much, because she used to carry all dirt and foul water away from the house, and so they invited her to an Elf Wedding, at which they made her a present of some chips, which she put into her pocket. But when the bridegroom and the bride were coming home there was a straw lying in their way. The bridegroom got over it; but the bride stumbled, and fell upon her face. At this the servant-girl laughed out loud, and then all the elves vanished, but she found that the chips they had given her were pieces of pure gold. At Odensee another servant was not so fortunate. She was very dirty, and would not clean the cow-house for them; so they killed all the cows, and took the girl and set her up on the top of a hay-rick. Then they removed from the cow-house into a meadow on the farm; and some people say that they were seen going there in little coaches, their king riding first, in a coach much handsomer than the rest. Amongst the Danes there is another kind of elves--the Moon Folk. The man is like an old man with a low-crowned hat upon his head; the woman is very beautiful in front, but behind she is hollow, like a dough-trough, and she has a sort of harp on which she plays, and lures young men with it, and then kills them. The man is also an evil being, for if any one comes near him he opens his mouth and breathes upon them, and his breath causes sickness. It is easy to see what this tradition means: it is the damp marsh wind, laden with foul and dangerous odours; and the woman's harp is the wind playing across the marsh rushes at nightfall. Sometimes these elves take the shape of trees, which brings back to mind the Greek fairy tales of nymphs who live and die with the trees to which they are united.