The last of the giants..........................................337 Grommelund and Ephesim .........................................339 The humiliated giant............................................340 Our good little dwarfs .........................................341 He stood at first with his mouth wide open .................... 346 A long and deep sigh of satisfaction............................348 Flight of the conspirators......................................353 Kreiss slipped boldly into this vast and spacious cavity........354 They fixed strong piles between the two rows of teeth...........355 In his hand he held not a club but a lantern....................357 Kreiss compelled to leave his position by torrents of tears.....359 The last two held each a long thorn in their hands..............361 Kreiss entering the great meeting hall..........................363 Putskuchen was in love..........................................365 Ouadragant vanquished...........................................367 The passing of the wizard ......................................371 Venus and Tannhàuser............................................390 His ex-colleague Jupiter .......................................396 The author pursues the subject .................................399 The conscientious collector of myths............................401 The Druidess transformed into an accursed witch.................406 To return was as impossible as to proceed.......................409 She had rejoined her victims ...................................413 He is the Lord Hackelberg.......................................417 These ghosts can imitate all the motions of men.................421 Farewell........................................................423 [Illustration: 023] I. {003}_Primitive Times.--The First Settlers on the Rhine.--Masters going to School.--Sanskrit and Breton.--Ax Idle God.--Microscopic Deities.--Tree Worship.--Birth-Trees and Death-Trees._ The Rhine is born in Switzerland, in the Canton of Grisons; it skirts France and passes through it, and after a long and magnificent career it finally loses itself in the countless canals of Holland; and yet the Rhine is essentially a German river. {004}Already in the earliest ages, long before towns were built on its banks, it saw all the Germanic races dwell here in tents, watch their flocks, and fight their interminable battles, although the clash of arms and the blast of trumpets never for a moment aroused the impassive historian from his deep slumbers. [Illustration: 024]