Peter Munk approached them and asked if they could give him a night’s lodging, and they received him kindly and hospitably, never so much as asking for his name or where he came from. They gave him cider to drink and in the evening they roasted a large woodcock for his supper, one of the daintiest morsels to be had in the Black Forest. When they had made a good meal the housewife and her daughters seated themselves round a big blaze of light, which the youths kindled from the resinous pine-wood, and commenced plying their distaffs, the old grandfather, the guest, and the master sat smoking and watching the women at their work, but the young men of the family busied themselves fashioning wooden spoons and forks. Out in the woods a storm raged and howled amongst the pine-trees. Now and again there was the sound of a falling tree or the cracking of branches as they were torn from the parent stem. The fearless youths would have run out into the wood in order to watch the fearful but grand spectacle, but their grandfather forbade them. “No one wandering in the wood to-night would ever return,” said he. “Without doubt Dutch Michael is abroad and seeks a new raft-load in the forest.” The boys had heard many a time of Dutch Michael; but nevertheless they begged their grandfather to tell them a story about him. Peter Munk, too, who had only heard vague reports about him in his own part of the country, joined his requests to that of the boys and asked him to tell him who he really was and where he lived. “Why, to think you don’t know that now,” said the old man. “You must have come from the other side of the forest then, if not further away. I will tell you all I know of Dutch Michael. “Some hundreds of years ago, so the story goes, there were no more honest and respectable folks to be found far and wide than the Black Foresters. It is only since so much money came into the country that folks have become dishonest and wicked. Nowadays on a Sunday young men dance and smoke, and swear, enough to make one’s hair stand on end, but in those days it was different, and even though he stands at the window and hears me say it, I maintain that Dutch Michael is at the root of all the evil. “More than a hundred years ago there lived a rich timber merchant, who had many work-people and whose business was carried on from here to far down the Rhine. He was a good pious man and a blessing rested on all his ventures. “One evening there came to his door a man the like of whom he had never seen before. He wore the dress of a Black Forester, but he was a great deal taller than the tallest man and one could scarcely believe it possible for there to be such a giant. “He asked for work and the merchant, seeing that he looked so strong and likely to be able to carry heavy burdens, asked what wages he required and soon came to terms with him.