jumped and laughed with delight when the
good old moon—who is not very thoughtful—
must needs send down for her, vain as she
already was, a crown of silver spangles.

Her pleasure, however, was a little marred
by the taunts of a jealous young witch, who
vowed that Princess Ilse could be no better
than a puddle, until she was crowned Queen
Boiling. Why should they be hot for her
till she was hot for them. Ilse thought of
reporting this rude speech to the Lord of the
Brocken, who stepped up to her soon afterwards;
but, before she could open her mouth,
he dipped his thumb into the shell and made
her shake with pain. Then the bad spirit
laughed, and said, "The night is chilly,
gracious princess, you are cold already, and will
soon be altogether frozen in this open shell.
I am ordering to be prepared for you a
warm bed, yonder, by the fire. Already your
nurse is filling it with toys that you may pass
your time agreeably." But you must know
that this warm bed was the witches' cauldron,
which an ugly ghost was filling with
toads, snakes, and all venomous things.

Great terror of the wicked company into
which she had fallen overcame the little Ilse.
In mortal agony she shrank her tender limbs
together, caught hold of her veil and pressed
it against her face to stifle the cry which
arose. "Ah!" she grieved to herself, "would
that I had followed the good spirit! He
meant well with me." As she looked round
about her in despair, she saw that she was
solitary upon her side of the mountain, all the
witches and bad spirits having then joined
hands to dance about the fire. Suddenly the
thought of escape possessed her. "Away!
away!" she murmured, "no matter whither.''
Quick as thought she stepped upon the
edge of the car, allowed the whiteness of her
feet and her transparent robes to slip out over
it, and held fast with both hands while she
looked anxiously back to see that there was
no one watching. Only the good old moon
who stood overhead saw her escaping; but she
looked up to the old moon with tearful eyes
that there was no resisting, and the moon
assuredly would have endured eclipse for
twenty years before she would have told
dear little Ilse's secret.

When Ilse saw that she was unobserved
she dropped from the shell, and tried to do it
gently, but the car was high and the block of
granite upon which it stood still higher; so
that, although the little one was very cautious,
yet there was a slight splashing as she
fell upon the earth, and, in sudden fear lest
this might have betrayed her, she slipped
underneath some stones. She had taken
off her crown of stars and left it in the
shell. This was no time for her to be a
princess, and she must glide quietly and
secretly away.

The little stream clung to the rocks,
beseeching them to shelter her. The old stones,
who had never before fell the touch of so
young and bright a creature upon their hard
bosom were strangely moved. They hung
fondly over the Princess Ilse, and no eye—not
even that of the moon—could see her as she
ran. Then they directed her way to a sly
hole in the earth, and into that she squeezed
herself. It was a long gallery that had been
excavated by a wood-mouse once upon a time.
She felt her way through it in the dark, and
perceived that the channel led her gradually
down the mountain. After she had groped
along quietly for some time, the passage
became wider and rougher, it seemed to lead
over loose rubble, and stones detached by
her footsteps rolled before into the depths.
A puff of wind penetrating downwards
through the stones now and then chilled her;
and, when the path, after making a steep and
sudden bend, seemed all at once to come to
an end, the stones ceased to hang over her,
and she could see the midnight heaven out
of which a few stars dropped their lights into
the wild chasm she had reached. At the same
time, the wind brought to her intelligence of
the scraping and piping of the dancing
witches on the Brockenberg; and little Ilse,
who had hesitated for a moment, not knowing
whither her path led, urged on by her fears,
bounded for wards, springing and leaping down
from stone to stone. Although she dashed
continually against hard masses of rock, and
tore her white robes to shreds, she never
heeded that. "Away! away!" she cried,
"far away, to where the Brocken prince and
his wild crew cannot come nigh me!"

The dawning light of the morning troubled
her. "The night," she thought, "is silent,
and would not betray me, but the gossiping
day will soon tell which way I am flying."
So she bent forwards, and slipped underneath
the stones, only coming out now and
then timidly, to drink a mouthful of sweet
air. Between lofty, thickly wooded mountain
ridges lies a deep dark green ravine,
sloping towards a valley. Into this the little
Ilse ran. Numberless pebbles had rolled
down from the mountain one over another,
into the depths of this ravine; and there they
lay entangled among pine-roots, overgrown
with moss, stern venerable fellows, not too
much inclined to make way for the little girl
of a stream, who came trotting over them in
so much haste.

But soon the forest spread out his great
arms, and took the little Ilse to his bosom.
The bosom of the forest is a holy place of
refuge. None of the wicked spirits can come
near it; least of all the demon Vanity—for
how should it dare to stand before the
solemn Pine-tree, who prides not himself on
strength and majesty, but with his sublime
head raised ever towards heaven, stands firm
and unchanged in the place assigned to him by
a wise Providence? The child of the rocks,
Ilse, did not at first understand the children
of the forest. She fancied that the pine-roots
made wry mouths at her, and she glided past