stay here too?" asked the old man startled, not knowing what preparations he had to make for the life below. "Do you find our home so bad?" asked the dwarf. "But fear nothing, and don't alarm yourself. This day you can go or stay, as you please. I led you in freely, and will lead you out freely. But this is the first time that a mortal man has been permitted to leave our abode." Then the old man asked, "Shall I never see my father again?" and tears stood in his eyes once more. The dwarf answered, "You would not see him again till after three weeks, when the ice has become strong and firm. Your father will then have finished his work for the year, and can pass his time pleasantly with us till another year has passed, and he must again perform his[Pg 103] office for a month." "Must he then do this work for ever, and remember his misfortune every year?" asked the old man sadly. The dwarf answered, "He must perform this duty till another mortal accidentally damages our roof and sinks down himself. Then is the first man released from his journeying under the young ice, and the other must henceforth take the work upon himself." As they were thus conversing, the old man and his guide reached the gate. Then they looked in each other's faces, and the dwarf gave the old man two rods of copper with a friendly smile, and said, "If you ever come to this gate, and don't find me on guard, but some one whom you don't know, strike these rods together, and I will do what you wish, as far as I can." Then he led his guest through the lofty gate, and accompanied him through the bronze passage to the outer gate, and opened it. Then the old man found himself standing again on the banks of the lake near the mouth of the river, as if he had fallen from the clouds. The door had vanished, but the rods in his hand showed him that what he had seen was a reality. He put them in his pocket, and wandered home sunk in deep thought, and dazed like a drunken man. But here he found[Pg 104] no rest or pleasure in anything. He went to the mouth of the river on the lake daily for three weeks, and sat on the rock as if in a dream; and at last he disappeared, and never came home again. Kreutzwald relates that every autumn a little grey man, who lives in the Ülemiste järv, rises from it to see if the new buildings are sufficiently decorated. When he has finished his inspection, he returns to the lake; but if he was so dissatisfied as to turn his head in the opposite direction, evil would come on Tallin (Revel), for the low-lying country would be inundated, and the town would be destroyed. The following tales relate to beings inhabiting the sea. THE FAITHLESS FISHERMAN. (Jannsen.)