[HPforGrownups] Odd sources for things with possible HP importance

[Christian Stubø]

No: HPFGUIDX 7048

--- Scott  <harry_potter00 at yahoo.com> skrev: 
> I was looking through a Christmas catalogue the other day and saw a 
> little factoid about elves which stated that at one time all (or 
> most) magical creatures of the sort were called elves. Does that make
> sense? (I can no longer find the catalogue.) 
[snip]
If you do not go too far back, that is true in Scandinavia.  Both
Norway and Denmark started with the same tradition, based on the
sa-mythology.  There were Dwarves and elves, who were both good
smiths, there were Jotner, etc., and hosts of underwordly creatures. 
In Norway they started merging, following the sword-based
Christianisation (that was not a good word, was it?) of the country,
into the hulder, who were thought of as the hidden children of Adam and
Eve (The tradition stated that God paid them a visit while there still
in the garden of Eden, and Eve became ashamed that they had so many
children, and hid half of them.  God then said: 'Those that are hidden
will remain hidden.')  The hulder-people (hulder means hidden) wore
blue clothes, and had cow-tales.  They could be disarmed by throwing
steel above their heads.  If a hulder-firl had appeared at a dance, was
dancing with a young man, and he noticed the cowtail, he should not say
so directly - she would be very angry, with his life most likely
forfeit.  If he instead told her 'your braid has come loose', then she
would laugh a bit at him, throw him a silver-spoon or another trinket,
and disappear.

Then the tradition started splitting things up again, and we got, among
others, the 'nisse', best translated as gnome, who is a parallell to
the house-elf (but certainly Malfoy couldn't have treated a nisse the
way he treated Dobby - those are vindictive biengs if not treated well,
and little would have been left of the Malfoy home).  The nisse is
male, short and with a long grey beard (think Tolkien-style Dwarf), and
he has a large red headwear.  If given new clothing, he will sometimes
stop working (so he will not spoil his new clothes).  The Norwegian
nisse has merged with the Anglo-American FAther Christmas/Santa Claus
into the 'julenisse'.  Some people to this day leave a large bowl of
rice-porridge with butter, cinnamon and sugar for the nisse on
Christmas night.

In Denmark all underwordly creatures merged into the term elf, rather
than hulder.  I cannot, however, tell  so much about Danish folklore
(but we have Danes on this list who can, I am sure).

[snipping witches and cats]

Norwegian witches were sometimes said to have a socalled 'trollkatt',
which, when moving, would take the appearance of a grey ball of yarn
rolling at great speed.  They would suck the milk out of cows, or the
butter out of the cream, and do other nasty stuff, like transferring
disease.  They were not proper cats, though.

=====
"There are two trillion six-houndred and sixtyfive billion  eight-houndred and sixtysix million, seven-houndred and fortysix thousand, six-houndred and sixtyfour litte devils in the world"
---------------------------------------------
Christian Stub
Student of Technology, architectura navalis

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