Then these twain, their countenances remaining still and motionless, and without the least tremor to spoil the calmness of their majesty and their power, both together cried aloud. And at that sound there was a movement in the earth like that of a countless multitude of worms, and not in the earth only but in the hard stone and in the ice-floes also. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a sound like that which might be made by gigantic birds trying to crack with their beaks the great imprisoning egg-shells wherein they were concealed. And amid this great commotion of the earth, heaving and subsiding like the waves of the sea, there appeared forms like those of eggs. And suddenly, on all sides, trees emerged, their bare branches all entangled together, and their stems shaking and tottering together like drunken men, which began to separate themselves the one from the other, leaving empty spaces of earth between. And now from the ever restless soil there emerged the Spirits of Earth, and from the depths of the forest the Spirits of the Woods, and from the neighbouring sea, now cleared of ice, the Spirits of the Water. And Nele and Ulenspiegel could discern the guardian spirits of all these wonders. Dwarfs there were, men of the woods that lived like trees and carried, instead of mouths and stomachs, little clusters of roots sprouting from below the face to the end that they might suck their nourishment from the bosom of mother earth. Lords of the mines there were as well, they that know no speech, and are destitute of heart or entrails, and move about like glittering automatons. There came also the dwarfs of flesh and bone, little fellows with lizards' tails and the heads of toads, and a lantern on their head for head-gear. These are they that leap by night upon the shoulder of the drunken wayfarer or the tired traveller, and then jump down again, waving their lanterns the while so as to lead into marsh or ditch that hapless wight who thinks the light he sees is a candle set to beacon his way home. There came too the Girl-Flower spirits, blossoms they of womanly health and strength. Naked they were and unashamed, glorying in their beauty, and having nothing to cover them but their hair. The eyes of these maids shone liquid like mother-of-pearl seen through water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and glittering in the sunshine; and from half-opened ruby lips their breath wafted down more balmy than jasmine.