Det växte upp Liljor på begge deres graf,
Med äran och med dygd—
De växte tilsamman med alla sina blad.
J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor.
Det växte upp Rosor ur båda deras mun,
Med äran och med dygd—
De växte tilsammans i fagreste lund.
J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor.
[127] Some readers may wish to know the proper mode of pronouncing such Danish and Swedish words as occur in the following legends. For their satisfaction we give the following information. J is pronounced as our y; when it comes between a consonant and a vowel, it is very short, like the y that is expressed, but not written, in many English words after c and g: thus kjær is pronounced very nearly as care: ö sounds like the German ö, or French eu: d after another consonant is rarely sounded, Trold is pronounced Troll: aa, which the Swedes write å, as o in more, tore. Aarhuus is pronounced Ore-hoos.
[128] That is, Wise People or Conjurors. They answer to the Fairy-women of Ireland.
[129] Afzelius is of opinion that this notion respecting the Hill-people is derived from the time of the introduction of Christianity into the north, and expresses the sympathy of the first converts with their forefathers, who had died without a knowledge of the Redeemer, and lay buried in heathen earth, and whose unhappy spirits were doomed to wander about these lower regions, or sigh within their mounds till the great day of redemption.
[130] "About fifteen years ago," says Ödman (Bahuslän, p. 80), "people used to hear, out of the hill under Gärun, in the parish of Tanum, the playing, as it were, of the very best musicians. Any one there who had a fiddle, and wished to play, was taught in an instant, provided they promised them salvation; but whoever did not do so, might hear them within, in the hill, breaking their violins to pieces, and weeping bitterly." See Grimm. Deut. Myth. 461.
[131] Arndt, Reise nach Schweden, iv. 241.
[132] Svenska Folk-Visor, vol. iii. p. 159. There is a similar legend in Germany. A servant, one time, seeing one of the little ones very hard-set to carry a single grain of wheat, burst out laughing at him. In a rage, he threw it on the ground, and it proved to be the purest gold. But he and his comrades quitted the house, and it speedily went to decay.—Strack. Beschr. v. Eilsen, p. 124, ap. Grimm, Introd., etc., p. 90.
[133] Thiele, vol. iv. p. 22. They are called Trolls in the original. As they had a king, we think they must have been Elves. The Dwarfs have long since abolished monarchy.
[134] The greater part of what precedes has been taken from Afzelius in the Svenska Visor, vol. iii.
[135] Thiele, iv. 26.