With her slender fingers she grasps the blue, embroidered riband that is attached to the neck of the harp. She grasps it with the gesture of one who is about to pull a sleigh. "Come," she cries again. I dare not understand her. Awkwardly I crouch on the strings. "I might break them," I venture. "You little shaver," she laughs. "Do you know how light you are? And now, hold fast!" I have scarcely time to grasp the golden frame with both hands. I hear a mighty rustling in front of me. The mighty wings unfold. My sleigh floats and billows in the air. Forward and upward goes the roaring flight. Far, far beneath me lies the paternal hut. Scarcely does its light penetrate to my height. Gusts of snow whirl about my forehead. Next moment the light is wholly lost. Dawn breaks through the night. A warm wind meets us and blows upon the strings so that they tremble gently and lament like a sleeping child whose soul is troubled by a dream of loneliness. "Look down!" cried my faery, turning her laughing little head toward me. Bathed in the glow of spring I see an endless carpet of woods and hills, fields and lakes spread out below me. The landscape gleams with a greenish silveriness. My glance can scarcely endure the richness of the miracle. "But it has become spring," I say trembling. "Would you like to go down?" she asks. "Yes, yes." At once we glide downward. "Guess what that is!" she says. An old, half-ruined castle rears its granite walls before me.... A thousand year old ivy wreathes about its gables.... Black and white swallows dart about the roofs.... All about arises a thicket of hawthorn in full bloom.... Wild roses emerge from the darkness, innocently agleam like children's eyes. A sleepy tree bends its boughs above them. There is life at the edge of the ancient terrace where broad-leaved clover grows in the broken urns. A girlish form, slender and lithe, swinging a great, old-fashioned straw hat, having a shawl wound crosswise over throat and waist, has stepped forth from the decaying old gate. She carries a little white bundle under her arm, and looks tentatively to the right and to the left as one who is about to go on a journey. "Look at her," says my friend. The scales fall from my eyes. "That is Lisbeth," I cried out in delight, "who is going to the mayor's farm." Scarcely have I mentioned that farm but a fragrance of roasting meat rises up to me. Clouds of smoke roll toward me, dim flames quiver up from it. There is a sound of roasting and frying and the seething fat spurts high. No wonder; there's going to be a wedding. "Would you like to see the executioner's sword?" my friend asks. A mysterious shudder runs down my limbs. "I'd like to well enough," I say fearfully. A rustle, a soft metallic rattle--and we are in a small, bare chamber.... Now it is night again and the moonlight dances on the rough board walls. "Look there," whispers my friend and points to a plump old chest.