chambered mounds, Nilsson states that formerly this was also, a Lapp custom. Then he goes on to say:—
"The Laplanders, however, now live almost generally in huts, called "gammar" (which themselves are only modifications of the chambered mound). It is, therefore, very elucidative of our subject—continues Professor Nilsson—that at least, in one of our ancient Sagas it is expressly mentioned that a dwarf was living in a gamm. In Didrik of Bern's Saga (Chap, xvi) we are told how one day Didrik was out hunting on horseback in a forest, and that while chasing a stag, he saw a dwarf running at some distance from him. He hastened after him and seized hold of him before he had time to reach his gamm. The name of this dwarf was Alfrik; he was a famous thief and a great artificer. He had forged the sword Nageling, which was owned by Grim, whom he (the dwarf) advised Didrik to challenge."[1]
Now although Nilsson cites this as an exceptional instance, he omits to see that it is far from being so. It is merely a question of translation. The writer he quotes has employed the word still used to denote a Lapland mound-dwelling, whereas other writers make use of more archaic and descriptive terms. The name of the dwarf inhabiting this gamm was "Alfrik," and he appears in the Heldenbuch, the Vilkina saga and the Nibelungen Lied under various forms of the same name.[2] But the gamm inhabited by "Albric, the wild dwarf " of the Nibelungen Lied is, styled a "hollow hill." This is a perfectly correct description of the chambered mound, which is the prototype of the Lapp gamm. For the latter is obviously a modification of the former, "having the appearance of a large rounded hillock, which indeed it may be termed," to quote the words of a traveller of seventy years ago.[3]
If, therefore, the word gamm were to be substituted for the numerous terms which seem in old sagas and folk-tales (of which "pigmies," "hillock" and "elf hillock" are examples). Professor Nilsson's parallel would be still more clearly drawn.
- ↑ Op. cit., pp. 212-3.
- ↑ Grimm refers to him as "Alpris," more correctly Alfrikr," and again as Alfrigg, Elperich, Alerich, Alberon, Auberon, and Oberon (these three last being derived through the French, in the 13th century). However, as the name seems only to signify Elf King, it may have been applied to various dwarfs.
- ↑ Sir Arthur de Chapell Brooke, A Winter in Lapland, London, 1827, p.318.
