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huetchen.jpg) Hütchen, or the "Little Hat" kobold ―Adolf Ehrhardt illustr., in Bechstein (1853)Deutsches Sagenbuch, No. 274 "Die Kobolde"[1] | |
| Creature information | |
|---|---|
| Other name(s) | Hödeken, Hütgin, Hüdekin, Hütchen |
| Grouping | Household spirit |
| Sub grouping | Kobold |
| Similar entities | Hinzelmann,Schrat,Nisse,Nis Puk,Heinzelmännchen |
| Origin | |
| Country | Germany |
Hödekin[2][3][a] (variously spelledHödeken,[4][5][6]Hütgin, Hüdekin,[7] andHütchen,[8][5] etc.) is akobold (house spirit) ofGerman folklore. The name is a diminutive meaning "Little Hat", and refers to thepileus hat he wears,[9] a common hat inAncient Greece, and later various parts of Europe.
Hödekin is famously known for haunting the castle of Bishop Bernard (Bernhardus),Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim, located inLower Saxony. In some versions of the legend, the spirit is also said to have inhabitedWinzenburg, a county the spirit reportedly helped the bishopric obtain.
Though Hödekin did not initiate harm, he was murderously vindictive. He dismembered a kitchen boy after the boy habitually insulted him and poured kitchen filth upon him. When the cook (who hadn't controlled the misbehaving boy) griped, the sprite tainted the meat for the bishop withtoad blood and venom. Because the cook remained unfazed, Hödekin ultimately pushed the cook from a heights into a ditch, where he died.[10]
Hödekin's actions weren't always malicious- he once helped a man by fiercely protecting his wife. When the man jokingly entrusted his wife to Hödekin during his absence, the sprite took it seriously and chased off every man who called on the adulterous wife. He also helped an idiot clerk appointed to thesynod by giving him aring made oflaurel leaves that granted him knowledge and intelligence. Ultimately, the spirit's time in Hildesheim ended when the bishop exorcised him with ecclesiastical incantations and drove him out of the city.[11]
The earlier known account of the story was told inJohannes TrithemiusChronicon Hirsaugiense (1495–1503), who places the story in the context of historical events which Trithemius dates to c. 1132.[13][14] The story gained immense popularity after its inclusion in the 1586 German edition ofJohann Weyer'sDe praestigiis daemonum (it wasn't included in the original edition from 1563, in Latin).[14]Joseph Ritson (publ 1831; writtenc.1800[16] translated Trithemius via Weyer.[17]
The legend was retold by theBrothers Grimm inDeutsche Sagen as No. 74 "Hütchen", based on multiple sources, including Weyer,Johannes Praetorius (1666),[18]Erasmus Francisci (1690) and unspecified oral sources.[19] A full English translation of the Grimms' retelling was provided byThomas Roscoe (1826), titled "The Domestic Goblin Hutchen".[20]
An abridged account of the "Hödeken" was provided in English byThomas Keightley (1828).[21]Heinrich Heine also discussed the story in his 1834Deutschland,[22][14] where he copied from Dobeneck, who had provided a German translation of the original account by Trithemius.[14] Heine's essay is also available in English translation.[23]
Johann Conrad Stephan Hölling (1687–1733), in hisEinleitung [etc.] des Hoch=Stiffts Hildesheim ("Introduction [etc.] to theHochstift of Hildesheim" , 1730) writes that he took his first ten chapters fromJohannes Letzner'sChronicon monasterium hildesiense, including an account of the Hödecken, which he says resided in Winzenburg.[24]
An oral version, placing the spirit named "Hans with the little hat" at Winzenburg, was recorded by Kuhn & Schwartz as "Hans mit dem Hütchen", and includes the kitchen boy's murder (cf.§ Kitchen murders;§ Oral Winzenburg version).[25]
The spirit is called "the capped [one]" (pileatus) in the Latin prose, with the German form given asHütgin, and the "Saxon form" asHüdekin.[27] The "Saxon form" is speltHedeckin by Weyer,[28] andLower Saxon formHödekecken by Francisci, who listsHudgen andHütchen as normalized forms.[29]
Praetorius provides the form "Hödekin".[2] Grimm used the form "Hödeken" attested in aLower Saxon dialect poem.[4] Keightley also employed the form "Hödeken" (further anglicised as "Hatekin" or "Little Hat"),[6] but the name in the index was emended to "Hödekin" in Keightley's 1850 edition.[3]
The sources consistently explain that the sprite wears peasant's clothing and a hat on its head. For this reason, he is called "Hüdekin"[31] (also spelled "Hedeckin"[32] or "Hödekin"[33]) in the Saxon dialect. Wyl glosses the Latin noun form, deriving from the adjectivepilleatus, as meaning "felt cap".[34] Grimm'sDeutsche Sagen retelling concurs and described theheadgear it wears as a "felt hat".[35][b][c][22]
The forms given by Hölling (1730) are various: Hödecken;[24] Heidecke, Hoidecke, Hödecke[37], Heideke, Hödeke, Heideken.[38] TheChronicon Luneburgicum (written up to 1421) records "VVinsenberch Hoideke",[39] whileBotho [de]'sChronica Brunswicenses (1489) gives "Bodecke" as the sprite's name.[40][41]
The Hütchen's haunt is placed at theStift Hildesheim[42], ostensibly thePrince-Bishopric of Hildesheim. There, where the office held court (Latin:curia), the spirit appeared and foretold to Bishop Bernhard of impending dangers.[44] The Bishop of Hildesheim subsequently overtookWinzenburg, inHildesheim (district), thanks in part to the sprite delivering new about the upheaval there, whereas the Grimms[45] gave a fictive version of what happened (cf. below).
Historically, the transfer of Winzenburg followed the killing ofBurchard I of Loccum [de] byHerman I, Count of Winzenburg, around 1130, resulting in Herman'soutlawry (geächtet) and loss of Winzenburg.[46] The sources describe this, stating that the kinsmen of Burchard attacked in reprisal and began looting Winzenburg, but, the story claims, the sprite Hütchen alerted the Bishop of Hildesheim one step ahead, allowing the clergyman to assume control of the county of Winzenburg with the auspices of the Emperor.[31][47][30][17]
The spirit named Hütgin had been seen by many in the diocese of Hildesheim, according to Trithemius's version. It would speak familiarly with people, both visibly and invisibly. It appeared in rustic clothing, and of course, the hat. It did not initiate harm, and only reciprocated. But it never forgot injury or insult, and paid back with shame befallen upon the perpetrator.[17]
Acting on Hütgin's tip, Bishop Bernard (Bernhardus) was able to seize Winzenburg (as aforementioned), and annex the county to Church of Hildesheim.[17] Grimm provides a different account, apparently taken fromBothonis Chronica Brunswicenses Picturatum (1489), where Count Herman sleeps with the wife of a knight serving him, and the cuckolded knight sees no other way to redress his shame except by bloodshed, stabbing both the count and his pregnant wife to death, so that Winzenburg is forfeit without heir. This vacancy in the county is delivered as news by the sprite to the bishop, who consequently gains Wintzenburg and nearbyAlfeld as added territory.[41][49]
-Nymphs-p033-kobold.jpg)
At the "Court" of the Bishop (the tale also refers to the "castle"[51]) the spirit would frequently manifest himself in the kitchen doing some sort of service, and talking to people familiarly so that they stopped fearing him. Until, that is, the kitchen overstepped the sprite's tolerance by taunting and repeatedly splashing kitchen filth on the sprite.[d] The sprite vowed revenge, and when the kitchen boy went to sleep, Hödekin strangled him, cut him to pieces, and put his flesh in a pot over the fire. The master chef who had not disciplined the boy in the first place, and now rebuked the kobold for the grotesque prank, became the next target. It prompted Hödekin to squeeze the blood and poisons oftoads over the bishop's meat, and finally cast the cook into the castle's ditch or moat.[60][e]
According to the sources, it was in the aftermath of these poisonings and serial murders prompt the night guards of the city walls and castle to go on alert.[51] Francisci (also the Grimms) add that there was suspicion the sprite might commit arson (anzünden on the Bishop's residence.[64][65]
Thus it seems misleading for the Grimms (and Keightely) in an earlier passage to credit the sprite as performing an act of diligence to keeping the night watch alert.[66][58]
The murder of the "Bishop of Hildesheim's Kitchen-boy" is retold innursery rhyme fashion by American poetM. A. B. Evans (1895).[50]
A man residing in Hildesheim asked Hödekin (jokingly[67]) to guard his wife while he was away. "My good fellow, just keep an eye on my wife while I am away, and see that all goes on right." When the wife was visited by severalparamours Hödekin leapt between them and assumed terrible shapes, or threw them to the floor to scare them away before the wife could be unfaithful. When the husband returned, Hödekin complained, that safe-guarding the wife from debauchery was more challenging than keeping a giant herd of swine from all ofSaxony.[68]
This tale is found in the various sources including the Latin.[14][71] It is observed that the motif is paralleled by the medieval folktale about "wife-guarding" by Jakob von Vitry (Jacques de Vitry, d. 1240),[f][14] about a man who grows tired of his unfaithful wife and leaves, commending her to the devil, who does the hard work of keeping the male adulterers away, and complains the job was even worse than keeping ten wild mares.[72]
When a simple-minded idiot of a clerk got called to thesynod, the spirit gave him the miracle of aring made oflaurel leaves[73] and other things, which made the man extremely learned after some time.[76][77]
A vague parallel noted is theLower Lusatian tale of "The ghostly dog and the laurel wreath" ("Der geisterhafte Hund und der Lorbeerkranz"), though in the latter tale, a man shadowed by the black dog gets rid of it after buying alaurel wreath.[78]
The sources tell that the Bishop Bernard finally made use of his "ecclesiastical censures" (per censuras ecclesiasticas")[76] or spells (Beschwörung) toexorcise the kobold from the premises.[81]
An episode of the Hütchen giving an impoverished nailsmith a magic piece of iron from which golden nails could be made; the spikes appearing in rolls out of the holes, and could be cut inexhaustibly without diminishing the ore.[84] The Hütchen also gave the smith's daughter a roll of lace which could be meted out inexhaustibly without diminishing the supply.[83][85]
The version "Hans mit dem Hütchen" ("Hans met Häutken") set in Winzenburg is given in three parts. In the first, the spirit's namesake headwear is described, and it is said that only the large red tassel[g] on its hat, or the large red hat itself was visible on the spirit. A kitchen maid pressed the spirit to show its entire form, and the spirit finally relented, instructing her her to go to the cellar, where she found a young child lying in a pool of blood (this is a recurrent motif forkobolds). In the second, a kitchen boy of Winzenburg taunts Hans and suffers the fate of dismemberment. In the third, when the Count of Winzenburg lay dying, the spirit quickly built theRennstieg [de] (a messenger's road), and deliver the news to the Bishop of Hildesheim, warning him to subjugate Winzenburg before the Braunschweiger forces arrive.[25]
A connection between Hödekin andFriar Rush, a rascally devil in the guise of a friar, who murderously subverts the abbot's household while seeming to make himself useful in the kitchen and with chores, was suggested by the Shakespeare scholarGeorge Lyman Kittredge, who noted the connection has been made inReginald Scot'sDiscoverie of Witchcraft, 1584.[86][87][h][i]
The idea that Hudgin wearing a hat was equivalent toRobin Hood who wears a "hood" had also been noted in the same passage by Scot[86] T. Crofton Croker in a letter to theDublin Penny Journal published 1833 credits himself for making this connection which he reckonsSir Walter Scott had overlooked; Croker explains that Robin Hood may have been a version of "Hudikin or Hodekin, that is little hood, or cowl, being a Dutch or German spirit, so called from the most remarkable part of his dress, in which also the NorwegianNis and SpanishDuende were believed to appear".[91]Sir Sidney Lee (1859–1926) in his entry in theDNB also conjectured that the "Robin Hood" figure had folkloric forest-elf origins, and that "in its origin the name was probably a variant of 'Hodekin', the title of a sprite or elf in Teutonic folk-lore".[92]
In the 1803 novelDer Zwerg byGoethe's brother-in-lawChristian August Vulpius, a dwarf called "Hüttchen" pretends to be a helpful sprite but eventually turns out to be theDevil.[93]
Your return is most grateful to me, that I may escape the trouble and disquiet that you had imposed upon me. . . . To gratify you I have guarded [your wife] 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.
