In the poultry yard he wrings the hens’ necks and walks over the young chickens; in the kitchen he loves to take up the tops of pots and pans and to season the dishes according to his fancy with salt, pepper, dust, ashes, oil, vinegar, mustard, sand, or sawdust, and never leaves without having turned on the water everywhere.
If a visitor arrives, he takes possession of him and stands between his legs, and walks on his toes, pulls the buttons off his waistcoat, and draws the strings out of his shoes; he troubles and annoys him in every way, he pinches and scratches, he worries and tortures him. When his mother cautiously observes that he must not trouble the gentleman he obeys like a good child and leaves the gentleman alone, but not without having first broken his watch-chain, taken his cane, and hid his spectacles; the cane he drops accidentally into the well; as for the spectacles, he forgets where he has put them. When the poor visitor, quite overcome and exhausted, at last rises to go, he stumbles and falls down the stairs, thanks to a string which his playful young friend, the Killecroff, has stretched across the top step.
The Killecroffs are generally the delight of their parents; fortunately they do not live long.
The great man whom I have quoted before, told the Duke of Anhalt frankly, that if he were a sovereign like the duke, he would run the risk and become a murderer in such a case, by ordering every such son of the devil to be thrown into the Moldau!
This great man, who believed so firmly in Killecroffs, who believed likewise in Butzemann, in Ko-bolds, in Nixen and Undines, who saw the Devil in every fly that came to drink his ink or to perch on his nose, was again Dr. Martin Luther.
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The great Reformer, who was so valiant in combating the superstitions of the Papists, seems to have taken very little trouble to get rid of his own.