Northern mythology

264 NETHERLANDISH TRADITIONS.
;
cock-a-doodle-doo. At the same instant every workman
vanished, and the barn remained unfinished.
Since that time repeated attempts have been made to
close up the hole, but the devil always comes in the night
and breaks it open again, out of pure spite for having
been so tricked by a farmer^s wife.
now TO BECOME INVISIBLE.
Fomierly there were many persons here (in Bierbeck)
who could make themselves invisible, by means of a little
bone, which they carried about them.
This bone they obtained
in the following manner. They went at night,
between the hours of twelve and one, to a crossway, having
on one side a hedge or only a bush.
On this they laid a
black cat, tied up in a sack, as an offering to the devil.
On the following morning the cat would be gone, but a
small bone would be found at the bottom of the sack,
which possessed the virtue required.
THE TRAVELLING MOTHER.
When a whirlwind rages on the earth, and carries everything
along with it, many persons regard it as a natural
phenomenon ; but it is nothing else than the Travelling
Mother, who is making her circuit.
THE LYING-IN WOMAN.
In the neighbourhood of towns there is often to be seen
a whirlwind suddenly descending or rising. One may then
be quite certain that in that very moment a woman hard
by has died in childbed without having by confession previously
purified herself from a deadly sin. Into heaven
she may not come, and therefore passes down to hell ;
but
there they dare not receive her, because, through the pains
she has suffered, she has already made ample atonement
and thus she again ascends, seeking a permanent place.