Northern mythology

26 NORTH GERMAN TRADITIONS.
THE SEVERED HAND i.
In Eiderstedt there was a miller who had the misfortune
to have his mill burnt every Christmas eve. He had, however,
a courageous servant who undertook to keep watch
in the mill on that portentous night. He kindled a blazing
fire and made himself a good kettleful of porridge, which
he stirred about with a large ladle. He had an old sabre
lying by him. Ere long there came a whole regiment of
cats into the mill, and he heard one say in a low tone to
!
another: ^^Mousekin! go and sit by Hanskin
'' and a
beautiful milk-white cat came creeping softly to him and
would place herself by his side. At this, taking a ladleful
of the scalding porridge, he dashed it in her face, then
seizing the sabre, he cut off one of her paws. The cats
now all disappeared. On looking at the paw more attentively,
he found, instead of a paw, that it was a woman^s
delicate hand, with a gold ring on one of the fingers,
whereon was his master^s cypher. Next morning the
miller's wife lay in bed and would not rise. ''Give me
thy hand, wife!" said the miller. At first she refused,
but was obliged at length to hold out her mutilated limb.
When the authorities got intelligence of this event, the
woman was burnt for a witch.
A WITCH AS A HARE.
In Bodelsdorf there dwelt, and perhaps still dwells, a
very old woman, in whose service no one would e^ cr continue
; for when the servants were employed in the fields
she always knew exactly what they had done and said, as
she was ever present among them. Sometimes she would
be a duck and swim on the water ; then, if the men and
girls pelted her with stones, she would merely dive down
and rise immediately afterwards. At other times she
would be a hare and run through the corn when it was
1
See vol. ii. p. 32.