136-545: The Nixie , Nixy , Nix , Näcken , Nicor , Nøkk , or Nøkken ( German : Nixe ; Dutch : nikker , nekker ; Danish : nøkke ; Norwegian Bokmål : nøkk ; Nynorsk : nykk ; Swedish : näck ; Faroese : nykur ; Finnish : näkki ; Icelandic : nykur ; Estonian : näkk ; Old English : nicor ; English: neck or nicker ) are humanoid , and often shapeshifting water spirits in Germanic mythology and folklore . Under
272-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
408-431: A malevolent spirit that lives in a mill pond strikes a deal with the miller that she will restore his wealth in exchange for his son. This story is taken from Grimms' Fairy Tales . The legend of Heer Halewijn , a dangerous lord who lures women to their deaths with a magic song, may have originated with the nix. Alternate names for the female German Nixe are Rhine maidens (German: Rheintöchter ) and Lorelei . In
544-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
680-444: A variety of names , they are common to the stories of all Germanic peoples , although they are perhaps best known from Scandinavian folklore . The related English knucker was generally depicted as a worm or dragon , although more recent versions depict the spirits in other forms. Their sex, bynames, and various transformations vary geographically. The German Nix and his Scandinavian counterparts were male. The German Nixe
816-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
952-661: A fairy story recorded by John F. Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860) has a different perspective. Entitled Of the Drocht na Vougha or Fuoah , which is given the translation of the bridge of the fairies or kelpies , it features a group of voughas . The spirits had set about constructing a bridge over the Dornoch Firth after becoming tired of travelling across the water in cockleshells. It
1088-576: A fictional depiction, the Rhine maidens are among the protagonists in the four-part Opera Der Ring des Nibelungen by the composer Richard Wagner , based loosely on the nix of the Nibelungenlied . The Rhine maidens Wellgunde , Woglinde , and Floßhilde ( Flosshilde ) belong to a group of characters living in a part of nature free from human influence. Erda and the Norns are also considered
1224-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1360-400: A handsome young man to woo a pretty young girl it was determined to take for its wife. But the girl recognises the young man as a kelpie and removes his silver necklace (his bridle) while he sleeps. The kelpie immediately reverts to its equine form, and the girl takes it home to her father's farm, where it is put to work for a year. At the end of that time the girl rides the kelpie to consult
1496-587: A human form and seeking vengeance on the vampire who bit her. In the 2013 novel Dead in the Water , the character Quinby Stromhest is a nøkken. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within
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#17327761005541632-585: A kelpie by 20th-century folklorist Katharine Mary Briggs , but a similar tale also set in Perthshire has an each uisge as the culprit and omits the embellishment of the young boy. The lad does cut his finger off when the event takes place in Thurso , where a water kelpie is identified as the culprit. The same tale set at Sunart in the Highlands gives a specific figure of nine children lost, of whom only
1768-491: A kelpie story associated with it, but the most widely reported is the kelpie of Loch Ness . Several stories of mythical spirits and monsters are attached to the loch's vicinity, dating back to 6th-century reports of Saint Columba defeating a monster on the banks of the River Ness . The early 19th-century kelpie that haunted the woods and shores of Loch Ness was tacked up with its own saddle and bridle. A fable attached to
1904-410: A kelpie, a passing local struck it on the head, causing it to revert to its equine form and scamper back to its lair in a nearby pond. Other accounts describe the kelpie when appearing in human form as a "rough, shaggy man who leaps behind a solitary rider, gripping and crushing him", or as tearing apart and devouring humans. A folk tale from Barra tells of a lonely kelpie that transforms itself into
2040-415: A man playing the violin in brooks and waterfalls (though often imagined as fair and naked today, in folklore, he was more frequently described as wearing more or less elegant clothing) but also could appear to be treasure or various floating objects, or as an animal—most commonly in the form of a "brook horse" (see below). The modern Scandinavian names are derived from nykr , meaning "river horse". Thus, it
2176-556: A mortal man, and the pair are married. Traditionally, kelpies in their human form are male. One of the few stories describing the creature in female form is set at Conon House in Ross and Cromarty . It tells of a "tall woman dressed in green", with a "withered, meagre countenance, ever distorted by a malignant scowl", who overpowered and drowned a man and a boy after she jumped out of a stream. The arrival of Christianity in Scotland in
2312-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
2448-582: A part of this 'hidden' world. They are first seen in the first work of the Nibelungen cycle, Das Rheingold , as guardians of the Rheingold , a treasure of gold hidden in the Rhein river. The dwarf Alberich , a Nibelung , is eager to win their favour, but they somewhat cruelly dismiss his flattery. They tell him that only one who cannot love can win the Rheingold . Thus, Alberich curses love and steals
2584-696: A pool called the Knucker-hole . The Victorian authority Walter William Skeat had plausibly suggested the pool's name of knucker (a name attested from 1835, Horsfield) was likely derived from the Old English nicor , a creature-name found in Beowulf . The Nordic näcken , näkki , nøkk were male water spirits who played enchanted songs on the violin, luring women and children to drown in lakes or streams. However, not all of these spirits were necessarily malevolent; many stories indicate at
2720-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
2856-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
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#17327761005542992-583: A similar explanation in his epic poem The Lady of the Lake (1810), which contains the lines He watched the wheeling eddies boil, Till from their foam his dazzled eyes Beheld the River Demon rise: in which Scott uses "River Demon" to denote a "kelpy". Scott may also have hinted at an alternative rational explanation by naming a treacherous area of quicksand "Kelpie's Flow" in his novel The Bride of Lammermoor (1818). Pictish stones dating from
3128-422: A soft mass like jelly-fish" according to an account published by Spence. When a blacksmith's family were being frightened by the repeated appearances of a water kelpie at their summer cottage, the blacksmith managed to render it into a "heap of starch, or something like it" by penetrating the spirit's flanks with two sharp iron spears that had been heated in a fire. Almost every sizeable Scottish body of water has
3264-445: A tail that trailed on the ground. The horse pranced for the girl to show her how handsome he was. However, the girl knew it was the brook horse and ignored it. Then the brook horse came closer and closer, and finally he was so close that he could bite the farm horse in the mane. The girl hit the brook horse with the bridle and cried: "Disappear you scoundrel, or you'll have to plough so you'll never forget it." As soon as she had said this,
3400-423: A water source. The Norwegian Fossegrim or Grim , Swedish strömkarl , is a related figure who, if properly approached, will teach a musician to play so adeptly "that the trees dance and waterfalls stop at his music". It is difficult to describe the appearance of the nix, as one of his central attributes was thought to be shapeshifting . Perhaps he did not have any true shape. He could show himself as
3536-400: A wise man, who tells her to return the silver necklace. The wise man then asks the kelpie, once again transformed into the handsome young man the girl had first met, whether if given the choice it would choose to be a kelpie or a mortal. The kelpie in turn asks the girl whether, if he were a man, she would agree to be his wife. She confirms that she would, after which the kelpie chooses to become
3672-490: Is a direct parallel of the [sic] bäckahästen [of Scandinavian folklore]". The wihwin of Central America and the Australian bunyip are seen as similar creatures in other parts of the world. The kelpie is usually described as a powerful and beautiful black horse inhabiting the deep pools of rivers and streams of Scotland, preying on any humans it encounters. One of the water-kelpie's common identifying characteristics
3808-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
3944-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
4080-503: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
4216-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
Nixie (folklore) - Misplaced Pages Continue
4352-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
4488-698: Is derived from Old Swedish neker , which corresponds to Old Icelandic nykr ( gen. nykrs ), and nykk in Norwegian Nynorsk . In Finnish, the word is näkki . In Old Danish, the form was nikke and in modern Danish and Norwegian Bokmål it is nøkke / nøkk . The Icelandic and Faroese nykur are horselike creatures. In Middle Low German , it was called necker and in Middle Dutch nicker (compare also Nickel or Nikkel plus Kobolt ). The Old High German form nihhus also meant "crocodile", while
4624-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
4760-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
4896-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
5032-401: Is likely that the figure of the brook horse preceded the personification of the nix as the "man in the rapids". Fossegrim and derivatives were almost always portrayed as gorgeous young men whose clothing (or lack thereof) varied widely from story to story. The enthralling music of the nøkk was most dangerous to women and children, especially pregnant women and unbaptised children. He
5168-523: Is not "a child of God". In a poem by Swedish poet E. J. Stagnelius , a little boy pities the fate of the Näck ( nøkk ), and so saves his own life. In the poem, arguably Stagnelius' most famous, the boy says that the Näck will never be a "child of God", which brings "tears to his face" as he "never plays again in the silvery brook". On a similar theme, a 19th-century text called "Brother Fabian's Manuscript" by Sebastian Evans has this verse: Where by
5304-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
5440-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
5576-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
Nixie (folklore) - Misplaced Pages Continue
5712-424: Is said that the nykur can equally well change itself into the form of all quadrupedal animals, except that he does not know how to create the horn-points of a ram or a male lamb on himself. But when he hasn't changed his form, he is like a horse, and it has come about that people gain power over him by carving a cross into his back, and then they have been able to have him drag great stones by his tail down from
5848-465: Is that its hooves are reversed as compared to those of a normal horse, a trait also shared by the nykur of Iceland. An Aberdeenshire variation portrays the kelpie as a horse with a mane of serpents, whereas the resident equine spirit of the River Spey was white and could entice victims onto its back by singing. The creature's nature was described by Walter Gregor , a folklorist and one of
5984-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
6120-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
6256-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
6392-629: Is visible on it still. The equivalent term in Continental Scandinavian languages is bäckahäst or bækhest ('brook horse'). It has a close parallel in the Scottish kelpie and the Welsh Ceffyl Dŵr . The bäckahäst was often described as a majestic white horse that would appear near rivers, particularly during foggy weather. Anyone who climbed onto its back could not get off again. The horse would then jump into
6528-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
6664-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
6800-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
6936-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
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#17327761005547072-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
7208-671: The European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
7344-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
7480-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
7616-403: The Old English nicor could mean both a "water monster" like those encountered by Beowulf , and a " hippopotamus ". The Norwegian Fossegrim and Swedish Strömkarlen are related figures sometimes seen as by-names for the same creature. The southern Scandinavian version can take on the form of a horse named Bäckahästen ("the brook horse"), similar to other water horses such as
7752-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
7888-456: The Rheingold . From the stolen gold, he forges a ring of power. Further in the cycle, the Rhine maidens are seen trying to regain the ring and transform it into the harmless Rheingold . But no one will return the ring to them; not even the supreme god Wotan , who uses the ring to pay the giants Fasolt and Fafner for building Valhalla , nor the hero Siegfried , when the maidens appear to him in
8024-708: The Scots word kelpie is uncertain, but it may be derived from the Gaelic calpa or cailpeach , meaning "heifer" or "colt". The first recorded use of the term to describe a mythological creature, then spelled kaelpie , appears in the manuscript of an ode by William Collins , composed some time before 1759 and reproduced in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh of 1788. The place names Kelpie hoall and Kelpie hooll are reported in A Dictionary of
8160-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
8296-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
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#17327761005548432-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
8568-400: The loon , and a fatality would later occur on that spot. He was also said to cause drownings, but swimmers could protect themselves against such a fate by throwing a bit of steel into the water. In the later Romantic folklore and folklore-inspired stories of the 19th century, the nøkk sings about his loneliness and his longing for salvation, which he purportedly never shall receive, as he
8704-469: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
8840-484: The sign of the cross . Immediately she fell down on the ground and saw the brook horse disappear into the lake with the plough. She heard a frustrated neighing when the brook horse understood his trick had failed. Until this day, a deep track can be seen in the field. The German Nix and Nixe (and Nixie ) are types of river merman and mermaid who may lure men into drowning, like the Scandinavian type, akin to
8976-513: The wihwin of Central America and the Australian bunyip . The origins of narratives about the creature are unclear, but the practical purposes of keeping children away from dangerous stretches of water and warning young women to be wary of handsome strangers has been noted in secondary literature. Kelpies have been portrayed in their various forms in art and literature, including two 30-metre-high (100 ft) steel sculptures in Falkirk , The Kelpies , completed in October 2013. The etymology of
9112-407: The 2019 film Frozen II , Queen Elsa of Arendelle encounters and tames the Nøkk (in the form of a horse), the Water spirit who guards the sea to the mythical river Ahtohallan. Nekkers are a common swamp and water area enemy in The Witcher video games. The 2021 video game Valheim features Neck as a common enemy encountered near water. In contrast to their humanoid appearances in folklore,
9248-408: The 6th century resulted in some folk stories and beliefs being recorded by scribes, usually Christian monks, instead of being perpetuated by word of mouth . Some accounts state that the kelpie retains its hooves even in human form, leading to its association with the Christian notion of Satan , just as with the Greek god Pan . Robert Burns refers to such a Satanic association in his " Address to
9384-530: The 6th to 9th centuries featuring what has been dubbed the Pictish Beast may be the earliest representations of a kelpie or kelpie-like creature. Victorian artist Thomas Millie Dow sketched the kelpie in 1895 as a melancholy dark-haired maiden balanced on a rock, a common depiction for artists of the period. Other depictions show kelpies as poolside maidens, as in Draper 's 1913 oil on canvas. Folklorist Nicola Bown has suggested that painters such as Millie Dow and Draper deliberately ignored earlier accounts of
9520-432: The Celtic Melusine and similar to the Greek Siren . The German epic Nibelungenlied mentions the nix in connection with the Danube , as early as 1180 to 1210. Nixes in folklore became water sprites who try to lure people into the water. The males can assume many different shapes, including that of a human, a fish, and a snake. The females bear the tail of a fish. When they are in human form, they can be recognised by
9656-408: The Devil " (1786): When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord An' float the jinglin icy boord Then, water-kelpies haunt the foord By your direction An' nighted trav'llers are allur'd To their destruction. When a kelpie appeared in its equine persona without any tack , it could be captured using a halter stamped with the sign of a cross , and its strength could then be harnessed in tasks such as
9792-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
9928-748: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
10064-536: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
10200-451: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
10336-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
10472-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
10608-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
10744-475: The Manx tarroo ushtey . Kelpies have the ability to transform themselves into non-equine forms, and can take on the outward appearance of human figures, in which guise they may betray themselves by the presence of water weeds in their hair. Gregor described a kelpie adopting the guise of a wizened old man continually muttering to himself while sitting on a bridge stitching a pair of trousers. Believing it to be
10880-527: The Neck in Valheim are depicted as small, aggressive green creatures - similar to a cross between a newt and a frog. In the 2021 novel Lone Wolf by Sam Hall, the main character, Paige, is a nix. The mythological version of the nix exists in the world as lore, but a nix is also a special female wolf shifter. She has greater powers and calls to all eligible bachelors, pitting them against each other and then taking
11016-528: The Older Scottish Tongue as appearing in the 1674 burgh records for Kirkcudbright . The kelpie is the most common water spirit in Scottish folklore, and the name is attributed to several different forms in narratives recorded throughout the country. The late 19th century saw the onset of an interest in transcribing folklore, and recorders were inconsistent in spelling and frequently anglicised words, which could result in differing names for
11152-698: The Scottish kelpie and the Welsh Ceffyl Dŵr . English folklore contains many creatures with similar characteristics to the Nix or Näck . These include Jenny Greenteeth , the Shellycoat , the river-hag Peg Powler , the Bäckahäst -like Brag , and the Grindylow . At Lyminster , near Arundel in the English county of West Sussex , there are today said to dwell "water-wyrms" called knuckers , in
11288-489: The association with horses may have its roots in horse sacrifices performed in ancient Scandinavia . Stories of malevolent water spirits served the practical purpose of keeping children away from perilous areas of water, and of warning adolescent women to be wary of attractive young strangers. The stories were also used to enforce moral standards, as they implied that the creatures took retribution for bad behaviour carried out on Sundays. The intervention of demons and spirits
11424-438: The bottom of the water. Sometimes he encounters people in human form, as a handsome youth, to lure young women to himself, and promises them joy and gladness in his hall if they want to go along with him. But if they get a suspicion of who he is, when they are giving themselves away, such that they can call him by his true name — nykur — then he loses the power over them and must release them and go along into his waters. It
11560-410: The bottom, down in the depths, he has his lair; from here he often goes onto land and it is not good to meet him. Sometimes he is like a beautiful little horse which seems to be good and tame, and thus he lures people to draw near to him to pat him and stroke him along the back. But when they come to touch the tail, they become stuck fast to him, and then he releases no-one, but he drags them with him to
11696-417: The bridle, because of the presence of a cross above the entrance door. But MacGrigor outwitted the creature by tossing the bridle through a window, so the kelpie accepted its fate and left, cursing and swearing. The myth is perpetuated with further tales of the bridle as it is passed down through the family. Referred to as "Willox's Ball and Bridle", it had magical powers of healing; a spell was made by placing
11832-422: The brook horse had changed places with the farm horse, and the brook horse started ploughing the field with such speed that soil and stones whirled in its wake, and the girl hung like a mitten from the plough. Faster than the cock crows seven times, the ploughing was finished, and the brook horse headed for the lake, dragging both the plough and the girl. But the girl had a piece of steel in her pocket, and she made
11968-457: The creature's back while one remains on the shore. Usually a little boy, he then pets the horse but his hand sticks to its neck. In some variations the lad cuts off his fingers or hand to free himself; he survives but the other children are carried off and drowned, with only some of their entrails being found later. Such a creature said to inhabit Glen Keltney in Perthshire is considered to be
12104-484: The descriptor water kelpies , adding that in her opinion "Kelpies, here and in a few other instances, is used in a loose sense to mean something like 'imps ' ". Progeny resulting from a mating between a kelpie and a normal horse were impossible to drown, and could be recognised by their shorter than normal ears, a characteristic shared by the mythical water bull or tarbh uisge in Scottish Gaelic, similar to
12240-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
12376-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
12512-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
12648-598: The first book in the children's series Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles , the main characters rescue a Nixie named Taloa after fire-breathing giants destroy her pond. Nixies are depicted as aquatic female humanoids related to mermaids but with frog-like legs instead of tails. In the 2017 game Unforgiving: A Northern Hymn the Näcken is portrayed as villainous in the story, tempting the protagonist into handing him Freyjas' Harp as part of an endless limbo. In
12784-473: The first members of the Folklore Society , as "useful", "hurtful", or seeking "human companionship"; in some cases, kelpies take their victims into the water, devour them, and throw the entrails to the water's edge. In its equine form the kelpie is able to extend the length of its back to carry many riders together into the depths; a common theme in the tales is of several children clambering onto
12920-499: The fisherman was fishing in his little dugout of oak, he met the Nøkken , who offered him great catches of fish on the condition that the fisherman gave him his beautiful daughter the day she was eighteen years old. The desperate fisherman agreed and promised the Nøkken his daughter. The day the girl was eighteen she went down to the shore to meet the Nøkken . The Nøkken gladly asked her to walk down to his watery abode, but
13056-430: The forest of Tiveden relates that a father promised his daughter to a nøkk who offered him great hauls of fish in a time of need; she refused and stabbed herself to death, staining the water lilies red from that time on: At the lake of Fagertärn, there was once a poor fisherman who had a beautiful daughter. The small lake gave little fish and the fisherman had difficulties providing for his little family. One day, as
13192-417: The girl took forth a knife and said that he would never have her alive, then stuck the knife into her heart and fell down into the lake, dead. Then, her blood coloured the water lilies red, and from that day the water lilies of some of the lake's forests are red. In Faroese , the word nykur refers specifically to a supernatural horse, described in one Faroese text thus: The nykur dwells in water; at
13328-415: The greatest of the fighters as her mates. In the 2021 game Northern Journey , Nøkken is used as the cover art for the game and can be found in-game as part of the story. The game also has a related soundtrack called Nokkpond . A 2021 urban fantasy series of novels, The Legend of Nyx by Theophilus Monroe, highlights a "nyx" who attempted to seduce a vampire by song and lost her abilities, freezing her in
13464-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
13600-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
13736-412: The innards of one are recovered. The surviving boy is again saved by cutting off his finger, and the additional information is given that he had a Bible in his pocket. Gregorson Campbell considers the creature responsible to have been a water horse rather than a kelpie, and the tale "obviously a pious fraud to keep children from wandering on Sundays". Kelpie myths usually describe a solitary creature, but
13872-700: The items in water while chanting "In the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost"; the water could then be used as a cure. A popular and more recent explanation for the Loch Ness monster among believers is that it belongs to a line of long-surviving plesiosaurs , but the kelpie myth still survives in children's books such as Mollie Hunter 's The Kelpie's Pearls (1966) and Dick King-Smith 's The Water Horse (1990). According to Derek Gath Whitley (1911),
14008-511: The kelpie and reinvented it by altering its sex and nature. Two 30-metre-high (100 ft) steel sculptures in Falkirk on the Forth and Clyde Canal , named The Kelpies , borrow the name of the mythical creature to associate with the strength and endurance of the horse; designed by sculptor Andy Scott , they were built as monuments to Scotland's horse-powered industrial heritage. Construction
14144-518: The kelpie retains its hooves when appearing as a human, leading to its association with the Christian idea of Satan as alluded to by Robert Burns in his 1786 poem " Address to the Devil ". Almost every sizeable body of water in Scotland has an associated kelpie story, but the most extensively reported is that of Loch Ness . The kelpie has counterparts across the world, such as the Germanic nixie ,
14280-408: The kelpie was already wearing a bridle, exorcism might be achieved by removing it. A bridle taken from a kelpie was endowed with magical properties, and if brandished towards someone, was able to transform that person into a horse or pony. Just as with cinematic werewolves , a kelpie can be killed by being shot with a silver bullet, after which it is seen to consist of nothing more than "turf and
14416-457: The kelpie's range may extend to lochs. Mackillop's dictionary reconciles the discrepancy, stating that the kelpie was "initially thought to inhabit ... streams, and later any body of water." But the distinction should stand, argues one annotator, who suggests that people are led astray when an each uisge in a "common practice of translating" are referred to as kelpies in English accounts, and thus mistakenly attribute loch-dwelling habits to
14552-472: The kelpy is alive" – (Sore back and sore bones/ Driving the Lord of Morphie's stones,/ The Lord of Morphie will never thrive/ As long as the kelpie is alive) was popularly believed to have resulted in the extinction of the laird's family. Some kelpies were said to be equipped with a bridle and sometimes a saddle, and appeared invitingly ready to ride, but if mounted they would run off and drown their riders. If
14688-507: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Kelpie A kelpie , or water kelpie ( Scottish Gaelic : each-uisge ), is a shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Irish and Scottish folklore . It is usually described as a grey or white horse-like creature, able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that
14824-711: The latter. Others associate the term kelpie with a wide variety of legendary creatures. Counterparts in some regions of Scotland include the shoopiltee and nuggle of Shetland and the tangie of Orkney ; in other parts of the British Islands they include the Welsh ceffyl dŵr and the Manx cabbyl-ushtey . Parallels to the general Germanic neck and the Scandinavian bäckahäst have been observed; Nick Middleton observes that "the kelpie of Scottish folklore
14960-503: The marishes boometh the bittern , Neckar the soulless one sits with his ghittern. Sits inconsolable, friendless and foeless. Waiting his destiny, – Neckar the soulless. (The source has "bloometh" for "boometh", but this is an error; a bittern is not a plant but a bird, and it is known for its booming call. A "ghittern" is a guitar. The spelling "Nickar" vice "Neckar" is sometimes used.) In Scandinavia, water lilies are called "nix roses" ( näckrosor / nøkkeroser ). A tale from
15096-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
15232-620: The mountains to homesteads or houses. Some are still seen in Húsavík in Sandoy and on Eiði in Eysturoy and the big rocks that are gathered together there bear witness to how strong he is. At Takmýri in Sandoy lies one huge rock, which they wanted to have him draw to Húsavík, but his tail broke here, and the stone remains there. One part of the nykur 's tail, which was attached to the stone,
15368-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
15504-537: The notoriously nasty creature has the Highlander James MacGrigor taking it by surprise and cutting off its bridle, the source of its power and life, without which it would die within twenty-four hours. As the kelpie had the power of speech, it attempted unsuccessfully to bargain with MacGrigor for the return of its bridle. After following MacGrigor to his home, the kelpie asserted that MacGrigor would be unable to enter his house while in possession of
15640-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
15776-413: The river, drowning the rider. The brook horse could also be harnessed and made to plough, either because it was trying to trick a person or because the person had tricked the horse into it. The following tale is a good illustration of the brook horse: A long time ago, there was a girl who was not only pretty but also big and strong. She worked as a maid on a farm by Lake Hjärtasjön in southern Nerike . She
15912-511: The same spirit. Commentators have disagreed over the kelpie's aquatic habitat. Folklorists who define kelpies as spirits living beside rivers, as distinguished from the Celtic lochside-dwelling water horse ( each-uisge ), include 19th-century minister of Tiree John Gregorson Campbell and 20th-century writers Lewis Spence and Katharine Briggs . This distinction is not universally applied however; Sir Walter Scott for instance claims that
16048-475: The sirens, the Nixie by her song draws listening youth to herself, and then into the deep." According to Grimm, they can appear human but have the barest hint of animal features: the nix had "a slit ear", and the Nixie had "a wet skirt". Grimm thinks these could symbolise they are "higher beings" who could shapeshift to animal form. One famous Nixe of recent German folklore , deriving from 19th-century literature,
16184-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
16320-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
16456-473: The third act of Götterdämmerung . Eventually, Brünnhilde returns it to them at the end of the cycle, when the fires of her funeral pyre cleanse the ring of its curse. Descendants of German immigrants to Pennsylvania sometimes refer to a mischievous child as "nixie". In the video game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege , the Danish operator Nøkk is named after the mythical creature. In The Nixie's Song ,
16592-475: The transportation of heavy mill stones. One folk tale describes how the Laird of Morphie captured a kelpie and used it to carry stones to build his castle. Once the work was complete, the laird released the kelpie, which was evidently unhappy about its treatment. The curse it issued before leaving – "Sair back and sair banes/ Drivin' the Laird o' Morphies's stanes,/ The Laird o' Morphie'll never thrive/ As lang's
16728-559: The very least that nøkker were entirely harmless to their audience and attracted not only women and children but men as well with their sweet songs. Stories also exist wherein the spirit agrees to live with a human who had fallen in love with him. Still, many of these stories ended with the nøkk returning to his home, usually a nearby waterfall or brook. (Compare the legend of Llyn y Fan Fach in Wales.) The nøkker were said to grow despondent unless they had free, regular contact with
16864-405: The wet hem of their clothes. The Nixes are portrayed as malicious in some stories but harmless and friendly in others. The 1779 poem Der Fischer by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe handles of a fisherman who meets his end when he is lured into the water by a Nixe By the 19th century, Jacob Grimm mentions the Nixie to be among the " water-sprites " who love music, song, and dancing, and says, "Like
17000-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
17136-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
17272-579: Was Lorelei ; according to the legend, she sat on the rock at the Rhine which now bears her name and lured fishermen and boatmen to the dangers of the reefs with the sound of her voice. In Switzerland, there is a legend of a sea-maid or Nixe that lived in Lake Zug (the lake is in the Canton of Zug). The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang includes a story called " The Nixie of the Mill-Pond " in which
17408-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
17544-940: Was a female river mermaid . Similar creatures are known from other parts of Europe, such as the Melusine in France , the Xana in Asturias (Spain), and the Slavic water spirits (e.g., the Rusalka ) in Slavic countries. The names are held to derive from Common Germanic * nikwus or * nikwis(i) , derived from PIE *neigʷ ("to wash"). They are related to Sanskrit nḗnēkti , Greek νίζω nízō and νίπτω níptō , and Irish nigh (all meaning to wash or be washed). The form neck appears in English and Swedish ( näck , definite form näcken ). The Swedish form
17680-458: Was a magnificent piece of work resplendent with gold piers and posts, but sank into the water to become a treacherous area of quicksand after a grateful onlooker tried to bless the kelpies for their work. The same story is recorded by Folklore Society member and folklore collector Charlotte Dempster simply as The Kelpie's Bridge (1888) with no mention of Voughas or Fuoah. Quoting the same narrative Jennifer Westwood , author and folklorist, uses
17816-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
17952-417: Was believed to cause their death. Another belief was that if a person bought the nøkk a treat of three drops of blood, a black animal, some brännvin (Scandinavian vodka ) or snus (wet snuff) dropped into the water, he would teach his enchanting form of music. The nøkk was also an omen for drowning accidents. He would scream at a particular spot in a lake or river in a way reminiscent of
18088-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
18224-400: Was ploughing with the farm's horse on one of the fields by the lake. It was springtime and beautiful weather. The birds chirped, and the wagtails flitted in the girl's and the horse's tracks to pick worms. All of a sudden, a horse appeared out of the lake. It was big and beautiful, bright in colour and with large spots on the sides. The horse had a beautiful mane which fluttered in the wind and
18360-420: Was possibly a way to rationalise the drowning of children and adults who had accidentally fallen into deep, fast flowing or turbulent water. Historian and symbologist Charles Milton Smith has hypothesised that the kelpie myth might originate with the water spouts that can form over the surface of Scottish lochs, giving the impression of a living form as they move across the water. Sir Walter Scott alludes to
18496-511: Was thought to be most active during Midsummer's Night , Christmas Eve, and Thursdays. However, these superstitions do not necessarily relate to all the versions listed here. Many, if not all, developed after the Christianizing of the northern countries, as was the case of similar stories of faeries and other entities in other areas. When malicious nøkker attempted to carry off people, they could be defeated by calling their name; this
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