GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 181 



Bavarian and Tyrolese trud, drud, trute, triltl, Modern 

 German drude, denotes a witch, magic-working woman, 

 or spirit, who comes as an incubus at night. That the 

 trud who came and pressed the sleeper at night was, 

 like the witch's devil (see Essay IX. p. 23), often very 

 human, is evidenced by Bucher's tale of the Capuzine 

 Father, who found out that his trut was the kerzlerin, 

 i.e. the woman who sold votive candles in the church. 

 Trutennacht is Walpurgisnacht, the night of the great 

 witch feast and sexual gathering. Trutenbaum, Truten- 

 hausen, Trutenberg, are all suggestive place-names for 

 old folk - gatherings. Anglo - Saxon records show a 

 Thryat or Drida, a wood -maiden, who ultimately 

 married OfFa of Mercia, but is stated to have com- 

 mitted many evil deeds in both France and England. 1 

 Anglo-Saxon dry is magus, sorcerer, and dryas, male- 

 fid, enchanters, may possibly be connected. The 

 Drudenfuss is a well-known symbol of magic and of 

 protection from magic. It will be seen that the drude or 

 trut is in almost every respect identical with the hexe. In 

 folklore there is precisely the same relation to children, to 

 domestic animals, and to women in childbirth, as we find 

 in the case of the hexe. Just as in the latter word, the male 

 hexenmeister, so the druder, is derived from the female, 

 and we find just the same sexual cult on the same day. 



Carrying the word back, we find its sexual weight still 

 preserved but leading us in trut and trutina to mistress, 

 spouse, and bride, and in many women's names to some- 

 thing which denotes little more than female comrade. It 



1 Possibly a nursery variant of the Drude is Dame Trot ; she at any rate is 

 accompanied by the appropriate cat. Compare the German Frau Trutte. 



