My conjecture was, that "snistal" may possibly be in connection with an old English verb "to snie "-to swim. If this were so, "snistal" would be a parallel term for 'vanega'—the one that goes on the water. This I only mention to show that, after much chaff has been threshed out from the sea-names, a small remnant may yield a mythological harvest.

VII.

From Cat Stories and sea-names, I now turn to some other fanciful forms in Shetlandic folk-lore. I have recently explained that the fairy Water-Horse, which the Shetlanders call the Nuggle or Nyogle (in Scotland: Kelpie; in the Isle of Man : Glashtin, or Euach Skeibh; in Ireland: Aughisky) is the close relation, in name, figure, and general doings, of the horse-shaped Nick, Nöcken, or Nix forms, which prevail in all lands where the Teutonic race has penetrated. In some places in Shetiand, the Nyogle name has, however, died out. The young Shetlander before mentioned writes:

:

"Legends abound in the North Isles regarding mythical and other beings-trows, or elfs, or fairies; brownies; giants and gay-kerls; mermaids, selkie-women; and fairy-cows; princes magically disguised as flowers or dogs; bokies and grülies (undefined forms of horror); feynesses and ghosts; and lastly, devils. But Nyogle or Tangie are names that seem unknown in Fetlar or Yell."

This list shows that there is still a great deal of living mythological forms in Fetlar, and partly also in Yell. In his own immediate neighbourhood however, the writer, who dates from Mid Yell, says "the old lore and the old spirit is on its last legs."

The gay-kerls whom he mentions, I suppose to mean hearty, strapping fellows. Or they may originally have been Spirits of the Earth; assuming that in Shetlandic speech there was once a word like the German Gau (in Franconian dialect form: Gai), in Greek Gaia (or Gaca), in the sense of earth, land, country. The selkiewomen are human beings temporarily transformed into seals, and are usually called "Finns." I believe them to be a fanciful cross

The derivation of "Niogle" in Mr. Edmondston's useful "Glossary of Shetland and Orkney Words" (see "Transactions of the Philological Society," 1866), from Gothic gneg, a horse, and el, water, is, it need scarcely be said, an impossible one. The first literary mention of the "Neogle," so far as I am now aware, occurs in a small statistical print of 1832; entitled: "United Parishes of Sandsting and Aithsting; Presbytery of Lerwick, Synod of Shetland; by the Rev. John Bryden." In it, the "Neogle" is defined as a "trow, somewhat akin to the Water Kelpie."

breed between an old mythological notion and the Norse or Scandinavian sea-rovers, or sea-dogs, that came as conquerors to Shetland, Scotland, and Ireland. I further hold that the identical name of the Irish mythical heroes-the Finns, Fianna, or Fenians-is clearly to be ranged within the same category. The "bokies" are usually called bogies, or Pucks (in English and German). Their meaning in Slavonian shows that they were originally divine forms that have fallen into lower ranks, as demonialized figures. The "grülies" bear in their name their gruesome character; this word is connected with the German grausam, gräulich and gruselig.

In two of the Shetland isles the Nuggle has disappeared, and the fairies have taken his place, as may be seen from the following :

"In Fetlar and Yell there are several ruins of water-mills in very remote situations, when mills could have been built much nearer; and there are various legends of their having been deserted on account of Fairies disturbing them of an old man being found dead in one; of an old woman being torn to pieces by spirits at Wenya dapla in Gyodinali, in Fetlar,—a truly lonely spot.”

:

From Unst, however, the northernmost island, several Nuggle stories are sent by the young Shetlander alluded to. He writes:

"An ancestor of George Henderson, of Burravoes, who dwelt in Unst, was wont to rise early. One morning he rose early, and went out for a walk. On his way home, he was coming along the edge of a loch, and wished that he had something to ride on. And he soon came to a white mare, and he jumped on her, and rode her along the loch, and she always sought towards the loch, and he tried to keep her from it. But as they rode along, she grew so persistent that he came off, and she went on the loch and over the water in a blue 'low'" (flame; German: Lohe).

The only thing that calls for remark in this tale, which a descendant of the person mentioned in it gave to the writer, is the description of this particular Nuggle, or water-horse, as a mare. As a rule the mythic creature is, in other tales, described as a stallion or cob.2 A further story noted down from a Whalsay boy is this:

"There was a man in Whalsay, who did not believe in Nyogles,

The author of Shetland Fireside Tales (G.S.L.) also says in his "Notes" (p. 230): "The belief that witches and wizards came from the coast of Norway disguised as seals, was entertained by many of the Shetland peasantry even so late as the beginning of the present century; and it is worthy of note that the supposed object of those unwelcome relations of this Phocidae family was plunder, evidently showing that the seal-wizard was just the Viking or sea-robber of former ages." A Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum (1529) contains a most remarkable story of a water-stallion and a woman from Stronsay, in the Orkneys.

or fairies, or spirits. And one night he was at the kreigs at Skura, and had drawn his bidi of piltaks (a catch of fishes). And ere long, on his way home, he came to a black horse, and he went on him. And the horse began to run, until he was going so fast that the man did not know whether he was on the earth or in the air. At last he took his knife and drove it into the horse, and he went from under him and went over the banks in a blue low.'"

This story accords with similar ones in Scottish, Scandinavian, and German folk-lore. Several weird and spectral sea-stories, full of local colour and Shetlandic expressions, I pass over, as they would require a separate treatment. In the letters before me, the following strikes me, however, as noteworthy :-" MANYOGLTI is an old Fetlar word still used for magic. An intelligent friend suggests its connection with Nyogle. GRAMIRI is another old word for magic."

The word "Manyoglti" seems to show that in Fetlar, also, the Nuggle superstition was once prevalent, though the fairies have now. superseded the spectral aquatic horse in that isle. As to "Gramiri," I have not yet been able to make out its meaning. But as Manyoglti probably points to water-magic, I will bring to recollection that witchcraft done by means of water was a frequent Greek custom. From Pausanias we know that it was used in the temple of Ceres at Patræ, in that of Apollon Thyrxeus near Kyanea, in Lykia, and elsewhere.

In regard to the Nuggle, another story, taken down by the young Shetlander in his country's speech, may be of interest. He writes :— "I heard the following from an old Delting man the other day. The knife is a new thing here :

'Dey wir great stories aboot da Nyugl whan I was young. Dey said 'at da Nyugl wid stop da water mills. He wid grip hed o' da fedirs o' da tirl' an' stop da mill. An dey wid slip fire doon da lightneen' tree-hole, ir stik a knife ita da groti. (Da widen busheen i' da understeen, 'at da spindle kam up troo, dey caad dat da groti.) An as syün as da knife kem ita da groti, da Nyugl wid slip an' flee. An' dey wid see him too. He wiz lek a horse; gre, ir some colour lek dat. An' dey wid see him upo da day-light. If dey wir gyain' alang a loch, he wid come ta dem, gyain' da sam way. come upo' dem; an' some wiz fül enough to ride him. did, he ran upo' da loch wi' dem, 'an said da neem o' Gyüd, he wid vanish. As a counterpart to those tales I will now mention what I heard a few weeks ago, at the sea-side, in a Scotch friend's house, from a

An' he wid

An' if dey dey got a dookin'. Ir if dey

He aye vanished in a fire."

The vertical wheel by which the mill is driven.

Scotch girl. She is from Aberdeenshire, and seems to know a great many folk-tales through her mother who was from another part of north-eastern Scotland. Her education, at the same time, is such that she can give the most intelligent account of everything she has heard. She told me Water-Kelpie stories in which the Kelpie has a humanised Nix shape-not the shape of a horse. She spoke of one of those Kelpies as luring men to the water's edge, at a lake in Selkirkshire, twirling her arms round them, and drawing thein to the precipice. Again, she spoke of a Nixie Man, who was in the habit of getting on people's backs, and riding them to death.

The destructive power of the Water is thus personified in both male and female Nix forms in this bit of Scottish folk-lore.

In reply to my repeated inquiry as to whether the Nixies she heard of ended in a fish-tail, she always firmly answered :-"Oh, no!" The Nixies she had been told of by her mother, were always wholly shaped like human beings. This fits in with the truly Germanic notion about Nixies. John Leyden, no doubt, says of the Mermaid :

An oozy film her limbs o'erspread,
While slow unfolds her scaly train.
With gluey fangs her hands were clad.
She lash'd with webbèd fin the main.

But this is not the original Teutonic conception of a Mermaid. Wherever the fish-tail and similar appendages, or dark hair, occur, there the influence of foreign mythological notions must be assumed. The real Teutonic Mermaid and Nix have golden, or sometimes seagreen, hair; in Southey's quite correct words :

:

Beautiful a Mermaid's golden hair

Upon the waves dispread.

In Shetland, which is otherwise so strongly Teutonic, and which has preserved so many valuable relics of our forefathers' waterworship, the several inquiries I have made show that the Mermaids there have often fish-tails; from which the conclusion has to be drawn that shipping intercourse has produced there a slight admixture of foreign mythological ideas.

(To be concluded.)

KARL BLIND.

TUSCAN OLIVES.

(POCHADES IN RISPETTI.)

I.

HE colour of the olives who shall say?

THE

In winter on the yellow earth they're blue
A wind can change the green to white or grey,
But they are olives still in every hue ;
But they are olives always, green or white,
As love is love in torment or delight;
But they are olives, ruffled or at rest,
As love is always love in tears or jest.

II.

We walked along the terraced olive-yard,
And talked together till we lost the way;
We met a peasant, bent with age, and hard,

Bruising the grape-skins in a vase of clay;
Bruising the grape-skins for the second wine.
We did not drink, and left him, Love of mine,
Bruising the grapes already bruised enough:
He had his meagre wine, and we our love.

III.

We climbed one morning to the sunny height,
Where chestnuts grow no more, and olives grow ;

Far-off the circling mountains cinder-white,

The yellow river and the gorge below.

"Turn round," you said, O flower of Paradise;

I did not turn, I looked upon your eyes.

"Turn round," you said, "turn round, look at the view !" I did not turn, my Love, I looked at you.