Death of an Underground Person
migratory legends of type 6070B(also classified as Aarne-Thompson type 113A folktales)
translated and/or edited by
D. L. Ashliman
© 1999
Near Westerhausen there are dwarf caves. Ages ago dwarfs lived there, and they were very active in the region.
Once a peasant was driving from Halberstadt to Börneke, which lies about a half hour from Westerhausen. As he was approaching Mount Tekenberg, someone shouted to him, "Wedgehead, tell Torke to come home. His child is dead!"
He looked around, but peering far and wide he could not see anyone who could have called out. So he drove home, and after his arrival there, while seated at his table, it kept going around in his head that someone had shouted to him and that he had seen no one. So he said to his wife, "Just think, as I was approaching Mount Tekenberg, someone shouted to me, Wedgehead, tell Torke to come home. His child is dead!'"
He had scarcely said this when someone called out from the best room, "Is that so? Then I must go there at once!"
Then they heard something fall. They went into the room and found there a bag. It was filled with dough from their baking trough.
There were also many dwarfs in Mount Kuckuksberg near Westerhausen and in Mount Steinberg near Börneke. They were thick-headed people with black faces. They wore three-cornered hats. They sometimes helped humans and sometimes harmed them. When Old Fritz [Frederick the Great of Prussia] came to power, he did not want them in his country any more, and he exiled them to the other side of the Black Sea. Thus they all emigrated, and nothing more has been heard about them since then. Formerly, however, there were many stories about them.
For example, once a peasant was driving past Mount Kuckuksberg when someone shouted to him, "Leave your wagon and your horses here, and run home quickly, and tell Kilian he should come here. His child is dead!"
The peasant did that. Arriving at home, he gave the message, and suddenly the bread dough fell down from above, and someone said that in the future they should make three crosses on the bread when they leave the dough overnight, and then the dwarfs would not be able to take it away.
For this reason, to this very day three crosses are made on bread.
A dwarf appeared to the owner of the Halbhufe farm near Mount Dittersberg, while he was working in his field. He asked him to tell Hübel (a female dwarf) that Habel (a male dwarf) had died. The farmer related this unusual incident at the dinner table, and even as he spoke, a small woman, previously unseen, came into view in a corner of the room. She ran crying from the room, and was never seen again.
The servant of Landholder Gireck (whose residence in Plau was on Elden Street where Master Mason Büttner's house now stands) was once hauling a load of manure to a field abutting Gall Mountain. He had just unloaded the manure and was about to put the sideboards back onto the wagon when he heard his name being called from the mountain, together with the words, "When you get home say that Prilling and Pralling is dead." Back at home, he had scarcely related this experience and repeated the words, when they heard groaning and crying coming from the house's cellar. They investigated, but found nothing but a pewter mug, of a kind that had never before been seen in Plau. The master of the house kept the mug, and when he later moved to Hamburg he took it with him. About seventy years ago someone from Plau saw it there.
A peasant in Holl had a servant girl whom no one knew. She was very industrious and well behaved, but she would not say what her name was.
One day the man was carrying a yoke home from the field when the voice of an unseen person called out to him several times, "You, the man carrying the yoke, tell Gloria that the chancellor has died."
The man did not think about this occurance until suppertime, and then he related it to the girl, adding that he now knew that her name was Gloria. The girl immediately jumped head over heels and fled. And no one has seen her since then.
About a quarter of a mile from Soröe lies Pedersborg, and a little farther on is the town of Lyng. Just between these towns is a hill called Bröndhöi (Spring-hill), said to be inhabited by the troll-people.
There goes a story that there was once among these troll-people of Bröndhöi an old cross-grained curmudgeon of a troll, whom the rest nick-named Knurremurre (Rumble-grumble), because he was evermore the cause of noise and uproar within the hill. The Knurremurre having discovered what he thought to be too great a degree of intimacy between his young wife and a young troll of the society, took this in such ill part, that he vowed vengeance, swearing he would have the life of the young one. The latter, accordingly, thought it would be his best course to be off out of the hill till better times; so, turning himself into a noble tortoise-shell tom-cat, he one fine morning quitted his old residence, and journeyed down to the neighboring town of Lyng, where he established himself in the house of an honest poor man named Plat.
Here he lived for a long time comfortable and easy, with nothing to annoy him, and was as happy as any tom-cat or troll crossed in love well could be. He got every day plenty of milk and good grout to eat, and lay the whole day long at his ease in a warm arm-chair behind the stove.
Plat happened one evening to come home rather late, and as he entered the room the cat was sitting in his usual place, scraping meal-grout out of a pot, and licking the pot itself carefully. "Harkye, dame," said Plat, as he came in at the door, "till I tell you what happened to me on the road. Just as I was coming past Bröndhöi, there came out a troll, and he called out to me, and said,
Harkye Plat
Tell your cat,
That Knurremurre is dead.
The moment the cat heard these words, he tumbled the pot down on the floor, sprang out of the chair, and stood up on his hind-legs. Then, as he hurried out of the door, he cried out with exultation, "What! is Knurremurre dead? Then I may go home as fast as I please." And so saying he scampered off to the hill, to the amazement of honest Plat; and it is likely lost no time in making his advances to the young widow.
A carman was leaving Bunclody one morning for Dublin, when what should he see but a neighbor's cat galloping along the side of the road, and crying out every moment, "Tell Moll Browne, Tom Dunne is dead. Tell Moll Browne, Tom Dunne is dead."
At last he got tired of this ditty, and took up a stone and flung it at the cat, bidding himself, and Tom Browne, and Moll Dunne, to go to Halifax, and not be botherin' him.
When he got to Luke Byrne's in Francis Street, where all the Wicklow and Wexford carmen used to stop, he was taking a pot of beer in the taproom, and began to tell the quare thing that happened on the road. There was a comfortable-looking gray cat sitting by the fire, and the moment he mentioned what the Bunclody cat was saying, she cried out, "That's my husband!" That's my husband!"
She made only one leap out through the door, and no one ever saw her at Luke Byrne's again.
Many years ago, long before shooting in Scotland was a fashion as it is now, two young men spent the autumn in the very far north, living in a lodge far from other houses, with an old woman to cook for them. Her cat and their own dogs formed all the rest of the household.
One afternoon the elder of the two young men said he would not go out, and the younger one went alone, to follow the path of the previous day's sport looking for missing birds, and intending to return home before the early sunset. However, he did not do so, and the elder man became very uneasy as he watched and waited in vain till long after their usual supper-time. At last the young man returned, wet and exhausted, nor did he explain his unusual lateness until, after supper, they were seated by the fire with their pipes, the dogs lying at their feet, and the old woman's black cat sitting gravely with half-shut eyes on the hearth between them. Then the young man began as follows:--
"You must be wondering what made me so late. I have had a curious adventure to-day. I hardly know what to say about it. I went, as I told you I should, along our yesterday's route. A mountain fog came on just as I was about to turn homewards, and I completely lost my way. I wandered about for a long time, not knowing where I was, till at last I saw a light, and made for it, hoping to get help. As I came near it, it disappeared, and I found myself close to a large old oak-tree. I climbed into the branches the better to look for the light, and, behold! it was beneath me, inside the hollow trunk of the tree. I seemed to be looking down into a church, where a funeral was in the act of taking place. I heard singing, and saw a coffin, surrounded by torches, all carried by ---- But I know you won't believe me if I tell you!"
His friend eagerly begged him to go on, and laid down his pipe to listen. The dogs were sleeping quietly, but the cat was sitting up apparently listening as attentively as the man, and both young men involuntarily turned their eyes towards him. "Yes," proceeded the absentee," it is perfectly true. The coffin and the torches were both borne by cats, and upon the coffin were marked a crown and scepter!" He got no further; the cat started up shrieking, "By Jove! old Peter's dead! and I'm the King o' the Cats!" rushed up the chimney and was seen no more.
One winter's evening the sexton's wife was sitting by the fireside with her big black cat, Old Tom, on the other side, both half asleep and waiting for the master to come home. They waited and they waited, but still he didn't come, till at last he came rushing in, calling out, "Who's Tommy Tildrum?" in such a wild way that both his wife and his cat stared at him to know what was the matter.
"Why, what's the matter?" said his wife. "And why do you want to know who Tommy Tildrum is?"
"Oh, I've had such an adventure. I was digging away at old Mr. Fordyce's grave when I suppose I must have dropped asleep, and only woke up by hearing a cat's meow."
"Meow!" said Old Tom in answer.
"Yes, just like that! So I looked over the edge of the grave, and what do you think I saw?"
"Now, how can I tell?" said the sexton's wife.
"Why, nine black cats all like our friend Tom here, all with a white spot on their chestesses. And what do you think they were carrying? Why, a small coffin covered with a black velvet pall, and on the pall was a small coronet all of gold, and at every third step they took they cried all together, 'Meow --'"
"Meow!" said Old Tom again.
"Yes, just like that!" said the sexton. "And as they came nearer and nearer to me I could see them more distinctly, because their eyes shone out with a sort of green light. Well, they all came towards me, eight of them carrying the coffin and the biggest cat of all walking in front for all the world like -- but look at our Tom, how he's looking at me. You'd think he knew all I was saying."
"Go on, go on," said his wife. "Never mind Old Tom."
"Well, as I was a-saying, they came towards me slowly and solemnly, and at every third step crying all together, 'Meow --'"
"Meow!" said Old Tom again.
"Yes, just like that, till they came and stood right opposite Mr. Fordyce's grave, where I was, when they all stood still and looked straight at me. I did feel queer, that I did! But look at Old Tom. He's looking at me just like they did."
"Go on, go on," said his wife. "Never mind Old Tom."
"Where was I? Oh, they all stood still looking at me, when the one that wasn't carrying the coffin came forward and, staring straight at me, said to me -- yes, I tell 'ee, said to me -- with a squeaky voice, 'Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum's dead,' and that's why I asked you if you knew who Tom Tildrum was, for how can I tell Tom Tildrum Tim Toldrum's dead if I don't know who Tom Tildrum is?"
"Look at Old Tom! Look at Old Tom!" screamed his wife.
And well he might look, for Tom was swelling, and Tom was staring, and at last Tom shrieked out, "What -- old Tim dead! Then I'm the King o' the Cats!" and rushed up the chimney and was never more seen.
Stories of fairies appearing in the shape of cats are common in the North of England. Mr. Longstaffe relates that a farmer of Staindrop, in Durham, was one night crossing a bridge, when a cat jumped out, stood before him, and looking him full in the face, said:
Johnny Reed! Johnny Reed!
Tell Madam Momfort
That Mally Dixon's dead.
The farmer returned home, and in mickle wonder recited this awfu' stanza to his wife, when up started their black cat, saying, "Is she?" and disappeared for ever. It was supposed she was a fairy in disguise, who thus went to attend a sister's funeral, for in the North fairies do die, and green shady spots are pointed out by the country folks as the cemeteries of the tiny people.
Migratory legend type 6070B; Aarne-Thompson type 113A.
In many versions of this tale the deceased is a cat, usually the "king of the cats," while the mysterious person who runs off after hearing of the death is the family housecat. Many folklore traditions, of course, connect cats with elves, fairies, and other supernatural beings.
"Death of an elf (or cat)" tales are classified as type 113A tales in the Aarne-Thompson folktale classification system, or as a migratory legend type 6070B.
For more information about folktale types see:
Revised January 28, 1999.