Fairy Tales, Now First Collected/Tale 5

by Joseph Ritson

TALE V.

HUTGIN.

In these times, a certain malignant spirit, in the diocese of Hildesheim, for a long time, appeared visibly to many, in a rustic habit, his head covered. with a hood, whence, also, vulgarly the peasants called him hooded, that is, ein Hedeckin, in the Saxon tongue. This spirit, Hutgin, did many marvels, and delighted to be with. men, speaking, questioning, and answering familiarly to all, appearing, sometimes, visibly, sometimes, invisibly. He hurt no man, not being before hurt; but mindful of injury or derision, he bestowed, in his turn, shame to those bestowing it on himself. When Burcard count of Luc had been killed by count Herman of Winsenburg, and the county of Winsenburg seemed exposed to robbery, the aforesaid spirit, coming to Bernard bishop of Hildesheim, sleeping in his bed, waked him, saying: "Rise, o thou bald fellow, convoke thy army, because the county of Winsenburg, being vacant and desolate on account of homicide, thou wilt easily obtain the government." The bishop, rising, warned his knights, invaded, and obtained, the county, which to the church of Hildesheim, with the consent of the emperor, he united in perpetuity. The same spirit, likewise, without being asked, oftentimes used to advise him in many dangers. Frequently appearing in the court of the same bishop, he used to serve the cooks for the most part with sufficient diligence, and to mingle frequent discourses with them: whence, when now, from custom, made familiar, he was feared by no man, a certain boy serving in the kitchen, began to despise, laugh to scorn, and 'assail' him with bitter taunts, and, as often as he could, poured upon him the filth of the kitchen. He had often requested the master of the kitchen, that the boy should abstain from his injuries; threatening, at length, to avenge them; he was scoffed at by him, saying, "Thou art a spirit, and dost thou fear a boy?" To whom the dæmon replied. "Because thou art a boy thou despisest to amend at my petition, I, how much I fear that, will, after a few days, shew thee." These things said, the spirit departed in a passion. Not long after, when, on a certain day, after vespers, the boy, alone in the kitchen, being fatigued, slept, the spirit came, and 'having' him suffocated, cut in pieces, and, being put into the pot, began to cook him at the fire: which when the master of the kitchen had perceived, he began to curse the spirit; who, being irritated, the roast meat put on spits at the fire for the next days dinner of the bishop and courtiers, two horrible toads being thereupon squeezed, besprinkled with the poison and blood of those animals and being again affected with bitter. taunts, he precipitated him from on high, by the bridge, into a deep hole. Upon the walls of the city and castle diligently going round, in the nighttime, he forced all the guards to watch. A certain man, about to go a long way, when he had an unchaste wife, as if by way of joke, said to the spirit Hutgin: "Good fellow, I commend to thee my wife till I shall return, see thou guard her:" and when, the husband being absent, the woman would employ her portion in adultery, and tempted, successively, many lovers, so that this spirit, invisibly, always interposed in the midst, and the men being thrown from the bed upon the ground, permitted no one to arrive even at the touch of that woman. So the woman, every night, and almost every hour, in the whole time, always introduced new lovers: whom, nevertheless, the spirit, as soon as they attempted to touch her, cast far off upon the ground. At length, the husband returning, and being yet a long way from the house, the commissary spirit, joyful, met him, saying: "Thy arrival is very pleasing to me, by which I may be freed from the so unquiet labour, which thou hast imposed upon me." The husband said: "What, therefore, art thou?" "I, he said, am Hutgin, to whom, some time ago, about to depart, thou committedst thy wife to be kept. Behold, I have guarded her for thee, although with very great and continual labour, safe from adultery. But I pray thee, that thou wilt not henceforth deliver her to me to be guarded. For I had rather guard the hogs of all Saxony, than thy one very wife, she has tried, with so great frauds to circumvent me, and in so many ways, to abuse her body." This spirit did, likewise, innumerable other miracles, as well serious, as ridiculous, all which cannot be easily written, nor if they were written, would they find the belief of many. A certain idiot and simple man, a clerk, being cited to the synod, by a ring made of laurel-leaves, certain others being added, they report him, in a short time, to have rendered the most learned. At length, by the aforesaid bishop Bernard being turned out of doors by ecclesiastical censures, he was compelled to depart from the province.^[1]

1. Trithemius, apud Wierum, De præstigiis dæmonum, Basilcar, 1583, 4to, p. 114.