FOOTNOTES:
[1] Here Cinderella's real name is Katrina; in Finnish she is sometimes called Kristina (see Miss Cox, Cinderella, p. 552), while in Slavonic tales she is called Marya, and in some German adaptations Aennchen.
[2] When Väinämöinen cleared the forest, he left a birch-tree standing for the same purpose (Kalevala, Runo ii.).
[3] A black dung-beetle (Geotrupes) is meant, not a cockroach.
[4] This story is one of those which Löwe has passed over, and it is also omitted by Miss Cox.
[5] Peeter.
[6] Not a bad description of a conventional dragon. If these stories could be traced back to their original source, we should certainly find them to be founded on traditions of some of the great extinct Saurians. They are too explicit, and too discordant, to be founded only on rumours of the existence of crocodiles.
[7] The word used means a little girl or a doll; Löwe translates it "doll," which seems to be incorrect in this place.
[8] The God of Death.
[9] Combings or cuttings of hair are never burned or allowed to be blown about in the air in Esthonia, but carefully buried; otherwise the owner would suffer from violent headache.
[10] This word would have no apparent meaning as a proper name; but Löwe suggests that it might be a corruption of Virgilius, which, though not impossible, seems rather far fetched.
[11] Compare vol. i. p. [176].
[12] Their good faith and absence of envy is as conspicuous as in the case of the sons of Kalev (vol. i. p. [58]).
[13] When the five Pandavas, the heroes of the Maha-Bharata, were returning victorious from an expedition during which Arjuna had won the princess Draupadi in a contest with the bow, their mother, hearing them coming, but not knowing what had happened, cried out, "Share equally what you have brought." Upon which it was arranged that she should become the joint wife of the five brother princes.
[14] The Esthonian term is peculiar. "Ox-knee people"—i.e., people as tall as an ox's knee.
[15] Compare the Kalevipoeg, Cantos [13] and [14].
[16] Compare Croker's Irish story of "Master and Man."
[17] The Thunder-God.
[18] This story has been already printed in English, (Jones and Kropf, Folk-Tales of the Magyars, pp. 326-328), but I was unwilling to omit it.
[19] The constellation of the Great Bear is of course intended.
[20] The dictionary gives no further explanation than "Name of a mythical personage."
[21] According to Jannsen, the forest which once surrounded the river Vaskia, which flows through a village of the same name near Revel, was formerly sacred to a goddess named Vaskia.
[22] Compare the Kalevipoeg, [Canto 1].
[23] Poestion, Lappländische Märchen, p. 122. Another Lapp version, almost identical with Homer's, is given by Latham, Nationalities of Europe, i. p. 237.
[24] It must be said, to the credit of the Esthonian devils, that they only appear occasionally in the light of ogres. In many tales they are harmless, and sometimes amiable.
[25] There are several very similar stories in Finnish.
[26] Compare the story of "Princess Helena the Fair" (Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 256).
[27] The commencement of this story reminds us of "Beauty and the Beast;" the second part is that of the "Magic Flute."
[29] Schiefner considers the name of this story (Näki Neitsi) to indicate a Swedish origin; but this seems to be very doubtful evidence, and the incidental allusion to the Swedes in the course of the narrative seems opposed to such an idea.
[30] George.
[31] Compare the story of the ["Twelve Daughters."]
[32] It will be remembered that the Sampo, the magic mill in the Kalevala, ground salt as well as corn and money, and was ultimately broken to pieces and sunk in the sea. The Grôtta-Söngr in the Edda of Sæmund is better known; and many other variants might be cited. The story in the text much resembles that of "Silly Nicholas," which I remember reading in one of Chambers's publications many years ago.
[33] Odd stories are told in many countries about the relations between various animals and the Devil. In Esthonia the wolf and the dog are peculiarly hostile to the Devil. In the East it is the ass, concerning which Lane quotes the following amusing explanation in a note to the story of the "Peacock and Peahen," &c. (Thousand and One Nights, notes to Chap. ix. of Lane's translation):—"The last animal that entered with Noah into the ark was the ass, and Iblees (whom God curse!) clung to his tail. The ass had just entered the ark, and began to be agitated, and could not enter further into the ark, whereupon Noah said to him, 'Enter, woe to thee!' But the ass was still agitated, and was unable to advance. So Noah said, 'Enter, though the Devil be with thee!' And the ass entered, and Iblees (whom God curse!) entered with him. And Noah said, 'O enemy of God, who introduced thee into the ark?' He answered, 'Thou; thou saidst unto the ass, "Enter, though the Devil be with thee."' So it is said that this is the reason why the ass when he seeth the Devil brayeth."
[34] Jannsen remarks that the third strap would form a cross, and that the three straps might be an allusion to the Trinity.
[35] This story is also related, more briefly, by Blumberg, who states that Lake Endla lies in an impassable swamp in the district of Vaimastfer, and is visible from the hill near Kardis. The fish and birds are under the protection of Jutta, and there is no place in the country where birds congregate to such an extent, and birds of passage remain so long. Jutta is perhaps the same as Lindu (vol. ii. p. [147]). Near Heidelberg is a spring called the "Wolfsbrunnen," where a beautiful enchantress named Jutta, the priestess of Hertha, is said to have had an assignation with her lover; but he found she had been killed by a wolf, the messenger of the offended goddess. Whether there is any connection between the German and Esthonian Jutta I do not know.
[36] Or Endel, the son of Ilmarine. Blumberg writes "Wanemuinen" and "Ilmarinen" in his account of the legend, which nearly approach the Finnish forms of the names.
[37] Compare the story of the ["Treasure-Bringer,"] in a later section of the volume.
[38] Brandy is offered by a lover in Esthonia, and accepted by the girl if she favours him.
[39] Small stones are used for cleaning milk-cans.
[40] Jannsen remarks that her authority seems to have been limited to these, and also that she cannot have been the supreme Water-Goddess, whose husband is Ahti, the God of the Sea.
[41] These long-lived, but mortal Elemental Powers seem to correspond to some classes of the Arabian Jinn, as for instance, the Diving Jinn in such tales as "Jullanar of the Sea" (Thousand and One Nights). They may also be compared with the Elemental Spirits of the Rosicrucians, who are long-lived, but likewise mortal.
[42] These beings who dwell beneath the sea or lakes are often called "underground people" in Esthonian and Lappish stories.
[43] In Canto xvi. of the Kalevipoeg, the spirits of the Northern Lights are described as carrying on mimic combats in the air.
[44] Latham (Nationalities of Europe, i. p. 34) relates a very similar Lithuanian story of a Lauma or Nightmare.
[45] Jannsen regards this master-smith as Ilmarine.
[46] The hat reminds us of the doll in the story of the Tontla Wood. In the original the stranger is simply called "Köwer." Jannsen interprets the name to mean "Köwer-silm" (Crooked-eye), and thinks the stranger might have been Tapio himself. But it appears to me from the whole context that he was simply the indwelling spirit of one particular crooked birch-tree, whom we find at the beginning of the story wandering at a distance from home.
[47] Finland itself means Fenland, and is only a translation of the native name Suomi.
[48] God is frequently called Vanaisa, the Old Father, just as the Devil is frequently called Vanapois, the Old Boy.
[49] In the neighbourhood of Dorpat.
[50] Dreadful stories are told in many countries of the fiends inhabiting the undrained swamps. Monsters as terrible as those described in "Beowulf" are popularly believed to have haunted the English fens almost to the present day. Aino, in the Kalevala (Runo 4), was lured into a lake by the sight of some maidens bathing; and it is said that it is unsafe for sensitive people to venture near the banks of some of the Irish lakes in the evening, lest they should be lured into the water by the singing of the water-nymphs. In this connection, we may refer to the oft-quoted passage from the notes to Heywood's Hierarchies of the Blessed Angels (1635): "In Finland there is a castle, which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unsounded depth, the water black, and the fish therein very distasteful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which foreshow either the death of the Governor, or of some prime officer belonging to the place; and most often it appeareth in the shape of a harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water."—See Southey's Donica.
[51] There is a variant of this story (Pikne's Trumpet: Kreutzwald) in which Tühi himself steals the trumpet while Pikne is asleep. Pikne is afraid to apply for aid to the Old Father, for fear of being punished for losing it, but recovers it by an artifice similar to that employed in the present story. This is interesting as showing Pikne to be only a subordinate deity. Löwe considers the Thunderer's musical instrument to be a bagpipe.
[52] He does not call his father Vanaisa, which would identify him with the Supreme God, but uses another term, Vana taat.
[53] As Louhi, in the Kalevala, secures the magic mill, the Sampo.
[54] This story is probably connected with the Finnish and Esthonian legends of the theft of the sun and moon by sorcerers.
[55] Ilmarine or Ilmarinen is the Vulcan of the Finnish and Esthonian legends. He is represented in the Kalevala as a young and handsome hero, but deficient in courage. In Esthonian tales he generally appears as a demigod. In the Kalevala he plays a part second only to that of Väinämöinen himself, but fails in many of his undertakings; for though he is said to have forged the sky, he cannot confer speech or warmth on the bride of gold and silver whom he forges for himself after his first wife has been given to the wolves and bears by Kullervo; and when he forges a new sun and moon, after the old ones have been stolen by Louhi, they turn out miserable failures.
[56] One of Michael Scot's familiars was a devil of this kind, whom he got rid of ultimately by setting him to spin ropes of sea-sand.
[57] This disguise is often assumed by God in the stories of Eastern Europe, when he wishes to be incognito; nor is it always clear whether God or Christ is intended. I remember once reading a Lithuanian story in which God and St. Peter are represented as descending to earth disguised as beggars, for fear they might be recognised, to inquire into the wickedness of mankind before the Flood.
[58] The bath is a special place of resort for devils in Mohammedan folk-lore.
[59] The Manx story will occur to the reader. Compare also the story of the ["Courageous Barn-keeper"] in the following section of our work.
[60] Põrgulise is the actual word used here.
[61] This term, kuri vaim, is explicitly used here, not Vana pois, as we find in the earlier part of the story; and seems to indicate a different and much more malevolent being than the simpleton who visited the barn-keeper, though the term Vana pois sometimes occurs in stories like "The Wooden Man and Birch-bark Maid," in which souls are actually sold to the Devil.
[62] Hans is a generic term in Esthonia for the cunning fellow who always contrives to outwit the Devil, &c.
[63] This seems to be an error in the story; for the context shows that the prohibition was not to speak a word during the ceremony.
[64] Kergi (rise up), spelt backwards.
[65] As in the story of Joodar (Thousand and One Nights).
[66] There has been some discussion as to the right meaning to be put upon the words, Mana tark (Death-magician), but it appears to me that necromancer is simply a literal rendering.
[67] This serpent-gathering so much resembles those described in the first book of the Maha-Bharata, and in the story of Hasib (or Jamasp) in the Thousand and One Nights, that I have referred the present story to the class of tales of Oriental origin.
[68] In Finland and Esthonia they use dried birch-twigs with the leaves attached to whisk themselves with when bathing.
[70] Löwe translates the word kon, "dragon," but it primarily means a frog or toad; and "dragon" is not among the other meanings which I find in the dictionaries. Besides, the creature is described as resembling a frog in many respects.
[71] Compare vol. i. p. [223].
[72] Põrgu neitsi. Who she was is not clearly explained.
[73] Doubtless Olev of the Kalevipoeg; possibly St. Olaf may also be intended.
[74] This incident reminds us of the story of St. Olaf and the giant Wind and Weather (see Keightley's Fairy Mythology, Bohn's edition, 1860, p. 117), though here it is the giant church-builder who falls. According to one of the legends of Cologne Cathedral, the architect was hurled from the top of the unfinished building by the Devil. The calling of a person by name was often regarded by the Scandinavians as a death-omen.
[75] There is a similar tale told of the arrival of the Cholera in one of the Greek islands.
[76] Speaking of the Vad Velen, the Yellow Plague, in Britain, we are told in the Mabinogion that all who saw him were doomed to die.
[77] This story somewhat resembles that of the old hag seen by Lord Seaforth when lying ill of scarlet fever with several of his schoolfellows. The narrative has been reprinted several times, and is included in Stead's More Ghost Stories, p. 37.
[78] Such origins are common in Esthonian and Finnish folk-literature, and I regard them as relics of fetishism.
[79] Kalevipoeg, Canto 9, lines 769-925. Neus, Ehstnische Volkslieder, pp. 305-311. The manner in which the gathering symbols of the horrors of war, each more terrible than the last, are successively brought upon the scene in this poem is very fine.
[80] Kalevipoeg, xix. 493-583.
[81] Kreutzwald and Neus, Mythische und magische Lieder, p. 7. Charms of this kind are very common in Finland and Esthonia, and a whole volume has been published by the Finnish Literary Society under the name of Loitsurunoja, selections from which have been recently published in "Folklore" by the Hon. John Abercromby.