There are some remarkable circumstances attending the Brocken, that are doubtless in some degree connected with "The Spectre," which was once looked upon as a supernatural apparition. When Christianity was introduced into Germany, the priests and votaries of the old superstition, retired to the Brocken as a refuge, and there long kept up the dark and mysterious rites of the great Saxon idol, Cortho. It is a very wild place, full of clefts and caverns, and with rivulets and waterfalls on all sides of it, so that it would answer their purpose remarkably well. After the inhabitants had taken up the profession of Christianity, they used to celebrate on this mountain a festival on Midsummer night, in honour of St. Walpurgis, a female saint, who had first introduced Christianity among them. A legend then prevailed, that the summit of the mountain was occasionally haunted by a demon, which could have been no other than the Spectre. Everything about the mountain was looked upon with awe and veneration. A beautiful spring which runs down its side, is at this day called the Magic Spring; a pretty little lily that abounds on the Mountain, is called the Wizard's Flower; and two great square granite rocks are called the Wizard's Chair. These names may be looked upon as monuments of the estimation in which the mountain was once held. While you ought, my young friends, to feel happy and grateful in being taught what these natural things really are, and released from all superstitious fears or notions respecting them; you should be most careful not to forget what you owe to a purer faith, of which the character is to invite you to inquire into, and to know everything within your reach. I shall say something to you respecting the cause of the Spectre, in a future chapter. CHAPTER VIII. SOME OTHER INSTANCES OF AERIAL REFLECTION. There has been something very like the Spectre of the Brocken, seen on Souter Fell, a mountain about half a mile high, in Cumberland. One summer's evening, in the year 1743, as a farmer, named John Wren, and his servant were sitting at the door of his cottage, they saw a man with a dog furiously chasing some horses along a ledge on the side of the mountain which they knew was so narrow that a horse could hardly stand upon it. They seemed to go round one end of the mountain, and disappeared. The next morning the farmer and his servant went round the track which the horses and man had seemed to take, fully expecting to find that they had fallen over and been killed. You may guess how surprised they were to find no trace whatever of them, not even the mark of a hoof on the ground.