a great number of legends, of a like nature, are connected with them. Their identity, however, with the observances celebrated in Burns's famous poem, "Halloween," by rendering it unnecessary to more than make mention of them here, saves the trouble of entering on them in detail. Many of the stories based on them terminate tragically, as this just related; while others, but they are only few in comparison, have a "right merrie" end. But that will suffice as a sample.

KESTER.-EHRENTHAL.

Again, recrossing the river, in a direct line with Hirzenach on the other side, stands the little hamlet of Kester; behind which, at right angles with the course of the current at that particular point, runs far into the adjacent hills the deep and narrow valley of Ehrenthal. It is to this spot we would now attract the attention of the wanderer on the Rhine, the pilgrim of the beautiful, by which the scene is so abundantly surrounded.

Ehrenthal is a wild valley on the right bank of the Rhine, containing many mines of silver, copper, and lead, some of which have been worked from the earliest periods of local history and tradition. These mines are the residence of Gnomes, according to the belief of the neighbouring peasantry; and a thousand tales are told of them, in which the little subterranean denizens conspicuously figure. One of these legends runs thus:

THE SHIFT AND THE SHROUD.

It was in the time that the valley of Ehrenthal belonged to the Barons of Thurnberg, which is ages long ago, that a steward of that noble house dwelt in Ober-Kester, to superintend the working of the mines, as well as to look after the extensive possessions of his lords. He was a hard-hearted man; and he made the miners, young and old, male and female, labour night and day without sufficient rest or sufficient food. It was the same in his own house the lasses were overworked and underfed; indeed, they were half-starved. But what could they do? They had no remedy against him but patience. Among the maidens who

served him was one named Clara, the only child of an old miner who had been drowned by an efflux of water into the shaft which he was employed in sinking in Ehrenthal. She was fair and modest far beyond her condition, for she had been well brought up, by her deceased parents, in the love and fear of God; and she was beloved by all her fellow-servants, because of the goodness of her heart, and her readiness to do them, on all occasions, a kindness or a service. One of those who loved her the most was, like her father, the foreman of a mine. They had known each other, as it were, from infancy; they had lived in contiguous houses; their parents were ever friends; and few of their acquaintance doubted that they would be married, when they had attained a fitting age. Was it then to be wondered at, if Clara loved young Benno as fondly as he loved her? But they were both serfs of the Lord of Thurnberg; and, before they could wed, it was requisite that they should have his permission to do so. The Lord of Thurnberg, however, was then absent in the wars; and this steward exercised his power during his absence. To him, therefore, they applied; but with a heavy heart, for they well knew his ill-nature; and Clara had strong reasons besides to suspect that he looked on her with an eye of evil desire. It was even as they had anticipated. Although there was no reasonable pretence on his part for refusing consent in the name of his lord, yet he was not slow in finding one which served his purpose equally well. In vain were the prayers of the youth, the arguments of his parents, the tears of the maiden, and the promises of all parties; he was not to be moved by any thing they could say or do. The lovers went away despairing. One morning, very shortly after this occurrence, Clara seeing him in good humour, as she conceived, ventured again to open her suit to him, and entreat his consent to her union with Benno. He heard her with a complacency which gave her hope; and she proceeded until she wellnigh persuaded herself of his acquiescence.

"Come hither, lass," said he.

She approached, cheerfully, the window at the casement of which he stood looking forth on the river that rolled glancingly onwards in the early sun-beams.

"See you yon grave?" asked he of the maiden, and he pointed to one on which the turf was fresh and green,

while around its edge were disposed the fairest flowers of the

season.

Clara looked in the direction of his hand.

"Know you whose it is?" continued he.

"Oh, yes!" replied the maiden, bursting into a flood of passionate tears. "Alas! and woe is me! it is the grave of my dear, dear father and mother."

While she wept, as though she were inconsolable, the hardhearted old steward looked on her with a mingled expression of malevolence and lust.

"I will that nettles be planted there," he went on.

Clara wiped the big tears from her eyes, and looked up at him with astonishment and indignation.

"Never

"Nettles on my parents' grave!" exclaimed she. while I have a hand to pluck them-never shall noxious weeds shed their baneful influence on the last resting-place of those I love, while I have life."

"Do as you will, lass," he proceeded; "do as you will. But I have made a vow to myself, that until you have not alone planted nettles on that grave, but also spun out of them two garments, one for my winding-sheet, the other for thy bridal shift, I shall never consent to your union with Benno. Nay more, if there be an atom of stuff beyond what will exactly make them, or if there be an atom less, it shall be all the same. Marry him you may not."

With these words he left the window, and hurried from the apartment. As he passed through the adjoining chamber, the horror-struck maiden heard his fiendish laugh echoed a hundredfold, as though a legion of demons repeated it in hellish chorus. Poor Clara! What was to be done?

In the extremity of her distress, she could think of no other resource than crying; and to indulge herself in that sad pleasure she involuntarily, as it were, visited the grave of her parents. It would touch the heart of a stone to see the simple maiden weep, while she lay extended on the damp, cold sod, and to hear her innocent and artless, but deep and bitter, lamentations. As she lay in that state, she was aroused by a gentle tap on her shoulder. "Marry, come up, my maid," squeaked a tiny voice, but withal a sweet one," what do you here in the gray of the evening?"

Clara looked up, and saw a little old woman clad in an antique dress, with a high-crowned conical hat on her head, and an ebony, gold-headed stick in her hand.

Dry your tears, lass," continued the little creature, with a look of compassion and encouragement, which brought something like comfort to the maiden's spirits; "dry your tears, and tell me what afflicts ye."

Clara did as she was directed; and began to relate to the little creature all that had occurred between her and the steward. As the tale of wrong and oppression proceeded, the brow of the Gnome-for she was one of those subterranean beings -grew black as night: she shook her head violently; stamped with her little feet; and ever and anon struck her stick forcibly on the ground. When it was ended, she said to the maiden :"Courage, my lass! Courage! Be of good cheer. shall have help. Come hither to-morrow."

With that she traced a few lines on the sod; and then disappeared in a twinkling.

At the same hour the next evening, Clara, according to appointment, was at the grave of her parents; and at the same moment the little old woman appeared also, without giving the slightest previous intimation of her presence.

"Look ye now, my lass," she said to the maiden, and as she spake she pointed to the grave.

Clara looked, and to her surprise and vexation saw that it was entirely overgrown with nettles in the space of the one night and day which had intervened since she last trimmed its verdure and weeded its flowers-her every-morning occupation.

66

"Never mind that! never mind that!" continued the little creature, who saw her feelings reflected in her face; never mind that! It is all for the best. Now, pluck me these nettles, and then tie them up in a bundle, even as the flax-dressers do."

It was a pleasure to poor Clara to clear her parents' grave from these obscene weeds; and she executed the task with such alacrity, that not a nettle was to be seen on it in a few minutes.

"A good girl! a good girl!" muttered the old woman to herself. Then placing the bundle under her arm, she bade the maiden good night, and disappeared; first, however, intimating that she should shortly hear from her.

Not long after this, the steward went into a remote part of Ehrenthal, to visit some abandoned mines, with the view of again working them on an improved principle. As he approached the most ancient of these shafts, one which it was said had been closed since the days of the Romans, he perceived a little old woman sitting at its mouth, by the foot of an overgrown oak which shadowed all around, busily employed in spinning what seemed to him to be some of the finest flax his eyes had ever beheld. It was the Gnome who had consoled Clara; and that mine had been her dwelling-place from time immemorial.

"Well, old one," said he to her, "what do you spin? A bridal bed-gown, eh?"

"A bridal bed-gown and a death-shirt," replied the old lady. "Both at your command, Sir Steward."

The wicked steward grew pale. The words were his own. He well remembered them.

"Both at your command," continued the little creature, all the while never appearing to raise her eyes from the thread. "The shirt for your shroud, and the bed-gown for Clara's bridal."

"That is beautiful flax," observed he, trying to look unconcerned; and then, as though he would drive away dread by the exercise of his ill-humours, he added, after a pause, “You have certainly stolen it from my stock. I'll have you punished

for it!"

once.

"Not at all," replied she, unmoved by his accusation and his threat; "not at all, Sir Steward. It is made from the nettles that grow on the grave of poor Clara's parents." He held no further converse with her, but returned home at He felt a presentiment of some approaching evil, and his good angel whispered to him the means to avert it, or, rather, to atone in some measure for his past sins; but the bad spirit which held him in thrall was at hand, and the feeling of years is not to be effaced in an hour. While he hesitated day after day, for the three succeeding weeks, whether he would consent to Clara's marriage or not; on the morning of the twenty-first from that on which he had assigned her the painful task already told, under a penalty, if possible, more painful still, that maiden entered his apartment. She bore in her hand a small bundle,

VOL. II.

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