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Thus he continued for a year, nor could any doctor help him, until an old experienced man advised him to go to the same place on the following Twelfth-tide, and falling down on his knees behind the kneading-trough, to bewail his curiosity. He accordingly did so. Dame Berchta came again, and taking pity on him, commanded one of her children to restore his sight.
The Princess Berchta appears to have given one look and then to have fallen fainting into the arms of her attendants. The marriage was postponed indefinitely, and Malvina, one sadly suspects, chortled. Her triumph was short-lived. Unfortunately for her, King Heremon had always been a patron of the arts and science of his period.
The magical ointment Human prying punished by fairies, and by other supernatural beings Dame Berchta Hertha Lady Godiva Analogous stories in Europe In the East Religious ceremonies performed by women only Lady Godiva a pagan goddess. Before we quit the subject of fairy births, we have a few more stories to discuss.
It came about through the betrothal of King Heremon's only son, Prince Gerbot, to the Princess Berchta of Normandy. Malvina seems to have said nothing, but to have bided her time. The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be remembered, were not fairies pure and simple.
The evidence upon which these conclusions rest may be shortly recapitulated thus: The absence of historical foundation for the tradition. The close resemblance between the tradition and other stories and superstitions which unquestionably deal with heathen goddesses, such as Berchta and Hertha.
In Southern Germany and Switzerland, a mysterious lady known as Dame Berchta is reputed to be abroad on Twelfth Night. She is admittedly the relic of a heathen goddess, one of whose attributes was to be a leader of the souls of the dead; and as such she is followed by a band of children. For her the peasants on Twelfth Night set a repast, of which, if she be pleased, she and her troop partake.
On the whole, then, there is ground for supposing that the legend and procession of Lady Godiva are survivals of a pagan belief and worship located at Coventry; that the legend was concerned with a being awful and mysterious as Dame Berchta, or Hertha herself; and that the incident of Peeping Tom was from the first, or at all events from an early date, part of the story.
They solemnized the return of the fiery sun wheel; they traced in those solstice days the operations on earth of Odin and Berchta. They knew in themselves a thing they could not name. And when the supreme experience took place in Christ, they made the one experience typify the other, and became conscious of the divine nature of this nativity.
The fairy Malvina was called upon to return to Prince Gerbot his proper body and all therein contained. She flatly refused. A self-willed, obstinate fairy, suffering from swelled head. And then there was that personal note. Merely that he should marry the Princess Berchta!
Now Dame Holle herself is the leader of a Furious Host, or Wild Hunt, and has been identified by Grimm beyond any doubt as a pagan goddess, like Berchta. Let us take another story in which the female companion of the enchanted hero appears. Near the town of Garz, on the island of Rügen, lies a lake by which a castle formerly stood.
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