Hödekin

The Hödeken (also Hödekin, Hüdekin, cones, after the felt hat which he shall always bear ) is a legendary figure from the Leinebergland. The Hödeken is a dwarf form ( Imp ), which also sent as a messenger between Hildesheim and Winzenburg messages. The path between Winzenburg and Hildesheimer Domhof, the Hödeken after the death of the last Count should be hurried along by Winzenburg to deliver the news of his death is called " Rennstieg ". It is marked throughout as hiking, in Sackwald partially with the stylized figure of Hödeken. The Hödeken is also depicted in the coat of arms of the municipality Woltershausen that the " Rennstieg " is obvious.

The Brothers Grimm describe the saga in its collection of 1816 Share as: The Hödekin was a helpful spirit house of the Bishop of Hildesheim. He stopped the night guards asleep, gave the Bishop military advice and warned him of the coming danger. Occasionally, he also helped other Hilde Heimern. Someone once asked the Hödekin to protect his wife during his absence. The woman was visited by several lovers. The Hödekin jumped between them around, implored terrible figures or threw them to the ground before the wife could be unfaithful. When the man returned, the Hödekin complained: he would prefer all the pigs of Saxony beware as once such a woman. The Hödekin was not to be trifled with: a kitchen boy who had irritated him, he strangled, cut it into pieces and cooked the meat over the fire.

Goethe's brother Christian August Vulpius leaves The Dwarf (1803 ) a " hut " occur in his novel, an appearance only helpful dwarf who reveals himself in the end as the devil.

The literary scholar George Lyman Kittredge Harvarder suspected in the 19th century, a connection between the shape of the Hödekin and that of the noise brother, an evil demon in the form of a monk from the Danish and Germanic mythology; a similarity which, according to Kittredge was already mentioned in 1584 in Reginald Scott's Discoverie of Witchcraft.

The literary historian Sir Sidney Lee (1859-1926) suggested in his entry to Robin Hood in the Dictionary of National Biography (1885), that the name of Robin Hood originally was part of a Wood Elf and pointed to the etymological similarity of Hood ( cap ) with Hodekin / hat back. Such cap bearing the word beings spend it in Norway ( Nis ) and Spain ( Duende ). The stories of Robin Hood, however, do not carry any magical traits.

Swell

• Keightley, Thomas ( 1850). The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries. London: HG Bohn.
• Cones in: Brothers Grimm: German legends, 1816/1818 Full text at Project Gutenberg