Foxes also, have to bear their disappointments in life; therefore it drew in its tail, and hid itself in the bushes. The two children had gone on for about an hour, when they reached the top of the Hohenkrähen. Hidden amongst trees, there stood a small stone hut, before which they stopped. "The dog is sure to bark," said Hadumoth. But no dog was heard. They approached nearer and saw that the door stood wide open. "The woman of the wood is gone," they said. But on the high rock on the Hohenkrähen, a small fire was still faintly burning; and dark shadows could be seen gliding about it. Then the children crept along the steep path leading up to the rock. The first gleam of the coming dawn, was already visible over the Bodensee. The path was very narrow, and a projecting piece of rock, over which a mighty oak-tree spread out its branches hid the fire from their view. There, Audifax and Hadumoth cowered down, and peeped round the corner. Then they saw, that some big animal had been killed. A head, apparently that of a horse, was nailed to the stem of the oak; and weapons as well as a quantity of bones, lay scattered about; while a vase filled with blood, stood beside the fire. Around a roughly hewn piece of rock, serving as table, a number of men were sitting. On it, stood a big kettle of beer, out of which they filled and refilled their stone jugs. At the foot of the oak, sat a woman, who was certainly not so lovely, as the Allemannic virgin Bissula; who inflamed the heart of the Roman statesman Ausonius, in spite of his age, to such a degree that he went about in his prefecture, spouting poetry in her praise: "her eyes are blue as the colour of the Heavens, and like gold is her wavy hair. Superior to all the dolls of Latium, is she, a child of the barbarians; and he who wants to paint her, must blend the rose with the lily."[8] The woman on the Hohenkrähen was old and haggard. The men were looking at her; whilst the dawn was evidently spreading in the east. The mists hanging over the Bodensee, began to move, and now the sun was casting his first ray on the hills, burnishing their tops with gold. The fiery ball itself had just risen on the horizon, when the woman jumped up; the men following her example. She swung a bunch of mistletoe and fir-tree branches over her head, and then dipping it into the vase, three times sprinkled the bloody drops towards the sun; three times also over the men, and then poured out the contents of the vase, at the foot of the tree. The men all seized their jugs, and rubbing them in a monotonous way, three times on the smooth surface of the rock, to produce a strange humming noise, lifted them together towards the sun, and then drained them at one draught. The putting them down again, sounded like one single blow, so simultaneous, was the movement. After this everyone put on his mantle, and then they all went silently down hill. It was the first night of November.