Hödekin
Hödekin is a kobold of German folklore. The name is a diminutive meaning "Little Hat", and refers to the pileus hat he wears, a common hat in Ancient Greece, and later various parts of Europe.
Hödekin is famously known for haunting the castle of Bishop Bernard, Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim, located in Lower Saxony. In some versions of the legend, the spirit is also said to have inhabited Winzenburg, a county the spirit reportedly helped the bishopric obtain.
Though Hödekin did not initiate harm, he was murderously vindictive. He dismembered a kitchen boy after the boy habitually insulted him and poured kitchen filth upon him. When the cook griped, the sprite tainted the meat for the bishop with toad blood and venom. Because the cook remained unfazed, Hödekin ultimately pushed the cook from a heights into a ditch, where he died.
Hödekin's actions weren't always malicious- he once helped a man by fiercely protecting his wife. When the man jokingly entrusted his wife to Hödekin during his absence, the sprite took it seriously and chased off every man who called on the adulterous wife. He also helped an idiot clerk appointed to the synod by giving him a ring made of laurel leaves that granted him knowledge and intelligence. Ultimately, the spirit's time in Hildesheim ended when the bishop exorcised him with ecclesiastical incantations and drove him out of the city.
Nomenclature
The spirit is called "the capped " in the Latin prose, with the German form given as Hütgin, and the "Saxon form" as Hüdekin. The "Saxon form" is spelt Hedeckin by Weyer, and Lower Saxon form Hödekecken by Francisci, who lists Hudgen and Hütchen as normalized forms.Praetorius provides the form "Hödekin". Grimm used the form "Hödeken" attested in a Lower Saxon dialect poem. Keightley also employed the form "Hödeken", but the name in the index was emended to "Hödekin" in Keightley's 1850 edition.
The sources consistently explain that the sprite wears peasant's clothing and a hat on its head. For this reason, he is called "Hüdekin" in the Saxon dialect. Wyl glosses the Latin noun form, deriving from the adjective ', as meaning "felt cap". Grimm's Deutsche Sagen retelling concurs and described the headgear it wears as a "felt hat".
The forms given by Hölling are various: Hödecken; Heidecke, Hoidecke, Hödecke, Heideke, Hödeke, Heideken. The Chronicon Luneburgicum records "VVinsenberch Hoideke", while 's Chronica Brunswicenses gives "Bodecke'''" as the sprite's name.
Historic background
The Hütchen's haunt is placed at the Stift Hildesheim, ostensibly the Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim. There, where the office held court, the spirit appeared and foretold to Bishop Bernhard of impending dangers. The Bishop of Hildesheim subsequently overtook Winzenburg, in Hildesheim, thanks in part to the sprite delivering new about the upheaval there, whereas the Grimms gave a fictive version of what happened.Historically, the transfer of Winzenburg followed the killing of by Herman I, Count of Winzenburg, around 1130, resulting in Herman's outlawry and loss of Winzenburg. The sources describe this, stating that the kinsmen of Burchard attacked in reprisal and began looting Winzenburg, but, the story claims, the sprite Hütchen alerted the Bishop of Hildesheim one step ahead, allowing the clergyman to assume control of the county of Winzenburg with the auspices of the Emperor.
Legend
The spirit named Hütgin had been seen by many in the diocese of Hildesheim, according to Trithemius's version. It would speak familiarly with people, both visibly and invisibly. It appeared in rustic clothing, and of course, the hat. It did not initiate harm, and only reciprocated. But it never forgot injury or insult, and paid back with shame befallen upon the perpetrator.Acting on Hütgin's tip, Bishop Bernard was able to seize Winzenburg, and annex the county to Church of Hildesheim. Grimm provides a different account, apparently taken from Bothonis Chronica Brunswicenses Picturatum, where Count Herman sleeps with the wife of a knight serving him, and the cuckolded knight sees no other way to redress his shame except by bloodshed, stabbing both the count and his pregnant wife to death, so that Winzenburg is forfeit without heir. This vacancy in the county is delivered as news by the sprite to the bishop, who consequently gains Wintzenburg and nearby Alfeld as added territory.
Kitchen murders
At the "Court" of the Bishop the spirit would frequently manifest himself in the kitchen doing some sort of service, and talking to people familiarly so that they stopped fearing him. Until, that is, the kitchen overstepped the sprite's tolerance by taunting and repeatedly splashing kitchen filth on the sprite. The sprite vowed revenge, and when the kitchen boy went to sleep, Hödekin strangled him, cut him to pieces, and put his flesh in a pot over the fire. The master chef who had not disciplined the boy in the first place, and now rebuked the kobold for the grotesque prank, became the next target. It prompted Hödekin to squeeze the blood and poisons of toads over the bishop's meat, and finally cast the cook into the castle's ditch or moat.According to the sources, it was in the aftermath of these poisonings and serial murders prompt the night guards of the city walls and castle to go on alert. Francisci add that there was suspicion the sprite might commit arson in an earlier passage to credit the sprite as performing an act of diligence to keeping the night watch alert.
The murder of the "Bishop of Hildesheim's Kitchen-boy" is retold in nursery rhyme fashion by American poet M. A. B. Evans.
Wife-guarding
A man residing in Hildesheim asked Hödekin to guard his wife while he was away. "My good fellow, just keep an eye on my wife while I am away, and see that all goes on right." When the wife was visited by several paramours Hödekin leapt between them and assumed terrible shapes, or threw them to the floor to scare them away before the wife could be unfaithful. When the husband returned, Hödekin complained, that safe-guarding the wife from debauchery was more challenging than keeping a giant herd of swine from all of Saxony.This tale is found in the various sources including the Latin. It is observed that the motif is paralleled by the medieval folktale about "wife-guarding" by Jakob von Vitry, about a man who grows tired of his unfaithful wife and leaves, commending her to the devil, who does the hard work of keeping the male adulterers away, and complains the job was even worse than keeping ten wild mares.
Wisdom ring
When a simple-minded idiot of a clerk got called to the synod, the spirit gave him the miracle of a ring made of laurel leaves and other things, which made the man extremely learned after some time.A vague parallel noted is the Lower Lusatian tale of "The ghostly dog and the laurel wreath", though in the latter tale, a man shadowed by the black dog gets rid of it after buying a laurel wreath.
Exorcism
The sources tell that the Bishop Bernard finally made use of his "ecclesiastical censures" or spells to exorcise the kobold from the premises.Golden nails
An episode of the Hütchen giving an impoverished nailsmith a magic piece of iron from which golden nails could be made; the spikes appearing in rolls out of the holes, and could be cut inexhaustibly without diminishing the ore. The Hütchen also gave the smith's daughter a roll of lace which could be meted out inexhaustibly without diminishing the supply.Oral Winzenburg version
The version "Hans mit dem Hütchen" set in Winzenburg is given in three parts. In the first,the spirit's namesake headwear is described, and it is said that only the large red tassel on its hat, or the large red hat itself was visible on the spirit. A kitchen maid pressed the spirit to show its entire form, and the spirit finally relented, instructing her her to go to the cellar, where she found a young child lying in a pool of blood. In the second, a kitchen boy of Winzenburg taunts Hans and suffers the fate of dismemberment. In the third, when the Count of Winzenburg lay dying, the spirit quickly built the , and deliver the news to the Bishop of Hildesheim, warning him to subjugate Winzenburg before the Braunschweiger forces arrive.