holy day (pp. 270-4), though otherwise they favour and reward it. The norns making visitations have spindles, and they sing at their spinning: the wise women and divine mothers of our antiquity may be regarded as teachers of song, story and spindle. CHAPTER XXXI. SPECTRES. A preceding chapter has treated of Souls in their state of separation from the body and passage to another dwelling-place : these are the souls that have found their rest, that have been taken up into hades or heaven. Thenceforward they sustain only a more general connexion with earth and the living; their memory is hallowed by festivals, and in early times probably by sacrifices.1 Distinct from these are such spirits as have not become partakers, or not completely, of blessedness and peace, but hover betwixt heaven and earth, and in some cases even return to their old home. These souls that appear, that come back, that haunt, we call spectres (ghosts). The Roman expression for peaceful happy spirits of the dead was manes, for uncanny disquietiug apparitions lemures or larvae; though the terms fluctuate, for 'manes' can denote spectral beings too, and 'lemures' can have a general meaning (Creuzer's Symb. 2, 850-866). Larva betrays its affinity to lar (p. 500), and the good kindly lares were often held to be manes or souls of departed ancestors. So in our German superstition we find instances of souls becoming homesprites or kobolds, and still oftener is there a connexion between unquiet spirits and spectres (see Suppl.). 3 0. 1 Between the christian All-souls' day (Nov. 2), on which the people visit churchyards and hang garlands on graves, and the three Roman holidays when the under world opened (mundus patet) and the manes' ascended (Creuzer 2, 865. Müller's Etrusk. 2, 97), there is a manifest connexion. On the night of Nov. 2 the Esthonians set food for the dead, and rejoice when they find any of it gone in the morning. In the Fellin district near Dorpat the departed souls are received in the bath-room, and bathed one after the other, Hupel's Nachr. p. 144, conf. Possart's Estland p. 172-3; exactly as food is set before angels and homesprites (p. 448). 2 I confine myself here to one Hessian folktale. Kurt, a farmer at Hachborn, would not quit the farm even after his death, but lent a hand in the fieldwork as a good spirit. In the barn he helped the labourer to throw sheaves from the loft: when the man threw one, Kurt would throw another. But once, when a strange servant got up into the loft, he would not help; at the cry You throw, Kurt!' he seized the man and flung him on the thrashingfloor, breaking his legs. 3 Isengrim changes into Agemund (p. 511). For the quiet spirits and their condition, our language has a beautiful adj., OHG. hiuri laetus, mitis, AS. heoru, Beow. 2744, ON. hýr, MHG. gehiure, our geheuer when we say 'es ist geheuer,' all is quiet, happy, peaceful. The contrary is expressed by OHG. and OS. unhiuri dirus, saevus, AS. unheoru, Beow. 1967 (unhiore 4822. unhŷre 4236. Cadm. 138, 5), ON. ohýr, MHG. ungehiure, our ungeheuer: es ist ungeheuer,' there's something wrong. But both words go further, God is called hiuri, the devil unhiuri; ungeheuer is monstrum, portentum in general. The Gothic form would be hiuris, which seems nearly allied to haúri (pruna, ember), ON. hyr ignis, and is therefore the shining, the bright; if an OHG. gloss in Graff 4, 1014 be correct, even the non-negative hiuri may signify dirus, viz. fiery in a bad sense, such as we shall find presently in connexion with ignes fatui. Much the same in meaning with hiuri and unhiuri are holdo and unholdo (pp. 266. 456), though these are applied more to spirits and daemons than to human souls; yet Notker renders 'manes' by unholdon, so that holdo and unholdo also appear synonymous here. 1 The OHG. kispanst fem. (our gespenst n., spectre) meant properly suggestio (from spanan, suggerere); but as the forms of confession dealt much with devilish suggestion and enticement, men came to use it habitually of ghostly delusion and illusion. Boner 94, 54 has diu gespenst' (why not gespanst?) for phantom, apparition. The neuter is found in the Mære vom schretel und wazzerber 92 quite in the above connexion: 'des tiuvels vâlant und sîn gespenste'; even earlier, Herbort 3500 couples gespenste and getwâs. Keisersperg (Omeiss 39) has des teufels gespenst (praestigium): not till recent centuries did the term become really common, and some spelt it gespengst.2 We also say spuk; it is a LG. word, which first occurs in the Chron. saxon. (Eccard p. 1391) in the form spôkne; Detmar 1, 136 has spuk, and 2, 206 vorspok praesagium. Nowadays spók, Nethl. spook, spookzel, Swed. spöke, Dan. spökenis A.D. 1618, spögelse spectrum, spög jocus; we should therefore expect a MHG. spuoch, Mod. spuch, but it is nowhere to be found. 1. Von des teufels gespenste,' instigation, Oberlin's Bihtebuoch 36. Gespüc indeed stands in Berthold, Cod. pal. 35, fol. 27 (see Suppl.). More precise is the ON. aptrgânga fem., Laxd. saga p. 224, as if anima rediens, Dan. gienfärd, gienganger, Fr. revenant, Saxo Gram. 91 says redivivus; conf. our phrase 'es geht um,' something haunts (lit. goes about); 'at hann gengi eigi dauðr,' that he walk not when dead, Fornald. sög. 2, 346. To haunt is in L. Sax. dwetern, on the Harz walten (Harry's Volkss. 2, 46). The regular word in ON. is draugr, Fornm. sög. 3, 200: Oðinn is styled 'drauga drôttinn,' Yngl. saga cap. 7, and a gravemound draugahús, Sæm. 169. The word is lost in Sweden and Denmark, but lives in the Norweg. drou, droug (Hallager 20o). It seems to be of one root with OHG. gitroc, MHG. getroc, delusive apparition, phantom, used of elvish and fiendish beings (p. 464); but our verb triegen, OHG. triokan trôc (fallere) has no corresponding driuga in the Northern languages. The Edda uses the analogous svik (fallacia, fraus) likewise in the sense of a ghostly jugglery, Sæm. 166. 167a. And that is also the meaning of the terms giscin and scinleih quoted p. 482; they can refer to spectres as well as to woodsprites (see Suppl.). The glosses yield a number of old words for the Lat. larva. To begin with the earliest, the Florent. 982b gives talamasga, and the later M.Nethl. coll. (Diut. 2, 220) talmasge, Kilian too has talmasche larva, talmaschen larvam induere; it is the O.Fr. talmache, tamasche in Roquefort, who explains it as masque, faux visage, and 'talmache de vaisseau' is a figure fixed on a ship.2 Other glosses have flathe, and scraz, scrat (p. 478). Mummel is both larva and kobold (p. 506). Anything uncanny and alarming, monstrum, prodigium, portentum, praestigium, acquires the meaning of spectre too. Again, getwâs (p. 464), Herbort 842. 12856. 'ein bôse getwâs, Vom gelouben 530; the M.Nethl. ghedwaes, Hor. belg. 6, 249 agrees with the Lith. dwase, spectre [v. the LS. verb dwetern above]. In Martina 10 we read'daz 1 AS. dreogan dreáh, though answering letter for letter, never means fallere, but agere, patrare, tolerare, to dree; agreeing with ON. driugr, frequens. 2 Ducange sub. v. talamasca, mérμa, delusio imaginaria; the author. cited are Hincmar in capit. ad presb. dioec. cap. 14; Regino 1, 213; Burchardus wormat. 2, 161, who says: larvas daemonum, quas vulgo talamascas dicunt, ante se ferri consentiat.' Extr. from Concil. namnetense cap. 10; conf. Schmeller 2, 640. VOL. III. с geschrudel;' and in Stald. 2, 27. 59. 64 das nachthuri, das ghüdi. The ON. vofa is spectrum, from vofa ingruere, imminere; the draugr is also called a dólgr, foe, Fornald. sög. 2, 368. Fornm. sög. 3, 200, and from this perhaps comes the Upland dödöljor, manes defunctorum (Ihre's Dial. lex. 32b), if not from dylja (celare), Sw. dölja (see Suppl.). Now it is remarkable that even the ON. draugar are described as begirt with fire: 'hauga eldar brenna,' Fornald. sög. 1, 434. 'lupu upp hauga eldarnir' 1, 518. Loka daun (p. 242) is the Icel. name of a fiery exhalation. To this day it is the popular belief all over Germany, that souls which have not attained heavenly peace roam at night like bewildered birds, in fiery shape, on field and meadow, conf. wiesenhüpfer p. 829. The traveller, who takes them for village lights, they lure out of his way, now approaching, now retiring: they perch on his back like kobolds (Superst. I, 611), and flap their wings together over him (Deut. sag. no. 276); they lead into bogs, on deceptive devious tracks, hirrlig-spor (St. 2, 45), exactly like the butz, p. 507. The pedestrian tries to keep one foot at least in the carriage-rut, and then he gets on safely, for ignes fatui have power on footpaths only. According to Villemarqué's Barzasbreiz 1, 100 the spirit is a child with a firebrand in his hand, which he whirls round like a flaming wheel; now he appears as a sick horse, and when the herdsman would lead him into the stable, hurls the brand at his head; now as a bleating goat gone astray, that after sundown shews itself on the pond, and tempts the traveller into the water, then scampers off to tease him. In Etner's Unwürd. doctor p. 747, 'fire-men and frisking goats' are coupled together. -The phenomenon has a vast variety of names. Our commonest one is irlicht (err-light) and, from its resemblance to a burning wisp of straw, irwisch and on the Rhine heerwisch; in Austria feuriger mann and fuchtelmann (Höfer 1, 251) from fuchteln to burnish or jerk to and fro, viz. the fiery blade. In 1 In Lausitz the ignis lambens that plays about the tops of forest trees is called feuermann, Laus. monatsschr. 1797. p. 749. These fiery exhalations also settle on the masts of ships, Marienleg. 87, 96, or the spears of warriors. The former kind the ancients named after the Dioscuri, Pliny 2, 37, the moderns call it 'feu de St. Elme.' For the flaming spears I have old authorities: signa (also, pila) militum arsere,' Tac. Ann. 12, 64. 15, 7. 'duae puerorum lanceae, emissis flammis, lumen euntibus praebuerunt, ibantque fulgurantes hastae,' Greg. tur. mirac. Mart. 1, 10. And a modern instance in Zeiller's |