behind the pillar, and one day when the baker was preferring his requests very zealously, cried in a soft child's voice, "Baker, you must give better weight." Thereupon the baker quickly answered, "Silence, boy, and let thy mother speak!" and left the church. A similar story is told of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux (Vorzeit, Taschenbuch, 1819). Once when he was at Spire, he went into the cathedral to pay his devotions to the image of the Virgin. He fell thrice on his knees before it, and full of fervour uttered the words "Oh, gracious, mild, and highly favoured mother of God!" Hereupon the image began to speak, and said, "Welcome, my Bernard!" But the saint, who was displeased by this, reprimanded the Queen of Heaven for speaking, in these words, "Silence! No woman is to speak in the congregation!" The image is still to be seen in the cathedral, and so are the three metal plates which mark the three places where St. Bernard knelt. A saga from Westphalia also belongs to this group.
There was once a girl in Sauste (Soest) who every morning, as soon as all the people had gone out of the church, knelt down and prayed to the great stone image of our Lord. The clerk was curious, and went one day and stood behind the image. Then the girl said,
"O du graute, leiwe Gott von Sauste,[1]
Bescher mie doch usen Knecht den Jausten (Jost)."
So the clerk said, "Girl, thou wilt not get him." Then the girl said, "Oh, great and beloved God, do not bite me."
140.—Domestic Servants.
From the neighbourhood of Paderborn. To cite the numerous variations of this old story, which are like a conversation and its echoes, would be much too prolix, and it would be still more out of place to give their names, which are always very poetical, and often go back to the ancient language and times of fable. The hall of Hell is in the Edda, called Eliud, its table Hungur, its knife Sultur, its serving-man Gangläti, its maid Ganglöt, its threshold Fallandiforrad, its bed Kaur, its coverlid Blikandibaul, its field Hnipinn. In the Gothrek's Sage there are other family names which are significant, the father Skapnartungur, the three sons Fiolmodi, Ymsigull, Gillingr; Mother Totra with her three daughters Snotra, Hiotra, Fiotra; and in another saga, the man Stedie, the wife Brynia, the daughter Smidia, and the son Thöllur; in the mythical names of races we find some which are closely related. Thus in the Lied von Riese Langbein, Str. 8, 19, 20,
- ↑
"Oh great and beloved God of Soest,
Do give me our man-servant Joseph."
