the boundaiy
of the Alversdorf land, by the ford at Tensbiittcl,
where it passes through the Gieselau, filled his shoes with
sand, then appeared near Rost, and made oath that he was
standing on Alversdorf ground. By this fraud he believed
he had avoided perjury. But after death he was doomed
to wander on the boundary-line as a fire-sprite. A flame,
the height of a man, was there long to be seen dancing
about, until the moor was dried up. Whenever it flared
up higher than usual, the people would cry out "
: Dat is
de Scheelvacgt !
" (That is the land-divider !) At the spot
where he put the sand into his shoes, every one, who
passes at night and has not a pure conscience, must for
a considerable distance bear the devil on his back like a
burthen of a hundred pounds weight.
Between the lordship of Roest and the village of Rabenkirchen
in Angeln there was once a dispute about a wood.
The lord one morning filled his shoes with earth from his
garden, stuck twigs from the trees in his court-yard in his
hat, and made oath in
the wood, which lawfully belonged
to the village of Rabenkirchen, that he was standing on
his own ground, and that the boughs above his head
were his.
THE BLACK SCHOOL.
Of the Black School there is much to tell both in North
Friesland and in the Danish territories. The devil in
person is the teacher, and ])reachers just entering on their
career are there instructed. Almost every pastor knows
something of the black art, while others are perfect adepts
in it ; but have therefore assigned their souls to the devil,
though under certain conditions.
One, for instance, must
during his whole life wear one and the same woollen underwaistcoat;
another may shave himself only on Saturdays;