Now, about this time, there was an expert tailor to whom they appeared to have taken a great fancy, for when he married he found in his house, on the wedding day, the finest victuals and the most beautiful vessels and utensils, which the little folk had stolen elsewhere and brought their favourite. When, with time, his family increased, the little ones used to give the tailor's wife considerable aid in her household affairs; they washed for her, and on holidays and festival times they scoured the copper and tin, and the house from the garret to the cellar. If at any time the tailor had a press of work, he was sure to find it all ready done for him in the morning by the Heinzelmänchen. But curiosity began now to torment the tailor's wife, and she was dying to get one sight of the Heinzelmänchen, but do what she would she could never compass it. She one time strewed peas all down the stairs that they might fall and hurt themselves, and that so she might see them next morning. But this project missed, and since that time the Heinzelmänchen have totally disappeared, as has been everywhere the case, owing to the curiosity of people, which has at all times been the destruction of so much of what was beautiful in the world. The Heinzelmänchen, in consequence of this, went off all in a body out of the town with music playing, but people could only hear the music, for no one could see the mannikins themselves, who forthwith got into a boat and went away, whither no one knows. The good times, however, are said to have disappeared from Cologne along with the Heinzelmänchen.[293] FOOTNOTES: [286] This word is usually derived from the Greek κοβαλος, a knave, which is found in Aristophanes. According to Grimm (p. 408) the German Kobold is not mentioned by any writer anterior to the thirteenth century, we find the French Gobelin in the eleventh; see _France_. [287] In Hanover the Will-o'the-wisp is called the Tückebold, _i. e._ Tücke-Kobold, and is, as his name denotes, a malicious being. Voss. Lyr. Ged., ii. p. 315. [288] Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 103. Feldmann's work is a 12mo vol. of 379 pages. [289] Heinze is the abbreviation of Heinrich (Henry). In the North of Germany the Kobold is also named Chimmeken and Wolterken, from Joachim and Walther. [290] This is a usual measure of size for the Dwarfs, and even the angels, in the old German poetry; see above, p. 208. In Otnit it is said of Elberich: _nu bist in Kindes mâze des vierden jâres alt_; and of Antilois in Ulrich's Alexander: _er war kleine und niht grôz in der mâze als diu kint, wenn si in vier jâren sint_, Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 418. We meet with it even in Italian poetry: E sovra il dorso un nano si piccino Che sembri di quattr' anni un fanciullino. B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78. [291] The feats of House-spirits, it is plain, may in general be ascribed to ventriloquism and to contrivances of servants and others.