If the traveller, the peasant, or the charcoal burner {266}had walked softly on the fine sand of the brook or on a grass-grown path on which his steps could not be heard, and if he had then stopped in time so as to be able to see without being seen, he might witness their gambols and ascertain the secrets of their private life, without running any risk. [Illustration: 286] Have you, dear reader, have you heard Mercutio, in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” relate how Queen Mab came, and say:--{267} “Oh, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you..... Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider’s web, The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner, a small, gray-coated gnat!” Well, the peasant, the traveller, or the charcoal burner, enjoyed a sight which was by no means less curious. Some of his Sylphs, suspending a thread of gossamer from one blade of grass to another, made a delightful swing for their amusement, or took a spiders web to supply them with a hammock. Others danced wildly about in the air, beating their tiny wings with harmonious accuracy and furnishing thus an orchestra for the aerial ball. Not far from them some little sylph ladies, no doubt excellent housekeepers, were washing their linen in the beams of the moon, or preparing a feast. The provisions consisted of a mixture of honey with the nectar of flowers, a few drops of milk which the hanging udders of young heifers had left on the high grass, and a few pearls of that precious dew which aromatic plants secrete; this mixture was used as a seasoning for some butterfly-eggs beaten up white as snow. If during the repast darkness fell upon them and {268}suddenly covered the guests with its sombre cloak, other hobgoblins, the Will-o’-the-Wisps, with wings of fire, came and took seats at the hospitable table, paying for their entertainment by diffusing a pleasant light all over the place. The principal occupation of these elves consisted in walking before the wanderer who had lost his way so as to lead him back again into the right path. Such were some of the harmless spirits of Air and Fire. Everything has, however, been changed in these two elements. The Will-o’-the-Wisps especially, angry at the reports of wicked people, that they are nothing more than the products of burning hydrogen, or at best phosphorus in a volatile form floating above damp places, have conceived a veritable hatred against men and now only appear when they wish to tempt travellers into marshes and deep ravines. As to the Sylphs, they also seem to have heard similar stories which have been told about them, or they may have been irritated by the chemist Liebig, who in his “Treatise on the Composition of the Air,” absolutely denies their existence, having found in his apparatus neither Sylphs nor Sylphides.