Fairy Circles Part 20

As Christianity became more powerful, the cloister, formerly a centre of holy influence, became the seat of arrogance and idle luxury, and the water-elf, who knew that the G.o.d whom he hated was a righteous judge, who would punish evil, often sat on moonlight nights among the willows gazing at the cloister, from whose lighted windows came the noise of clinking gla.s.ses and wild revelry. Then he murmured between his teeth--

"I shall live to see you brought to shame! Your G.o.d cannot suffer such doings, and I shall have my revenge."

And he did live to see it.

One night, when, instead of pious hymns, drinking-songs were ascending from the cloister cells, a dark storm-cloud spread across the sky.

Thunder growled and lightning flashed, making all nature tremble. Men fell on their knees; the monks alone heeded not the voice of the Almighty. At every peal of thunder they raised their voices in the vain attempt to drown with their wild chorus the tumult without.

Then came an awful flash, which gleamed like a coronet of fire on the summit of the tower, and darted through the roof to the refectory, where in one moment its deadly shaft sent all the profane and G.o.dless scoffers before the throne of the eternal. The flame next seized the furniture of the hall, and it was not long till the fire burst from the shattered windows, for every hand was still that might have been raised to check its progress.

The water-sprite sat on a stone at the river's edge, contentedly watching the awful spectacle.

Every moment the flames gained greater force. Their fiery tooth gnawed beam and pillar till they burst asunder with a crash, and at last the devouring element rose from the ruined pile below to the belfry tower.

Then the bell, swayed by the heat, began to stir. Faster and faster came the strokes, like a cry of anguish or a mournful knell sounding in wild and awful tones through the uproar of the storm. The beams from which it hung gave way, and with a great swing it fell into the Saale, making the water foam and hiss as it felt the glowing metal.

The tower fell in, and the stately building was changed into a ma.s.s of smoking ruins.

Gradually the rage of the elements was stilled, and nature sank again to peaceful repose. The clouds were parted, and from the once more azure sky the moon looked down on the heaps of rubbish with the same mild and gentle glance as it used formerly to cast on the proud cloister.

And what of the water-fairy. The downfall of his foes almost reconciled him with his lot. The hated chimes no longer reached his ear, reminding him of what he so wished to forget, his lost dominion.

The bell had found a resting-place on a beautiful green meadow which lay at the bottom of the Saale. The sprite planted water-lilies all round it, just as human beings adorn graves with the fairest of flowers. Then he built a crystal castle right in front of it, and brought home as his bride a beautiful water-fairy from the neighbouring river, Elbe.

After a time children played in the sh.e.l.l-adorned halls of the crystal castle, two beautiful boys with bright eyes and little red caps, and their sister, a gentle little water-elf, as sweet and beautiful as her relations of the land, the fairies of mountains and trees.

The sons were like their father; they hated the human race, of whom the old fairy had told them nothing but evil, and they helped him every St. John's day to entice some heedless mortal down into the stream.

Their lovely little sister was of a very different stamp. A secret longing drew her heart towards the land and its inhabitants, and it was only by the sternest prohibition that her father could induce her to remain at home. But at night, when sleep reigned in the crystal castle, she would rise to the surface of the water, take her stand on the great white water-lilies, which willingly joined to do her service, and thus on this slender raft she would float up and down the stream. Her long fair hair flowed down till it touched the water; in her white arms she held a golden harp; and when she touched the strings and sang her sweet songs that told of her longing after the beautiful sunlight, after the blue sky and the unknown human race, the trees bowed their tall heads to the water's edge, the birds hushed their song, and even the night-wind held his breath while he listened to the music of the little water-sprite.

It was once more St. John's day, and the old water-elf was in one of his tempers.

The sun was shining on the river, and its rays flashed back in rainbow hues from the crystal pillars of the water-castle. The meadows in the cool bed of the Saale showed their freshest green, and the long gra.s.s waved to and fro among the water, while fishes and water-beetles darted between its stalks like golden stars.

The two boys sharpened their scythes and began to mow the gra.s.s, for it was haymaking time. Their sister stood among the lilies beside the great bell, holding one of the white flowers in her hand, and striking the metal with its slender stem, so that it answered her in strange and mellow tones. But she did it softly, very softly, for she knew how hateful the sound of the old bell was to her father, especially on this day. The sound was deep and musical, reminding the little fairy of the chimes which she sometimes heard on quiet nights, as she floated up and down the river on her raft of water-lilies.

Pleased with the dear, familiar tones, she forgot that her father was near, and she struck the bell so loudly that the sound, borne on the waves, thrilled through the castle, where the old fairy was leaning, lost in thought, against a pillar, pa.s.sing his fingers through his grey-green beard, and dreamily watching his sons at their work.

When the hated sound struck on his ear, he started up with a cry of anger, and looked fiercely at his trembling daughter. But before he had time to give vent to his wrath a shadow fell over the palace and meadow, followed by a crash, as if something had been broken in the castle.

And such was indeed the case.

A boat was pa.s.sing slowly through the waves above; the steersman had happened to let the rudder fall, and its iron point struck with such force against one of the crystal panes of the water-sprite's palace that it fell, shattered into a thousand pieces.

This was too much for the enraged fairy. He rose foaming through the water, and stood with flaming eyes before the boatman. "Insolent man,"

he growled, "what hast thou done? Repair the injury at once. If the pane is not replaced within half-an-hour, thou shalt pay for it with thy life."

The boatman laughed. "I don't understand glazier's work," said he, "and I shall hardly be able to find any one who could work down there in the water; so I cannot satisfy your demand. But as for your threats, my good fellow, the time of your authority is long gone by.

There is not even a child now who fears you; and, besides, I have a cargo of steel bars, and you know, my dear waterman, that they would prevent you from coming into my boat to do me any harm."

At the mention of steel, a metal very hurtful to water-elves, the fairy unwillingly retired. He cast one more look of anger on the bold boatman, and on the little girl, who, on seeing the wrathful apparition, had clung terrified to her father's arm; then he slowly sank into the water. He sat down in his crystal hall, leaned his head on his hand, and tried to devise some plan by which he could entice the little girl from the boat into his kingdom, and, by choosing her as the victim of the day, avenge himself on the boatman.

"I have it!" he cried at length; "the trick with the green ribbon that I learned the other day from my cousin the water-prince in Bohemia will be of use to me now. To-day there is some great ceremony in the next village, and I am sure the father will send his child there to have her out of my way, and then I may find an opportunity of trying my skill."

So saying, he put on his hat of plaited rushes, drew on his green coat, and rose to the surface to place himself not far from the boat among the willows by the river's brink.

He had guessed rightly. Though the boatman had seemed courageous when speaking to the water-sprite, a secret uneasiness rankled in his heart. It was not for himself he feared, but for his only child; for he had seen the wicked glance that the waterman had cast on the girl as he disappeared beneath the stream. He consulted his wife about what they ought to do for their child's safety; for they knew well the dangers of St. John's day, which the mischance with the rudder had unhappily doubled.

In the next village lived a distant relation, and the fair gave an excellent excuse for paying her a visit. The little girl dressed herself in her best, said good-bye to her parents, and received injunctions to stay all night with her friends, and not return to the boat before morning. Joyfully she hastened along the high-road, which lay for some distance by the river-side, till she came to the place where the water-sprite sat so quietly in his summer clothes, that no one would have recognised in him the angry and revengeful spirit of the morning.

"Where are you going so briskly, fair maiden?" he asked pleasantly.

"To the village, to the dance!" answered the little one merrily; "don't you hear the music?"

"My dear child," said the water-sprite artfully, "the girls there are all so finely dressed that you in your plain clothes will look very shabby among them, and perhaps you will not even be able to get a partner. But look at this lovely ribbon, of which I have such a quant.i.ty. If you had that twined in among your golden hair, or wound as a sash round your slender waist, you would outshine all the girls at the fair."

The little one, who had thought until the old man spoke to her that she would never get soon enough to the dance, now stopped, and looked with a critical eye, first on herself, and then on the bright green ribbon, which the water-sprite was pulling in endless lengths from the river which flowed on the other side of the willows.

"Look how pretty it is!" said he, and she let him wind it, as if to try the effect, around her slender form.

But immediately she was in the old fairy's power. With a mocking laugh, he said--

"Now, my little one, thou art mine! We shall see whether thy father will say to-morrow that my authority is overthrown, and that I have no longer power to frighten a child. Come!"

As he spoke he seized the ribbon, and walked towards the river.

The terrified child began to scream, but father and mother were far away. She tried to escape, but the ribbon forced her to follow the water-sprite. Her feet would bear her in no other direction, no matter how she tried. Nearer and nearer to the rushing stream was she drawn by the dreadful ribbon. Soon the water touched her feet.

"Father, mother, farewell!" she cried in a voice of anguish. Then the old water-elf caught her in his arms, and, with a horrid laugh, plunged with her into the stream. The waters did their deadly work on the poor child's body, but the water-sprite kept the soul of the drowned girl prisoner at the bottom of the Saale. She could not mount to heaven; she could not even rejoice in the sunlight which pressed in softened radiance through the water to the meadow on the river's bed, nor might she play like the little water-elf with the silvery fishes.

Heedless of her entreaties, the water-man put her under the heavy bell among the lilies, and said, as he went back to his castle, "Here thou shalt stay in punishment for thy father's insolence; and my watchful eye and the weight of the bell will prevent any one from setting thee free."

He went away, and left the soul of the poor little girl alone in her prison. Her sighs and lamentations could not pierce through the thick metal walls, but they were only sent back to her in dismal echo.

Meantime the little water-elf stood outside the bell in sympathetic grief. She wound a garland of the fairest lilies round the little girl's corpse, carried it gently up through the water, and left it near the boat. The parents would never again see their dear child alive, but she had laid the little body in a soft bed of flowers, to make the sad sight less startling to their loving hearts.

Next morning, when the sun began to gild the waters of the Saale, the boatman left his cabin to make preparations for departure, while the mother, shading her eyes with her hand, stood looking along the high-road, where she expected every moment to see the child appear.

"Look there, wife!" said the boatman, pointing to an object in the water, which slowly approached the boat. "Look there! What is that?"

The woman turned to see. The waters of the Saale were gently bringing a great garland of blooming lilies, and in their midst lay, with closed eyes and folded hands, their loved and only child.

The little girl's soul sat beneath the bell. She could not leave her prison. Not a c.h.i.n.k was visible, and the heavy bell would not move one hairsbreadth, notwithstanding all her efforts.

"What will my father and mother say if I do not come home?" sighed the child's soul. "Oh, my poor dear parents! Never to see the pleasant sunlight or the blue sky! To stay down here for ever in this narrow, dark coffin--oh, how dreadful!" And if a soul could have died with terror, grief, and longing, that would certainly have been the fate of the little girl's spirit The hours pa.s.sed silently over her and her prison. The hours became days. How many had gone by? The little soul did not know. At last she sank into a kind of stupor, and almost ceased to feel.

But one day something approached her prison, the edge of the bell was raised, and the water-sprite's rough voice said, "Come out."

The opening through which the light was peeping was small, but souls, with their light transparent forms, do not need much s.p.a.ce, and in a moment the little spirit slipped out, and now stood trembling before the wicked water-man.

"Thou mayest play here for a little," he said; "but in an hour thou must return to the bell."