The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 1 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
and the troll, thus called by his name, lost his strength, fell off, and
was dashed into a hundred pieces, all flint stones. (Iduna, Part 3, p.
60 f, note. Other forms of the same story in Afzelius, Sago-Häfder, III,
100 f; Faye, Norske Folke-Sagn, p. 14, 2d ed.; Hofberg, Nerikes Gamla
Minnen, p. 234.)
It is a Norwegian belief that when a nix assumes the human shape in
order to carry some one off, it will be his death if the selected victim
recognizes him and names him, and in this way a woman escaped in a
ballad. She called out, So you are the Nix, that pestilent beast, and
the nix "disappeared in red blood." (Faye, as above, p. 49, note.) A
nix is baffled in the same way in a Færoe and an Icelandic ballad cited
by Grundtvig, II, 57.
The marvellous horse Blak agrees to carry Waldemar [Hildebrand] over a
great piece of water for the rescue of his daughter [sister],
stipulating, however, that his name shall not be uttered. The rider
forgets himself in a panic, calls to the horse by his name, and is
thrown off into the water. The horse, whose powers had been
supernatural, and who had been _running_ over the water as if it were
land, has now only ordinary strength, and is forced to swim. He brings
the lady back on the same terms, which she keeps, but when he reaches
the land he is bleeding at every hair, and falls dead. (Landstad, 58;
Grundtvig, 62; Afzelius, 59, preface; Kristensen, I, No 66.)
Klaufi, a berserker, while under the operation of his peculiar fury,
loses his strength, and can no longer wield the weapon he was fighting
with, upon Gríss's crying out, "Klaufi, Klaufi, be not so mad!"
(Svarfdæla Saga, p. 147, and again p. 156 f.) So the blood-thirst of the
avenger's sword in the magnificent Danish ballad 'Hævnersværdet' is
restrained by naming. (Grundtvig, No 25, st. 35.) Again, men engaged in
_hamfarir_, that is in roving about in the shape of beasts, their proper
bodies remaining lifeless the while, must not be called by name, for
this might compel them to return at once to their own shape, or possibly
prevent their ever doing so. (Kristni Saga, ed. 1773, p. 149. R.T. King,
in Notes and Queries, 2d Ser., II, 506.) Grundtvig remarks that this
belief is akin to what is related in Fáfnismál (prose interpolation
after st. 1), that Sigurd concealed his name by reason of a belief in
old times that a dying man's word had great power, if he cursed his foe
by name. (D.g.F., II, 340.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account