[8] The belief in _hard men_, _i.e._ of men whose skins were impervious to a musket or pistol ball, was extremely prevalent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They could be killed only by a silver bullet. Fitzgerald, the notorious duellist and murderer, in the middle of the last century, was said to have been a hard man.--See _Thoms' Anecdotes and Traditions_, printed for the Camden Society, p. 111. [9] It must be borne in mind that the priests here alluded to are Danish. [10] Junker (_pronounced_ Yunker,) the title given to a son of noble family. Froeken (_dimin. of_ Frue, _madam_, _lady_; Ger. Fraeulein) is the corresponding title of a young lady of rank. [11] _Madam_, applied strictly to ladies of rank only. [12] The Nisse of the Scandinavian nations is, in many respects, the counterpart of the Scottish Brownie, while, in others, he occasionally resembles the Devonian and Cornish Pixie and Portune. He is described as clad in gray, with a pointed red cap. Having once taken up his abode with a family, it is not easy to dislodge him, as is evident from the following anecdote:--A man, whose patience was exhausted by the mischievous pranks of a Nisse that dwelt in his house, resolved on changing his habitation, and leaving his troublesome guest to himself. Having packed his last cart-load of chattels, he chanced to go to the back of his cart, to see whether all was safe, when, to his dismay, the Nisse popped his head out of a tub, and with a loud laugh, said, "See, we flit to-day," (_See, idag flytte vi._)--_Thiele, Danske Folkesagn_, i. p. 134, and _Athenaeum_, No. 991. There are also ship Nisses, whose functions consist in shadowing out, as it were, by night all the work that is to be performed the following day,--to weigh or cast anchor, to hoist or lower the sails, to furl or reef them--all which operations are forerunners of a storm. For the duty even of a swabber, he does not consider himself too high, but washes the deck most delicately clean. Some well-informed persons maintain that this _spiritus navalis_, or nautical goblin, proves himself of kindred race with the house or land Nisse by his roguish pranks. Sometimes he turns the vane, sometimes extinguishes the light in the binnacle, plagues the ship's dog, and if there chance to be a passenger on board who cannot bear the sea, the rogue will appear before him with heart-rending grimaces retching in the bucket. If the ship is doomed to perish, he jumps overboard in the night, and either enters another vessel or swims to land. [13] According to the Germanic nations, the devil has a horse's, not a cloven foot. [14] In the original, "Ole Lukoeje," _i.e._, _Olave Shut-eye_, a personage as well known by name to the children of Denmark, as the dustman is to those of England.