"Certes, I am dreadfully afraid of the hairy and clawy dwarfs with their purses full of false coin dangling from their belts and their blacksmith's hammers on their shoulders. But I would be still more afraid if I were to run across a Korrigan, only two feet high, combing her hair, and looking at herself in some secluded fountain, in the clear water of which she is admiring those blonde tresses that they are so proud of." "What! Afraid of those pretty little fairies, brother Kervan! I, on the contrary, have often tried to meet one of them. It is said positively that they assemble at the fountain of Lyrwac'h-Hen, which lies in the thickest of the large oak forest that shades several druid stones. I have gone thither three times--and all the three times I saw nothing--" "Luckily for you that you saw nothing Karadeucq, because it is said that the Korrigans never meet for their nocturnal dances except near the sacred stones. Woe to him who sees them!" "I gather that they are expert musicians and that they sing like nightingales." "It is also said of them that they like to pilfer food like cats. Yes, Karadeucq, you may laugh--but you should believe me; I am no fibber," observed his sister indignantly. "I have heard the rumor that at their nocturnal feasts they spread upon the sward, but always near a fountain, a cloth white as snow, and woven of the dainty thread that we find in summer on the meadows. In the very center of the cloth they place a crystal cup that shines so brightly, so very brightly, that it serves the fairies for a torch. People add that a single drop of the liquid in the cup would make one as wise as God." "And what do the Korrigans eat on that table cloth as white as snow? Do you know, Karadeucq, you who love them so much?" "The dear little darlings! It can not be costly to nourish their rosy and transparent bodies that are hardly two feet high. Sister Roselyk says they are gourmands. What is it they eat? The juice of night flowers, served upon gold grass blades?" "Gold grass blades? That superb grass that, if you step upon it, puts you to sleep and imparts to you the knowledge of the language of birds--" "And what do the Korrigans drink?" "The dew of heaven in the azure shell of wrens' eggs--what boozers they are! But at the slightest sound of human feet--off they vanish. They vanish into the fountain and return to their crystal and coral palace at the bottom of the water. It is to the end of being able to escape quickly the sight of men that they always stay near the water. Oh, the pretty little fairies! I would give my best bow and twenty arrows, I would give all my fishing nets, I would give ten years, twenty years of my life to see a Korrigan!" "Karadeucq, my son, make not such impious vows on such a stormy night as this--it may bring ill luck--I have never heard the enraged sea roar like this--it sounds like thunder--" "Good mother, I would brave murky darkness, tempest and thunder to see a Korrigan!"