This is the horn, and hound, and horse,
     That oft the ’lated peasant hears;
     Appalled, he signs the frequent cross,
     When the wild din invades his ears.

Dwarfs and Gnomes

Beings of the dwarf race swarmed on the banks of Rhine.  First and foremost among these are the gnomes, who guard the subterranean treasures, but who on occasion reveal them to mortals.  We meet with these very frequently under different guises, as, for instance, in the case of the ‘Cooper of Auerbach,’ and the Yellow Dwarf who appears in the legend of Elfeld.  The Heldenbuch, the ancient book in which are collected the deeds of the German heroes of old, says that “God gave the dwarfs being because the land on the mountains was altogether waste and uncultivated, and there was much store of silver and gold and precious stones and pearls still in the mountains.  Wherefore God made the dwarfs very artful and wise, that they might know good and evil right well, and for what everything was good.  Some stones give great strength, some make those who carry them about them invisible.  That is called a mist-cap, and therefore did God give the dwarfs skill and wisdom.  Therefore they built handsome hollow-hills, and God gave them riches.”

Keightley, in his celebrated Fairy Mythology, tells of a class of dwarfs called Heinzelmaennchen, who used to live and perform their exploits in Cologne.  These were obviously of the same class as the brownies of Scotland, Teutonic house-spirits who attached themselves to the owners of certain dwellings, and Keightley culled the following anecdote regarding them from a Cologne publication issued in 1826: 

“In the time that the Heinzelmaennchen were still there, there was in Cologne many a baker who kept no man, for the little people used always to make, overnight, as much black and white bread as the baker wanted for his shop.  In many houses they used to wash and do all their work for the maids.

“Now, about this time, there was an expert tailor to whom they appeared to have taken a great fancy, for when he married he found in his house, on the wedding-day, the finest victuals and the most beautiful utensils, which the little folk had stolen elsewhere and brought to their favourite.  When, with time, his family increased, the little ones used to give the tailor’s wife considerable aid in her household affairs; they washed for her, and on holidays and festival times they scoured the copper and tin, and the house from the garret to the cellar.  If at any time the tailor had a press of work, he was sure to find it all ready done for him in the morning by the Heinzelmaennchen.

“But curiosity began now to torment the tailor’s wife, and she was dying to get one sight of the Heinzelmaennchen, but do what she would she could never compass it.  She one time strewed peas all down the stairs that they might fall and hurt themselves, and that so she might see them next morning.  But this project missed, and since that time the Heinzelmaennchen have totally disappeared, as has been everywhere the case, owing to the curiosity of people, which has at all times been the destruction of so much of what was beautiful in the world.