Tradition / Region: Luxembourg Mythology
Alternate Names: Kittelsmännchen, Echternach Goblin
Category: Goblin
The Myth
In the buildings of Echternach Abbey there once haunted a goblin known as the Kiddelsmehnchen. He was said to tease and trouble the inhabitants in many ways.
An old man who worked in an outbuilding, burning potash day and night, was often visited by the little being. While the man sat quietly beside his cauldron, praying with his face buried in his hands, the goblin would sometimes enter and begin hammering loudly on a nearby anvil. Sparks flew, the building shook with the noise, and yet the old man remained calm. After a time, the strange blacksmith would leave as silently as he had come.
The same man was sometimes tasked with guarding a nearby cloth bleaching ground at night. Once he saw someone moving about the canvas in the darkness. He called out, but received no reply, and followed the figure toward the door. Just as he reached out to seize the supposed thief, the figure vanished into thin air. Only then did he realize that the Kiddelsmehnchen had tricked him.
The goblin also frightened others in the abbey. When the porters sat quietly in the evening and the children were already in bed, the creature would cause loud clattering, banging, and cries in the corridors and stairways, as though horses and donkeys were running through the building and terrified children were calling for help. But whenever people rushed out to investigate, everything was silent and no trace could be found.
At other times the goblin would drop from the roof in the form of a barrel, causing a terrible crash. When the people gathered to see what had happened, they found nothing at all.
Thus the Kiddelsmehnchen continued to trouble the abbey with its tricks and noises, appearing and disappearing at will.
Gallery
Sources
sagen.at contributors. (n.d.). Das Kiddelsmehnchen (Kittelsmännchen) zu Echternach. In sagen.at, from https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/luxemburg/Kittelsmaennchen.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive