NICOR.—To the class of elemental gods must originally have been reckoned the Nicor, or water-spirit, whose name has not only been retained in the _Water Nixes_ of our own country, and in the _Neck_ of Germany, but in our own common name for the devil, _Old Nick_. According to the account given in Beówulf, these were supernatural, elvish creatures haunting the lakes, rivers and seas, ever on the watch to injure the wayfarer, and apparently endowed with the power of creating tempests. In this semi-Christian view they were fiendish and savage enemies of the sailor, whom they pursued with horns and tusks, dragged to the bottom of the waves and then no doubt devoured[721]. Probably, like other supernatural beings dreaded by our forefathers, they were included in the family of ogres and monsters descended from the first homicide. Yet it may be doubted whether this, was the original and heathen sense of the word Nicor. As late as the thirteenth century I find in an old German glossary Neckar translated by _Neptunus_, the god of the sea; and it is notorious that one of the names borne by Oþinn, whenever he appears as a sea-god is Hnikuþr and Nikuz. Hence it is not unlikely that in their ancient creed, the pagan Saxons recognized Nicor as Wóden. The name Hwala which occurs in the genealogies, and like Geát may be assumed to be only another name of Wóden, confirms this view. Hwala is formed from Hwæl, _cetus_, just as Scyldwa is from Scyld, _clypeus_, and was probably only a name of Wóden as a sea-god. The danger attending the whale or walrus fishery[722] made the first at least of these animals an object of superstitious dread to the Anglosaxon sailor; perhaps, as in the case of the bear, natural peculiarities which are striking enough even to our more scientific eyes, helped to give an exceptional character to the monarch of the Northern seas. Be this as it may, it is not without importance that Hwala should appear in the genealogies among names many of which are indisputably Wóden’s, that in Scandinavia and Germany Nikuz or Necker should be names of the sea-god, and that till a very late period,—when the heathen gods had everywhere assumed the garb of fiends and devils,—the Nicor should appear as the monster of the deep _par excellence_. The miraculous power attributed to the Nicor,—in Beówulf he is called “wundorlíc wǽgbora,” a supernatural bringer of the waves,—is in itself evidence of earlier godhead; and in this sense I am disposed to identify him with the _demon marinus_ whom St. Gall defeated by his constant watchfulness. In his altered and degraded form we may also recognize the demon of the lines lately cited, who stabs the horse with his horns while crossing the water. The beautiful Nix or Nixie who allures the young fisher or hunter to seek her embraces in the wave which brings his death, the Neck who seizes upon and drowns the maidens who sport upon his banks, the river-spirit who still yearly in some