Note 43 — APPENDIX.

This story may explain the origin of the Scotch proverb, “Deil tak’ the hindmost.”—There is another version of Sæmund’s mode of escape; viz.: That when he was about to be seized, pointing to his shadow on the wall, he said, “I am not the hindmost, don’t you see him that is coming behind me!” Old Nick then caught at the shadow, and thought it was a man; but Sæmund got out, and the door was slammed on his heels. But after that time, it is added, Sæmund was always without a shadow, for Old Nick would not let his shadow free again. Here, in this old-world story, we have the germ of Chamisso’s “Shadowless Man.” A.J.S.