Hinzelmann

The principal narrative of Hinzelmann derives from the 1704 account Der vielförmige Hintzelmann (ascribed to Pastor Marquart Feldmann, purporting to describe events beginning in 1584) and was abridged by Jacob Grimm in Deutsche Sagen. The tale situates Hinzelmann as a household sprite attached to the castle Hudemühlen; some episodes in the narrative retrospectively link him to events placed earlier (for example an episode involving Lord Falkenberg dated 1550 in the tale). Grimm and the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens analyze the name-forms and group Hinzelmann with other cat-associated kobold names rather than as a deity or ancestor figure. Much of the detailed story (names of household members, particular episodes of mischief and aid) comes from that single early-modern diary-like narrative and later 19th-century folkloric commentary.

Descriptions and representations vary in the sources. The 1704 printed account Der vielförmige Hintzelmann includes a copperplate engraving showing the spirit as rather cherubic with a pair of feathered wings. In episodes from the Hudemühlen narrative Hinzelmann is also reported to have assumed the guise of a "white feather" when shadowing two noble ladies and when following the lord. No single fixed corporeal form is prescribed; accounts emphasize smallness, household presence, and occasional feather-like or winged aspects tied to specific episodes.

In the Hudemühlen narrative Hinzelmann performs household labor (washing dishes, scrubbing cookware), grooms horses, recovers lost items (e.g., revealing a lord's gold chain under a pillow), speaks with servants, gives advice and pep talks, sings rhymes, occupies his own furnished chamber (chair, table, bed), and requires a bowl of sweet milk with crumbled white bread left for him. He can punish servants (striking with a stick, thrashing a secretary caught in a tryst), pinch drunken men to instigate fights, and disclose hidden matters or predict misfortune (warned a colonel of a hunting mishap; foretold the death of a guest). The account begins with poltergeist-like banging noises before speech. He can change guise in particular episodes (appearing as a white feather) and follows some household members when they travel in those forms. The spirit declares a conditional link between his continued presence and the household's good luck: if allowed to stay the household prospers, if driven away luck will leave.