s. On the spot where this is said to have happened an actual battle
took place not very long after.[171] These two instances are unconnected
with the Sleeping Host; but many of the legends explicitly declare the
exercises of the host when it emerges from its retirement to consist of
a sham fight. Although the legends containing this account are not all
found among Teutonic peoples, it cannot be deemed irrelevant to draw
attention to the fact that similar fights are mentioned as the daily
occupation of the heroes who attain to Valhalla, just as the nightly
feasts of that roystering paradise correspond to the refreshments
provided for the warriors around the tables of stone in their
subterranean retreats. Whatever may have been the creed of other
European races, it is hardly to be doubted that in these German
superstitions we have an approach to the primitive belief, of which the
Eddaic Valhalla was a late and idealized development.

But we may--nay, we must--go further. For in the history of traditional
religions goddesses have been as popular as gods; and if we are right in
seeing, with Grimm, the archaic gods in the Hidden Heroes, some where
we must find their mates, the corresponding goddesses. We have already
had glimpses of them in Morgan the Fay, in the Emperor Frederick's
lady-housekeeper (_ausgeberin_) and in the maid who in another saga
attended on his bidding. The lady-housekeeper is expressly called in one
story Dame Holle. Now Dame Holle herself is the leader of a Furious
Host, or Wild Hunt, and has been identified by Grimm beyond any doubt as
a pagan goddess, like Berchta.

Let us take another story in which the female companion of the enchanted
hero appears. Near the town of Garz, on the island of Ruegen, lies a lake
by which a castle formerly stood. It belonged to an old heathen king,
whose avarice heaped up great store of gold and jewels in the vaults
beneath. It was taken and destroyed by the Christians, and its owner was
transformed into a great black dog ever watching his treasure. Sometimes
he is still seen in human form with helm, or golden crown, and coat of
mail, riding a grey horse over the city and the lake; sometimes he is
met with by night in the forest, wearing a black fur cap and carrying a
white staff. It is possible to disenchant him, but only if a pure
virgin, on St. John's night between twelve and one o'clock, will
venture, naked and alone, to climb the castle wall and wander backwards
t