POLYPHEMUS. (JANNSEN.)

Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas   

p. 38

IN the Esthonian version the Devil visits a locksmith, who promises to cast him new eyes. When the Devil calls for them, he binds him to a bench on his back, telling him that his name is Myself. He then pours molten tin into his eyes, and the Devil jumps up with the pain, and rushes out with the bench on his back, telling his companions that “Myself” has done it. He dies miserably, and the dog, fox, rat, and wolf bury him under the dung of a white mare. “Since this,” adds the narrator, “there has been no devil more.” There is a very similar story from Swedish Lappmark, in which the man who outwits and blinds a giant tells him that his own name is “Nobody.”¹

Footnotes

p. 38

¹ Poestion, Lappländische Märchen, p. 122. Another Lapp version, almost identical with Homer’s, is given by Latham, Nationalities of Europe, i. p. 237.