"Because we took pity on it," replied she. "You, who wear the tonsure and monk's habit, probably will not understand that. The stone stood outside, on yonder projecting rock, which must have been a consecrated spot, on which many have knelt probably, in the olden times. But in the present days nobody heeded it. The people here about, dried their crab-apples, or split their wood on it; just as it suited them; and the cruel rain has been washing away the figures. 'The sight of the stone grieves me,' said my mother one day. It was once something holy, but the bones of those, who have known and worshipped the man on it, have long been bleached white,--and the man in the flowing mantle looks as if he were freezing with the cold. So we took it up, and placed it beside the hearth, and it has never harmed us as yet. We know how the old Gods feel, when their altars are shattered; for ours also have been dethroned. You need not begrudge its rest to the old stone." "Your Gods?" said Ekkehard, "who are your Gods?" "That you ought to know best, for you have driven them away, and banished them into the depths of the lake. In the floods below, everything has been buried. The ancient rights and the ancient Gods! We can see them no more, and know but the places where our fathers have worshipped them, before the Franks and the cowl-bearing men had come. But when the winds are shaking the tops of yonder oak-tree, you may hear their wailing voices in the air; and on consecrated nights, there is a moaning and roaring in the forest, and a shining of lights; whilst serpents are winding themselves round the stems of the trees; and over the mountains you hear a rustling of wings, of despairing spirits, that have come to look at their ancient home." Ekkehard crossed himself. "I tell it thus as I know it," continued the old woman. "I do not wish to offend the Saviour, but he has come as a stranger into the land. You serve him in a foreign tongue, which we cannot understand. If he had sprung up from our own ground, then we might talk to him, and should be his most faithful worshippers, and maybe things would then fare better in Allemannia." "Woman!" cried Ekkehard wrathfully, "we will have thee burned ..." "If it be written in your books that trees grow up, to burn old woman with, very well. I have lived long enough. The lightning has lately paid a visit to the woman of the wood,"--pointing to a dark stripe on the wall,--"the lightning has spared the old woman." After this she cowered down before the hearth, and remained there motionless like a statue. The flickering coals threw a fitful, varying light on her wrinkled face. "Tis well," said Ekkehard as he left the chamber. Audifax was very glad when he could see the blue sky again over his head. "There they sat together," said he pointing upwards.