[526] See Thoms's Lays and Legends of Spain, p. 83. It was related, he says, to a friend of his by the late Sir John Malcolm, who had heard it in Spain. It is also briefly related (probably on the same authority) in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. (see above pp. [364], [438]). Redi, in his Letters, gives another form of it, in which the scene is at Benevento, the agents are witches, and the hump is taken off, senza verun suo dolor, with a saw of butter. Y Domingo siete is, we are told, a common phrase when any thing is said or done mal à propos.
[527] Teatro Critico, tom. ii. His object is to disprove their existence, and he very justly says that the Duende was usually a knavish servant who had his own reasons for making a noise and disturbing the family. This theory will also explain the Duende-tales of Torquemada.
[528] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 269.
[529] The change of r and n is not without examples. Thus we have αργυρον and argentum; water, English; vand, Danish; vatn, Swedish. Cristofero is Cristofano in Tuscan; homine, nomine, sanguine, are hombre, nombre, sangre, Spanish. In Duerg when r became n, euphony changed g to d, or vice versâ. The changes words undergo when the derivation is certain, are often curious. Alguacil, Spanish, is El-wezeer Arab, as Azucena Spanish, Cecem Portuguese (white-lily) is Sûsan Arab; Guancia (cheek) Italian, is Wange German; Ναυπακτος has become Lépanto. It might not be safe to assert that the Persian gurk and our wolf are the same, and yet the letters in them taken in order are all commutable. Our God be with you has shrunk to Goodbye, and the Spanish Vuestra merced to Usted, pr. Usté. There must, by the way, some time or other, have been an intimate connexion between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin. Thus ninny is from niño; booby from bobo; pucker from puchero; launch (a boat) from lancha; and perhaps monkey (if not from mannikin) from mono, monico. We pronounce our colonel like the Spanish coronel.
[530] Otia Imperialia, p. 987: see above p. [302] et alib.
[531] Like the Irish Play the Puck, above, p. [371].
[532] Otia Imper. p. 981: see above, p. [394]. It does not appear that the abode of these porpoise-knights was beneath the water.
[533] Otia Imper. p. 897. See above p. [407]. Orthone, the House-spirit, who, according to Froissart, attended the Lord of Corasse, in Gascony, resembled Hinzelmann in many points.
[534] Ibid.
[535] Hujusmodi larvarum. He classes the Fadas with Sylvans and Pans.