Kobolds
Hödeken.
Another
Kobold or House-spirit took up his abode in the palace of the bishop of
Hildesheim. He was named Hödeken or Hütchen, that is Hatekin or Little
Hat, from his always wearing a little felt hat very much down upon his
face. He was of a kind and obliging disposition, often told the bishop
and others of what was to happen, and he took good care that the
watchmen should not go to sleep on their post.
It was, however,
dangerous to affront him. One of the scullions in the bishop's kitchen
used to fling dirt on him and splash him with foul water. Hödeken
complained to the head cook, who only laughed at him, and said, "Are
you a spirit and afraid of a little boy?" "Since you won't punish the
boy," replied Hödeken, "I will, in a few days, let you see how much
afraid of him I am," and he went off in high dudgeon. But very soon
after he got the boy asleep at the fire-side, and he strangled him, cut
him up, and put him into the pot on the fire. When the cook abused him
for what he had done, he squeezed toads all over the meat that was at
the fire, and he soon after tumbled the cook from the bridge into the
deep moat. At last people grew so much afraid of his setting fire to
the town and palace, that the bishop had him exorcised and banished.
The
following was one of Hödeken's principal exploits. There was a man in
Hildesheim who had a light sort of wife, and one time when he was going
on a journey he spoke to Hödeken and said, "My good fellow, just keep
an eye on my wife while I am away, and see that all goes on right."
Hödeken agreed to do so; and when the wife, after the departure of her
husband, made her gallants come to her, and was going to make merry
with them, Hödeken always threw himself in the middle and drove them
away by assuming terrific forms; or, when any one had gone to bed, he
invisibly flung him so roughly out on the floor as to crack his ribs.
Thus they fared, one after another, as the light-o'-love dame[Pg 256]
introduced them into her chamber, so that no one ventured to come near
her. At length, when the husband had returned home, the honest guardian
of his honour presented himself before him full of joy, and said, "Your
return is most grateful to me, that I may escape the trouble and
disquiet that you had imposed upon me." "Who are you, pray?" said the
man. "I am Hödeken," replied he, "to whom, at your departure, you gave
your wife in charge. To gratify you I have guarded her this time, and
kept her from adultery, though with great and incessant toil. But I beg
of you never more to commit her to my keeping; for I would sooner take
charge of, and be accountable for, all the swine in Saxony than for one
such woman, so many were the artifices and plots she devised to blink
me."
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