The farmer now got angry, and he said, "Do but be quiet, my child; I should be a fool to put myself into a passion with such a little brat. Never fear, I shall soon make you tame enough."

So saying, he ran home with him, and clapped him into a black, sooty, iron pot, and put the iron lid upon it, and laid on the top of the lid a great heavy stone, and set the pot in a dark cold room, and as he was going out he said to him, "Stay there, now, and freeze till you are black! I'll engage that at last you will answer me civilly."

Twice a-week the farmer went regularly into the room and asked his little black captive if he would answer him now; but the little one still obstinately persisted in his silence. The farmer had now, without success, pursued this course for six weeks, at the end of which time his prisoner at last gave up. One day as the farmer was opening the room door, he, of his own accord, called out to him to come and take him out of his dirty stinking dungeon, promising that he would now cheerfully do all that was wanted of him.

The farmer first ordered him to give him his history. The black one replied, "My dear friend you know it just as well as I, or else you never had had me here. You see I happened by chance to come too near the cross, a thing we little people may not do, and there I was held fast and obliged instantly to let my body become visible; so, then, that people might not recognise me, I turned myself into an insect.

But you found me out. For when we get fastened to holy or consecrated things, we never can get away from them unless a man takes us off.

That, however, does not happen without plague and annoyance to us, though, indeed, to say the truth, the staying fastened there is not over pleasant. And so I struggled against you, too, for we have a natural aversion to let ourselves be taken into a man's hand." "Ho, ho! is that the tune with you?" cried the farmer: "you have a natural aversion, have you? Believe me, my sooty friend, I have just the same for you; and so you shall be away without a moment's delay, and we will lose no time in making our bargain with each other. But you must first make me some present." "What you will, you have only to ask,"

said the little one: "silver and gold, and precious stones, and costly furniture--all shall be thine in less than an instant."--"Silver and gold, and precious stones, and all such glittering fine things will I none," said the farmer; "they have turned the heart and broken the neck of many a one before now, and few are they whose lives they make happy. I know that you are handy smiths, and have many a strange thing with you that other smiths know nothing about. So come, now, swear to me that you will make me an iron plough, such that the smallest foal may be able to draw it without being tired, and then run off with you as fast as your legs can carry you." So the black swore, and the farmer then cried out, "Now, in the name of God; there, you are at liberty," and the little one vanished like lightning.

Next morning, before the sun was up, there stood in the farmer's yard a new iron plough, and he yoked his dog Water to it, and though it was of the size of an ordinary plough, Water drew it with ease through the heaviest clay-land, and it tore up prodigious furrows. The farmer used this plough for many years, and the smallest foal or the leanest little horse could draw it through the ground, to the amazement of every one who beheld it, without turning a single hair. And this plough made a rich man of the farmer, for it cost him no horse-flesh, and he led a cheerful and contented life by means of it. Hereby we may see that moderation holds out the longest, and that it is not good to covet too much.

_The Lost Bell_

A shepherd's boy belonging to Patzig, about half a mile from Bergen, where there are great numbers of the underground people in the hills, found one morning a little silver bell on the green heath, among the Giants'-graves, and fastened it on him. It happened to be the bell belonging to the cap of one of the little Brown ones, who had lost it while he was dancing, and did not immediately miss it, or observe that it was no longer tinkling in his cap. He had gone down into the hill without his bell, and having discovered his loss, was filled with melancholy. For the worst thing that can befall the underground people is to lose their cap, then their shoes; but even to lose the bell from their caps, or the buckle from their belts, is no trifle to them.

Whoever loses his bell must pass some sleepless nights, for not a wink of sleep can he get till he has recovered it.

The little fellow was in the greatest trouble, and searched and looked about everywhere; but how could he learn who had the bell? For only on a very few days in the year may they come up to the daylight; nor can they then appear in their true form. He had turned himself into every form of birds, beasts, and men; and he had sung and rung, and groaned and moaned, and lamented and inquired about his bell, but not the slightest tidings, or trace of tidings, had he been able to get. For what was worst of all, the shepherd's boy had left Patzig the very day he found the little bell, and was now keeping sheep at Unruh, near Gingst: so it was not till many a day after, and then by mere chance, that the little underground fellow recovered his bell, and with it his peace of mind.

He had thought it not unlikely that a raven, or a crow, or a jackdaw, or a magpie, had found his bell, and from his thievish disposition, which is caught with anything bright and shining, had carried it into his nest; with this thought he had turned himself into a beautiful little bird, and searched all the nests in the island, and had sung before all kinds of birds, to see if they had found what he had lost, and could restore him his sleep; but nothing had he been able to learn from the birds. As he now, one evening, was flying over the waters of Ralov and the fields of Unruh, the shepherd's boy, whose name was Fritz Schlagenteufel (_Smite-devil_), happened to be keeping his sheep there at the very time. Several of the sheep had bells about their necks, and they tinkled merrily, when the boy's dog set them trotting.

The little bird, who was flying over them thought of his bell, and sung, in a melancholy tone,

Little bell, little bell, Little ram as well, You, too, little sheep, If you've my Tingletoo, No sheep's so rich as you My rest you keep.

The boy looked up and listened to this strange song which came out of the sky, and saw the pretty bird, which seemed to him still more strange:--"Odds bodikins!" said he to himself, "if one but had that bird that's singing up there, so plain that one of us would hardly match him! What can he mean by that wonderful song? The whole of it is, it must be a feathered witch. My rams have only pinchbeck bells, he calls them rich cattle; but I have a silver bell, and he sings nothing about me." And with these words he began to fumble in his pocket, took out his bell, and rang it.

The bird in the air instantly saw what it was, and was rejoiced beyond measure. He vanished in a second--flew behind the nearest bush--alighted and drew off his speckled feather-dress, and turned himself into an old woman dressed in tattered clothes. The old dame, well supplied with sighs and groans, tottered across the field to the shepherd's boy, who was still ringing his bell, and wondering what was become of the beautiful bird. She cleared her throat, and coughing up from the bottom of her chest, bid him a kind good evening, and asked him which was the way to Bergen. Pretending then that she had just seen the little bell, she exclaimed, "Good Lord! what a charming pretty little bell! Well! in all my life I never beheld anything more beautiful Harkye, my son, will you sell me that bell? And what may be the price of it? I have a little grandson at home, and such a nice plaything as it would make for him!" "No," replied the boy, quite short, "the bell is not for sale. It is a bell, that there is not such another bell in the whole world. I have only to give it a little tinkle, and my sheep run of themselves wherever I would have them go.

And what a delightful sound it has! Only listen, mother!" said he, ringing it: "is there any weariness in the world that can hold out against this bell? I can ring with it away the longest time, so that it will be gone in a second."

The old woman thought to herself, "We will see if he can hold out against bright shining money." And she took out no less than three silver dollars, and offered them to him: but he still replied, "No, I will not sell my bell." She then offered him five dollars. "The bell is still mine," said he. She stretched out her hand full of ducats: he replied, this third time, "Gold is dirt and does not ring." The old dame then shifted her ground, and turned the discourse another way. She grew mysterious, and began to entice him by talking of secret arts, and of charms by which his cattle might be made to thrive prodigiously, relating to him all kinds of wonders of them. It was then the young shepherd began to long, and he now lent a willing ear to her tales.

The end of the matter was, that she said to him, "Harkye, my child!

give me the bell and see! here is a white stick for you," said she, taking out a little white stick which had Adam and Eve very ingeniously cut on it, as they were feeding the herds of Paradise, with the fattest sheep and lambs dancing before them; and there was the shepherd David too, as he stood with his sling against the giant Goliath. "I will give you," said the old woman, "this stick for the bell, and as long as you drive the cattle with it they will be sure to thrive. With this you will become a rich shepherd: your wethers will always be fat a month sooner than the wethers of other shepherds, and every one of your sheep will have two pounds of wool more than others, and yet no one will be ever able to see it on them."

The old woman handed him the stick. So mysterious was her gesture, and so strange and bewitching her smile, that the lad was at once in her power. He grasped eagerly at the stick, gave her his hand, and cried, "Done! Strike hands! The bell for the stick!" And cheerfully the old woman struck hands, and took the bell, and went like a light breeze over the field and the heath. He saw her vanish, and she seemed to float away before his eyes like a mist, and to go off with a slight whiz and whistle that made the shepherd's hair stand on end.

The underground one, however, who, in the shape of an old woman, had wheedled him out of his bell, had not deceived him. For the under groundpeople dare not lie, but must ever keep their word; a breach of it being followed by their sudden change into the shape of toads, snakes, dunghill-beetles, wolves and apes; forms in which they wander about, objects of fear and aversion for a long course of years before they are freed. They, therefore, have naturally a great dread of lying. Fritz Schlagenteufel gave close attention and made trial of his new shepherd's-staff, and he soon found that the old woman had told him the truth, for his flocks, and his work, and all the labour of his hands prospered with him and had wonderful luck, so that there was not a sheep-owner or head shepherd but was desirous of having Fritz Schlagenteufel in his employment.

It was not long, however, that he remained an underling. Before he was eighteen years of age, he had gotten his own flocks, and in the course of a few years was the richest sheep-master in the whole island of Rugen; until at last, he was able to purchase a knight's estate for himself, and that estate was Grabitz, close by Rambin, which now belongs to the lords of Sunde. My father[244] knew him there, and how from a shepherd's boy he was become a nobleman, and he always conducted himself like a prudent, honest and pious man, who had a good word from every one. He brought up his sons like gentlemen, and his daughters like ladies, some of whom are still alive and accounted people of great consequence. And well may people who hear such stories wish that they had met with such an adventure, and had found a little silver bell which the underground people had lost.

_The Black Dwarfs of Granitz._

Not far from the Ahlbeck lies a little mansion called Granitz, just under the great wood on the sea-coast called the wood of Granitz. In this little seat lived, not many years ago, a nobleman named Von Scheele. Toward the close of his life he sank into a state of melancholy, though hitherto a very cheerful and social man, and a great sportsman. People said that the old man took to his lonesome way of living from the loss of his three beautiful daughters, who were called the three fair-haired maidens, and who grew up here in the solitude of the woods, among the herds and the birds, and who had all three gone off in the same night and never returned. The old man took this greatly to heart, and withdrew himself from the world, and all cheerful society. He had great intercourse with the little black people, and he was many a night out of the house, and no one knew where he had been; but when he came home in the gray of the morning, he would whisper his housekeeper, and say to her, "Ha, ha! I was at a grand table last night."

This old gentleman used to relate to his friends, and confirm it with many a stout trooper's and sportsman's oath, that the underground people swarmed among the fir-trees of Granitz, about the Ahlbeck, and along the whole shore. He used often, also, to show to those whom he took to walk there, a great number of little foot-prints, like those of very small children, in the sand, and he has suddenly called out to his companions, "Hush! Listen how they are, buzzing and whispering!"

Going once with some friends along the sea-shore, he all of a sudden stood still, as if in amazement, pointed to the sea, and cried out, "My soul! there they are again at full work, and there are several thousands of them employed about a few sunken casks of wine that they are rolling to the shore; oh! what a jovial carouse there will be to-night!" He then told his companions that he could see them both by day and by night, and that they did nothing to him; nay, they were his most particular friends, and one of them had once saved his house from being burnt by waking him in the night out of a profound sleep, when a firebrand, that had fallen out on the floor, was just on the point of setting fire to some wood and straw that lay there. He said that almost every day some of them were to be seen on the sea-shore, but that during high storms, when the sea was uncommonly rough, almost all of them were there looking after amber and shipwrecks, and for certain no ship ever went to pieces but they got the best part of the cargo, and hid it safe under the ground. And how grand a thing, he added, it is to live under the sand-hills with them, and how beautiful their crystal palaces are, no one can have any conception who has not been there.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] Arndt, Marchen und Jugenderinnerungen. Berlin, 1818.

[238] See above p. 96.

[239] A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 79) tells the same of the sand-hills of Nestved in Zealand. A Troll who dwelt near it wished to destroy it, and for that purpose he went down to the sea-shore and filled his wallet with sand and threw it on his back. Fortunately there was a hole in the wallet, and so many sand-hills fell out of it, that when he came to Nestved there only remained enough to form one hill more.

Another Troll, to punish a farmer filled one of his gloves with sand, which sufficed to cover his victim's house completely. With what remained in the fingers he formed a row of hillocks near it.

[240] Grimm, Deut. Myth., p. 502.

[241] Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 70.

[242] Grimm also appears to regard them as genuine.

[243] The population of Lusatia (_Lausatz_) is like that of Pomerania and Rugen, Vendish. Hence, perhaps, it is that in the Lusatian tale of the Fairy-sabbath, we meet with caps with bells, and a descent into the interior of a mountain in a kind of boat as in this tale: Wilcomm, Sagen und Marchen aus der Oberlausitz. Hanov. 1843. Blackwood's Magazine for June, 1844.

[244] Hinrich Vick's of course, for he is the narrator.

GERMANY.

Von wilden getwergen han ich gehoret sagen Si sin in holren bergen; unt daz si ze scherme tragen Einez heizet tarnkappen, von wunderlicher art-- Swerz hat an sime libe, der sol vil wohl sin bewart Vor slegen unt vor stichen. NIBELUNGEN, LIED st. 342.

Of wild dwarfs I oft have heard men declare They dwell in hollow mountains; and for defence they wear A thing called a Tarn-cloke, of wonderful nature-- Who has it on his body will ever be secure 'Gainst cutting and 'gainst thrusting.

The religion of the ancient Germans, probably the same with that of the Scandinavians, contained, like it, Alfs, Dwarfs, and Giants. The Alfs have fallen from the popular creed,[245] but the Dwarfs still retain their former dominion. Unlike those of the North, they have put off their heathen character, and, with their human neighbours, have embraced a purer faith. With the creed they seem to have adopted the spirit of their new religion also. In most of the traditions respecting them we recognise benevolence as one of the principal traits of their character.

The oldest monuments of German popular belief are the poems of the Heldenbuch (_Hero-book_) and the spirit-stirring Nibelungen Lied.[246]

In these poems the Dwarfs are actors of importance.

In this last-named celebrated poem the Dwarf Albrich appears as the guardian of the celebrated Hoard which Sifrit (Siegfried) won from the Nibelungen. The Dwarf is twice vanquished by the hero who gains his Tarn-kappe, or Mantle of Invisibility.[247]

In the Heldenbuch we meet with the Dwarf-king Laurin, whose garden Dietrich of Bern and his warriors broke into and laid waste. To repel the invader the Dwarf appears in magnificent array: twenty-three stanzas are occupied with the description of his banner, helmet, shield, and other accoutrements. A furious combat ensues, in which the Dwarf has long the advantage, as his magic ring and girdle endow him with the strength of twenty-four men, and his Hel Keplein[248]

(Tarnkappe) renders him invisible at pleasure. At length, by the advice of Hildebrand, Dietrich strikes off the Dwarf's finger, breaks his girdle, and pulls off his Hel Keplein, and thus succeeds in vanquishing his enemy. Laurin is afterwards reconciled to the heroes, and prevails on them to enter the mountain in which he dwelt, and partake of a banquet. Having them now in his power, he treacherously makes them all his prisoners. His queen, however, Ditlaub's sister, whom he had stolen away from under a linden, releases them: their liberation is followed by a terrific engagement between them and Laurin, backed by a numerous host of Dwarfs. Laurin is again overcome; he loses his queen; his hill is plundered of its treasures, and himself led to Bern, and there reduced to the extremity of earning his bread by becoming a buffoon.

In the poem named Hurnen Sifrit[249] the Dwarf Eugel[250] renders the hero good service in his combat with the enchanted Dragon who had carried off the fair Chrimhild from Worms, and enclosed her in the Drachenstein. When Sifrit is treacherously attacked by the Giant Kuperan, the ally of the Dragon, the Dwarf flings his Nebelkappe over him to protect him.

But the most celebrated of Dwarfs is Elberich,[251] who aided the emperor Otnit or Ortnit to gain the daughter of the Paynim Soldan of Syria.

Otnit ruled over Lombardy, and had subdued all the neighbouring nations.

His subjects wishing him to marry, he held a council to consider the affair. No maiden mentioned was deemed noble enough to share his bed. At last his uncle Elias, king of the "wild Russians," says:--