hand; whereupon the wolf seemed alarmed, and fled hastily into the coverts of the fir-wood. Now Sir Otto remembered well the history of the hermit and his son, which had been told to himself and Theobaldo by Sir Heerdegen of Lichtenried, when they met on the blooming banks of the Mayne. He said, as if half-communing with his own spirit, half-questioning the old man, “We are indeed on the Finland frontiers; and is this perchance the grave of the brave young hermit?” “Ay,” said the old man, “it is indeed the grave of my unfortunate son; and as I now wish to say my usual prayers for his soul’s weal, it were, to say the truth, better for me, if I were left alone to this mournful duty. Yet, noble sir, I would not that you should go forward from hence into the Finland forest. At such an hour, it might not be safe even for the best and bravest of knights to be there.” Sir Otto silently followed the hermit’s directions, still meditating on the story told by Sir Heerdegen, which had then sounded so strange, that he could scarcely believe it; and yet now he had himself been an eye-witness of its truth. He bent his course down hill, through the beech-woods, and stept onwards the more willingly, because he heard from below the sounds of war-horns and trumpets, which, as he believed, were those of his own friends and comrades. On his arrival in the valley, however, all there was silent and motionless, even as he had left it to ascend the mountain; and the shades of night had now deepened over the desolate landscape. Otto could not help doubting whether his own senses had not deceived him, when he thought that he heard the sounds of martial music in this valley, which was now silent as the grave. But again there arose, from a direction which he guessed to be that of the north, the same sounds, and, as it seemed, from the same instruments which he had before heard. Striving more and more to recollect himself, and always gazing about him, Sir Otto at last perceived that he must turn back his head and look up into the air, in order to learn the origin of these sounds; for, behold! the mysterious bands were floating above him like clouds through the dark-blue evening sky! The story of the wild army of Rodenstein, which he had brought with him from Germany, now came forcibly on his remembrance. He considered with himself, whether this also were not some spectral delusion; yet the sounds were repeated, solemn and mournful indeed, but neither wild, nor such as could be listened to as the work of evil spirits, like those of the Odenwald. On the contrary, the tones were rather sweet and attractive.