But let us return to the _Walpurgisnacht_. On the 1st of May a great festival was held by the ancient Druids, who on the preceding night used to perform on the mountains their terrible sacrifices, setting ablaze huge wickerwork figures filled with human beings. Hence in later times the superstition arose that on this night witches ghouls and fiends held their revels on the Brocken, or Blocksberg, in the Harz mountains. The name of Saint Walpurga (an English nun, who came to Germany in the eighth century) became associated with this Witches' Sabbath, as the 1st of May was sacred to her. To this midnight orgy of the _Walpurgisnacht_ Mephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent of the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and goblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their shrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from every quarter, revealing thronging swarms of ghoulish shapes and dancing Hexen. The trees themselves are dancing. The mountains nod. The crags jut forth long snouts which snort and blow. Amid the crush and confusion Faust has to cling fast to his guide. Once the two get parted, and Mephistopheles is in anxiety lest he should lose Faust entirely, the idea being, I suppose, that sometimes a human being outruns the devil himself in the orgies of sensuality. At last they reach the dancers. Mephistopheles is here in his element and joins in the dances with eagerness, bandying jokes with the old hags and flirting with the younger witches. Nor does Faust seem at all disinclined to follow suit. He however desists dismayed when, as he is dancing with a witch of seductive loveliness, a red mouse jumps out of her mouth. At length, when Mephisto, who finds it getting too hot even for him, comes again to Faust, he discovers him silently gazing at a weird sight--one that might well have sobered him. 'Look!' says Faust: 'Look! seest thou not in the far distance there, Standing alone, that child, so pale and fair? She seems to move so slowly, and with pain, As if her feet were fettered by a chain. I must confess, I almost seem to trace My poor good Gretchen in her form and face.' Mephistopheles answers: 'Let her alone! It's dangerous to look. It's a mere lifeless ghoul, a spectre-spook. Such bogeys to encounter is not good; Their rigid stare freezes one's very blood, And one is often almost turned to stone. Medusa's head, methinks, to thee is known!' But Faust will not be convinced. It _is_ Gretchen--his 'poor good Gretchen' as he calls her. And what is that red bleeding gash around her neck? What terrible thought does it suggest! 'How strange that round her lovely neck, That narrow band of red is laid No broader than a knife's keen blade!' 'Quite right!' answers Mephistopheles with a ghastly joke--