The Heinzelmännchen () are helpful
household spirits or
kobolds
A kobold (; ''kobolt'', ''kobolde'', cobold) is a general or generic name for the household spirit (''hausgeist'') in German folklore.
It may invisibly make noises (i.e., be a poltergeist), or helpfully perform kitchen chores or stable work. ...
associated with the city of
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, akin to
brownies of Scotland.
It has become traditional to tell their story during
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
-tide.
The creatures are also loosely referred to as "elves",
rather in the sense of "
The Elves and the Shoemaker".
The little house gnomes are said to have done all the work of the citizens of Cologne during the night, so that the inhabitants of Cologne could be very lazy during the day. According to the legend, this went on until a tailor's wife got so curious to see the gnomes that she scattered peas onto the floor of the workshop to make the gnomes slip and fall. This infuriated the gnomes, who disappeared and never returned. From that time on, the citizens of Cologne had to do all their work by themselves.
Nomenclature
Hänneschen once used to be a commonplace character in Cologne's puppet theater.
The genuine Kölsch (
Colognian) dialect form should be (pl. ), while Heinzelmännchen is the normalized High German form.
A two-pronged theory on the origin of the name was proposed by (1976), first from the form "Heinzelmännlein" as a colloquial name for
mandrake
A mandrake is the root of a plant, historically derived either from plants of the genus '' Mandragora'' (in the family Solanaceae) found in the Mediterranean region, or from other species, such as '' Bryonia alba'' (the English mandrake, in the ...
dolls, which evolved into lore about them acting as animated house spirits. Secondly, other than being a personal name, "" or "" was the name for a water-draining contraption in the Erzgebirge mining region of Saxony. By extrapolation, its operators could have also been called Heinz, according to Rumpf.
Weyden (1826)
This legend of the Heinzelmännchen was first written down by the Cologne teacher
Ernst Weyden (1805–1869) in 1826.
It was translated into English by
Thomas Keightley
Thomas Keightley (17 October 1789 – 4 November 1872) was an Irish writer known for his works on mythology and folklore, particularly ''Fairy Mythology'' (1828), later reprinted as ''The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little ...
and published 1828 in his book ''The Fairy Mythology''.
Weyden's account opens thus:
While the lore of the Heinzelmännchen in the city of Cologne was very much alive until c. 1780 according to Weyden, everything about the sprite before that time remains completely in the dark. Weyden seems to have begun his "restoration" effort around 1821.
Kopisch's ballad (1836)
In 1836 the painter and poet
August Kopisch published a poem beginning with the words:
(also reprinted in his 1848 anthology
), which became immensely popular and garnered the poet his fame.
The opening lines run thus:
It has been asserted that the "literary" lore of Heinzelmännchen only became widely known through Kopisch's poem.
Criticism
Folklorist (1976) argued that the oral origins material
Ernst Weyden (1826) compiled was essentially the sole source Kopisch used to craft his ballad. Some of the underlying assumption, such as Weyden must have owned a considerable library of folkloric writings while Kopisch had none such, has been challenged by . Hilgers considers Weyden's effort to be a "restoration" of the Heinzelmännchen story begun in 1821.
In the HdA or , contributor
Lily Weiser-Aall
Lily Weiser-Aall (18 December 1898 – 26 February 1987), born Elisabeth Augusta Jeanette Weiser, was an Austrian philologist and ethnologist who specialized in Germanic studies.
Biography
Lily Weiser-Aall was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on 1 ...
classed the Heinzelmännchen as a "literary name" type of "kobold", crediting Kopisch for its fame.
Popular culture
Figures of Heinzelmännchen are is featured in various situations at Cologne's annual Christmas season markets held at the Heumarkt and the Alter Markt square (the "Heinzels Wintermärchen").
Monuments

In Cologne, a fountain () was installed on Straße Am Hof, near the
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral (, , officially , English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia belonging to the Catholic Church. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archd ...
and the city's oldest
brewery
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...
, the Früh. The fountain commemorates the Heinzelmännchen and the inquisitive tailor's wife, and was constructed 1897–1900 by the sculptor and his father . The tailor's wife sculpture was later replaced with a replica, while the original is held in display at (armoury).
Musical adaptations
The words were set to music by the German ''Lieder'' composer
Carl Loewe
Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe (; 30 November 1796 – 20 April 1869), usually called Carl Loewe (sometimes seen as Karl Loewe), was a German composer, tenor singer and conductor. In his lifetime, his songs ("Balladen") were well enough known for ...
, who published his "Die Heinzelmännchen" (the brownies), opus 83, in 1841.
A
carnival song about dedicated helpers "Heizemänncher" was authored by for the year 1844.
Eilenburg legend
The legend about the "little folk" localized in
Eilenburg
Eilenburg (; , ) is a town in Germany. It lies in the district of Nordsachsen in Saxony, approximately 20 km northeast of the city of Leipzig.
Geography
Eilenburg lies at the banks of the river Mulde at the southwestern edge of the D� ...
,
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
(''
Des kleinen Volkes Hochzeitsfest'', Grimms ''Deutsche Sagen'' No. 31) has inspired that city to promote their own Heinzelmännchen, including a mascot parodically named "Heinz Elmann".
See also
References
;Bibliography
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External links
Hans Hotter sings Löwe's setting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heinzelmannchen
Kobolds
Legendary gnomes
Culture in Cologne
Culture of Saxony