The noble lady and the sturgeon have furnished the theme for the famous novel, “La Manekine,” and later, in the Middle Ages, for a great dramatic mystery on the French stage. {421}Before concluding this chapter, I may be allowed to say a word about the _World of the Dead_, which sends in certain consecrated nights its representatives to some of the churches, or to silent dinners, and about the _World of Ghosts_, the annals of which have been collected, and the laws of which have been explained by Jung Stilling and Kerner. [Illustration: 441] These ghosts can imitate all the motions of men, walk, run, and even jump, but they have no power over material objects; they cannot move a table, a chair, or even a straw. All their united efforts would not succeed in causing the light of a candle {422}to flicker. We can therefore feel perfectly easy with regard to these ghosts; they cannot injure our furniture, nor draw the knot of our cravat inconveniently tight, if they should take a fancy to make an end of us. Nor can I keep altogether silence as to the _World of Shadows_, still dimmer and less perceptible than the World of Ghosts. I shall therefore content myself with a single instance, which we owe to a Dutch legend. The master bell-ringer of the city of Haarlem, caught at a tavern by his wife escaped with such extraordinary rapidity that his shadow was unable to follow him, and remained hanging on the wall--a fact duly certified by the signature and seal of the reigning burgomaster, the aldermen, and other notables of said town. In spite of such overwhelming evidence one might be disposed to doubt the authenticity of this remarkable occurrence, which Hoffmann, I believe, has used in one of his Tales; but had not long before Hoffmann, and long before the master bell-ringer of Haarlem even, the god Fô left his shadow in some town of Hindustan, instead of his card? We try in vain to find anything new under the sun; all our most famous myths and all our most amusing anecdotes have travelled all over India before they reached us. I might also tell you.... but he who tells {423}everything, says too much. Let us here pause once more, and for the last time. Farewell, reader, and may Heaven keep you sound in body and soul.{424} [Illustration: 443] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths of the Rhine, by X. B. Saintine