The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various CountriesKeightley, Thomas
General
The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Keightley, Thomas
Fairies; Fairy tales; Folk literature; Folklore
Another changeling was got rid of in the following manner. The mother,
suspecting it to be such from its refusing food, and being so
ill-thriven, heated the oven as hot as possible. The maid, as
instructed, asked her why she did it. "To burn my child in it to death,"
was the reply. When the question had been put and answered three times,
she placed the child on the peel, and was shoving it into the oven, when
the Troll-woman came in a great fright with the real child, and took
away her own, saying. "There's your child for you. I have treated it
better than you treated mine," and in truth it was fat and hearty.
_The Tile-Stove jumping over the Brook._
Near Hellested, in Zealand, lived a man, who from time to time
remarked that he was continually plundered. All his suspicions fell on
the Troll-folk, who lived in the neighbouring hill of Ildshöi
(_Fire-hill_), and once hid himself to try and get a sight of the
thief. He had waited there but a very short time when he saw, as he
thought, his tile-stove jumping across the brook. The good farmer was
all astonishment at this strange sight, and he shouted out "Hurra!
there's a jump for a tile-stove!" At this exclamation the Troll, who
was wading through the water with the stove on his head, was so
frightened that he threw it down, and ran off as hard as he could to
Ildshöi. But in the place where the stove fell, the ground got the
shape of it, and the place is called Krogbek (_Hook-brook_), and it
was this that gave rise to the common saying, "That was a jump for a
tile-stove!" "_Det var et Spring af en Leerovn!_"[193]
_Departure of the Trolls from Vendsyssel._
One evening, after sunset, there came a strange man to the ferry of
Sund. He engaged all the ferry-boats there to go backwards and
forwards the whole night long between that place and Vendsyssel,
without the people's knowing what lading they had. He told them that
they should take their freight on board half a mile to the east of
Sund, near the alehouse at the bridge of Lange.
At the appointed time the man was at that place, and the ferrymen,
though unable to see anything, perceived very clearly that the boats
sunk deeper and deeper, so that they easily concluded that they had
gotten a very heavy freight on board. The ferry-boats passed in this
manner to and fro the whole night long; and though they got every
trip a fresh cargo, the strange man never left them, but staid to have
everything regulated by his directions.
When morning was breaking they received the payment they had agreed
for, and they then ventured to inquire what it was they had been
bringing over, but on that head their employer would give them no
satisfaction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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