But at break of day they were awaked by storm and tempest; the lightnings flashed along the red sky, and torrents of water poured down the hills and through the valley. A huge rock now tumbled from the top of the mountain, and rolled down toward the village, carrying along with it, in its course, trees, stones, and earth. Men and cattle, every thing in the village that had breath in it, were buried beneath it. The waves had now reached the cottage of the two old people, and in terror and dismay they stood out before their door. They then beheld approaching in the middle of the stream a large piece of rock, and on it, jumping merrily, the Dwarf, as if he was riding and steering it with a great trunk of a pine till he brought it before the house, where it stemmed the water and kept it from the cottage, so that both it and the good owners escaped. The Dwarf then swelled and grew higher and higher till he became a monstrous Giant, and vanished in the air, while the old people were praying to God and thanking him for their deliverance.[315] FOOTNOTES: [298] In Swiss _Härdmandle_, pl. _Härdmändlene_. [299] Wyss, Reise in das Berner Oberland, ii. 412. _Servants_ is the term in the original. [300] This Scottish word, signifying the summer cabin of the herdsmen on the mountains, exactly expresses the Sennhütten of the Swiss. [301] Alpenrosen for 1824, _ap._ Grimm, Introd. to Irish Fairy Legends. [302] Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden, und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz. Von J. Rud Wyss, Prof. Bern, 1813. [303] In Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz, von Dr. Rudolf. Müller. Glarus, 1842, may be found some legends of the Erdmännlein, but they are nearly all the same as those collected by Mr. Wyss. We give below those in which there is anything peculiar. [304] The original is in German hexameters. [305] It is a notion in some parts of Germany, that if a girl leaves any flax or tow on her distaff unspun on Saturday night, none of what remains will make good thread. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. lxxii. [306] _Glanz_ is the term employed in Switzerland. [307] This legend was picked up by a friend of Mr. Wyss when on a topographical ramble in the neighbourhood of Bern. It was told to him by a peasant of Belp; "but," says Mr. Wyss, "if I recollect right, this man said it was a nice smoking-hot cake that was on the plate, and it was a servant, not the man's son, who was driving the plough. The circumstance of the table-cloth being handed down from mother to daughter," he adds, "is a fair addition which I have allowed myself."