A man from Ettelbrück, known as old Walsdorf, was once plowing his field on the Haard hills. When he reached the end of one of the furrows, he found a piece of willow wood lying there with a small note attached. The note, it was said, came from the little gnomes, who asked him to make them a bread shovel.
When he reached the end of the field again, he found a tarte flambée lying there. He ate the gift and agreed to fulfill the gnomes’ request.
After finishing the bread shovel, he left it for them on Weiland’s Hill, as they had wished.
In a place called Fäsch near Dondelange, there stands a high rock that contains a large cave. This cave was said to have once been the dwelling of a family of gnomes, whose mother was known as Frau Holle.
One day, a farmer named Michel Wagner was plowing a field not far from the rock. Around ten o’clock he stopped to rest and smoke his pipe. As he sat there, he heard voices coming from within the rock, calling out: “Bake me a Pflamb! Me too, a Pflamb! Me too, a Pflamb!”
Amused, the farmer called back jokingly, “Me too, a Pflamb!”
When he returned to his work and later in the afternoon prepared to leave, he found that a fine cake was hanging from his plow. It was said to be so delicious that even the best confectioner of the time could not have baked a better one.
Sources
sagen.at contributors. (n.d.). Die Wichtelcher zu Dondelingen. In sagen.at, from https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/luxemburg/Wichtlein_Dondelingen.html
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Reckingen Gnome, The Helper of Peter Category:Gnome
The Myth
In a municipal forest near Mersch, between Reckingen and Hohlfels, there stands a rock grotto about twenty meters above the road from Mersch to Ansemburg. Long ago, gnomes were said to live there, and the rock is still called Wichtelcheslê, the Gnome’s Little Rock.
The people of the nearby villages regularly left food at the entrance to the grotto, though they never saw the gnomes during the day. At night, however, the little beings repaid the kindness. They worked the fields of those who fed them, and those without fields would find piles of firewood placed before their doors in the morning as a sign of gratitude.
At that same time, a hermit lived between Schönfels and Marienthal. He was beloved by the people, for he gave good advice and helped the sick whenever their illness could be cured. The gnomes supplied him with healing herbs, which he boiled in water drawn from the Hunnebur spring, a source believed to possess special healing powers, particularly for ailments of the eyes and skin.
Not far away, at Hohlfels Castle, lived a man named Steinhart. He had once been a servant to the lords of Hohlfels and had saved his master’s life at great risk. As a reward, he had been granted the castle and its lands for his lifetime. Yet he proved as hard as his name implied. Often drunk and violent, he made himself feared by all. He especially resented the hermit and the gnomes, because they were loved and respected throughout the region.
One day he struck the hermit with a stick, and the holy man barely escaped. Realizing he could no longer remain in his hermitage, the hermit fled to a rock grotto near Schönfels that connected by a hidden passage to the gnome cave at Wichtelcheslê. Though many knew he still lived nearby, people pretended he had vanished so Steinhart would not pursue him.
Unable to find the hermit, Steinhart decided instead to hunt the gnomes and drive them away. Although the entrance to their grotto was known, no one except the hermit could reach them, for a rock blocked the passage and could only be opened with a special device. The gnomes also had other secret exits unknown to anyone else.
One evening, Steinhart climbed onto a rock under which he had often seen small tracks. In the moonlight he finally saw the gnomes below, and among them, to his astonishment, the hermit himself. Hoping to crush them, he pushed down a heavy stone he had brought for the purpose. The stone missed its mark. The effort caused him to lose his balance, and he fell from the rock, shattering his body among the gnomes below.
Though mortally wounded, he still cursed them. The hermit urged him to reconcile himself with God, but Steinhart mocked him, declaring that he would rather become as hard as stone, true to his name. The hermit warned him to beware lest his wish be granted. As death approached, Steinhart begged that if he died there, they should carry him back to the rock from which he had fallen, where he would become stone if the hermit’s God truly had such power. After speaking these words, he died.
The gnomes carried his body back to the rock and seated him there with his back against the rise. When they returned the next day, they found only a stone in his place. From that time on, they avoided the spot. No one but the hermit and the gnomes knew what had happened to Steinhart. Years later, as the hermit lay dying, he revealed the story, but he died before he could name the exact place of the fall. In time, the gnomes themselves vanished from the region.
The narrator of the tale later claimed that in the area there still stands a solitary rock resembling a man, with a head, eyes, and a pointed hat. It is said to be Steinhart, turned to stone. Around the mountain, springs run down the slopes, and their waters petrify wood, grass, and moss.
In the district of Rosport, at the northern end of the Girster Forest, there is a place known as “am Komp.” In earlier times, it was said that little gnomes lived there in underground caves and grottoes.
These small beings were known to help the local people with their work. In return for their assistance, the farmers would leave food for them at the entrances to their underground dwellings.
One day, a woman from Rosport went to her field at “am Komp” with her young daughter to pick peas. While the mother worked, the child wandered off while playing among the flowers. As she moved farther away, a few little gnomes came to her. They approached the girl kindly and brought her precious silken cloths woven with threads of gold and silver.
When the mother returned and came near, the little men quickly ran away and vanished.
The gnomes are said to have disappeared forever, yet even today the caves and grottoes where they once lived are still pointed out in the place called “am Komp.”
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Lulzhausen Gnomes, House Gnomes of Kreschhaus Category:Gnome
The Myth
In the village of Lulzhausen stood a house known as Kreschhaus, where it was said the little gnomes had their entrance and exit.
Each evening, after supper, the people living in the house would place their leftover food on the kitchen cupboard. As they did so, they would say, “This is for the little gnomes,” and then they would go to bed without clearing the table or washing the dishes.
During the night, the unseen gnomes would come into the house. By morning, the inhabitants would find that the dishes had been carefully scrubbed and set back in their proper places. The house would be clean, and the food left out for them would be gone.
Thus the people knew the little gnomes had come in the night, eaten what was given to them, and repaid the kindness with their quiet work.
In the hedges around the village of Feulen, there are places where fragments of old walls still stand. The people of the area call these remains the Freimeieschlesser. Long ago, they were said to have been the castles and dwellings of the Wichtelcher, the little gnomes who once lived there.
These small beings were believed to have lived close to the people of Feulen. When villagers worked to close and maintain the hedges, the gnomes would join them and help with the labor. They worked quietly beside the humans, taking part in the daily tasks of the land.
In return for their help, the villagers shared their food with them. The gnomes were said to be small in stature, no taller than a child of three or four years old.
Though the gnomes are no longer seen, the broken walls in the hedges remain, and the people of Feulen remember them as the old homes of the little helpers who once worked and ate alongside their human neighbors.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Gnomes of the Hangels, Kontern Gnomes Category:Gnome
The Myth
In the land near the village of Kontern, on the slopes known as the Hangels, there were once small gnomes who lived beneath the earth in hidden grottoes.
They were quiet and unseen by most, dwelling in underground chambers carved into the hills. The people of Kontern believed these little beings were tireless workers, always busy in their hidden world beneath the soil. Wherever they lived, prosperity seemed to follow. Fields grew well, homes prospered, and the land felt blessed.
It was said that their presence brought good fortune and abundance to everything around them. Though they rarely revealed themselves, their work could be felt in the thriving land and the luck enjoyed by the people above.
Even after they were no longer seen, stories of the industrious gnomes of the Hangels continued to be told in Kontern, remembering the time when the hills themselves were said to shelter these small bringers of blessing.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Melusina, Melusine of Luxembourg, Water Nymph of the Alzette Category: Mermaid, Shapeshifter, Nymph
The Myth
Long ago, Count Siegfried, a noble knight, became lost while hunting and came upon a deep valley where the Bock rock rises above the Alzette River. There he heard a wondrous song and saw a beautiful maiden seated upon the ruins of an ancient castle. She was Melusina, a water nymph of the valley. When she noticed him, she veiled her face and vanished with the setting sun.
The vision never left Siegfried’s mind, and he returned again and again to the valley. At last he met the maiden once more and confessed his love. Melusina agreed to marry him, on the condition that she would never be forced to leave the rock and that he must never seek her presence on Saturdays, when she wished to be alone. Siegfried swore to honor this oath.
To bring her home, he exchanged his lands for the barren Bock rock and, with supernatural help, built a great castle upon it. He married Melusina, and they lived happily together, and she bore him seven children. Yet each Saturday she withdrew to her chamber and locked herself away.
After many years, stirred by the suspicions of others, Siegfried resolved to learn her secret. One Saturday he crept to her door and looked through the keyhole. Inside he saw Melusina bathing in a wave-filled chamber, combing her long golden hair. But below her waist her body ended in a monstrous fishtail that lashed the water. With a cry of horror, he revealed himself. At once Melusina sank into the depths of the rock and was lost to him forever.
After her disappearance, a white figure was sometimes seen at night rocking her youngest child. It is said that Melusina still appears every seven years above the Bock rock in human form, begging to be freed. If no one rescues her, she cries out that not yet seven years have passed and sinks back into the stone.
Once, a soldier on night watch encountered her. She told him that to free her he must stand behind the altar in the Dominican church at midnight for nine consecutive nights. On the tenth night she would appear as a fiery serpent holding a key in her mouth, which he must take with his own mouth and throw into the Alzette River. Only then would she be redeemed and the ancient fortress rise again.
The soldier kept the vigil for eight nights but arrived late on the ninth. That night terrible roaring was heard around the Bock rock, and the chance of her redemption was lost.
Since then Melusina is said to circle the rock and cry out whenever danger threatens the city. Every seven years she is believed to make a single stitch on a mysterious garment she is weaving from flax that grows upon the bare rock. When the garment is finished, she will be freed — but it is said that the city itself will then fall into ruin.
And so Melusina remains bound beneath the Bock to this day, waiting for the one who will finally release her.
Long ago, the fairy Pressine married a mortal king on the condition that he would never look upon her while she gave birth. He broke his promise, and Pressine left him, taking their daughters to the Isle of Avalon. When her daughter Mélusine learned of her father’s betrayal, she punished him with magic. For this act, Pressine cursed her: every Saturday, from the waist down, Mélusine would become a serpent. Only if a husband swore never to look upon her on that day could she live in peace.
Years later, a nobleman named Raymondin, grieving after accidentally killing his uncle, met Mélusine beside a forest spring. She comforted him and promised him prosperity and glory if he would marry her and swear never to seek her out on Saturdays. Raymondin agreed.
Their marriage brought great fortune. Mélusine built magnificent castles in a single night and bore many sons. The lands flourished under her care. For years Raymondin kept his oath, but at last suspicion overcame him. He spied upon her on a Saturday and saw her in her bath, beautiful above but coiled into a serpent below.
Though he kept silent at first, he later denounced her publicly in anger, calling her a monster. With a terrible cry, Mélusine transformed into a dragon and flew from the castle tower, vanishing from the world of men.
It is said she still returns to watch over her children, and that her wailing is heard around the towers of her descendants whenever death approaches their house.
On the hanging slopes known as the Hangels near Kontern, people once believed that small gnomes lived hidden away in underground grottoes. These little folk were never loud or boastful, but their presence was felt everywhere. Where they lived, the land prospered, work went smoothly, and good fortune seemed to settle like a quiet blessing.
The Hangel gnomes were known above all for their tireless industriousness. Night after night, unseen by human eyes, they labored beneath the earth, tending to their hidden dwellings and quietly influencing the world above. Fields grew better, households flourished, and misfortune kept its distance wherever the gnomes remained undisturbed.
Though no one could say exactly when they vanished, the stories insist that something was lost when they did. The Hangels became silent, and the easy flow of luck faded. Even so, the people of Kontern still remember that their hills were once home to diligent little beings who worked in secret and filled the land with prosperity simply by dwelling beneath it.
