brothers, having assumed the habit of the order, lived and died in the performance of acts of charity and devotion. His lands, to which no one asserted any claim, lay waste until they were reassumed by the emperor as a lapsed fief; and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck had called by his own name, are still shunned by the miner and forester as haunted by evil spirits.

Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth, hastily attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes of Martin Waldeck.

NOTE.

The foregoing tradition, like many others, embodies a striking part of the popular belief with respect to those mysterious beings-human, as it would appear, and yet superhuman-who form the chief actors in the ancient legendary stories of different countries. Whether they are said to be giants or demons, or to belong to the more diminutive races of dwarfs, hill-folk, elves, or brownies, they are all supposed to possess considerable power over the earth and elements, and particularly to have under their charge immense stores of the precious metals. In many cases they live in the interior of hills and caverns filled with such treasures; and they are, moreover, expert workmen in all branches of metallurgy.

These beings, according to the popular creed, were of different characters and dispositions;—some more or less malicious, others more or less beneficent. None, however, appear entitled to the appellation of good spirits,* in the highest sense

In the popular legends we often meet with incidents which show this; such as dislike to the sign of the cross, fear of the sound of church bells, &c.

of the word; the most that can be said, even of the best of them, is, that if not provoked, they were harmless, and if kindly treated, they showed kindness, and did good offices in return. There are traces, however, of a notion, which prevailed in some countries, that there was a hope of salvation for them at some future day; and in places where the Christian faith supplanted heathenism, the character of the dwarfs appears to have changed likewise, and to have been altogether of a better kind than during the reign of paganism; benevolence being often a principal trait in their character. They seem, in short, to be very much in the state which we should assign to the virtuous heathen, as compared with men who enjoy the privileges of Christianity.

With respect to the gifts or treasures bestowed upon people oy these beings, it may be said, in general, that along with the worldly advantages thereby conferred, there was also a certain degree of danger incurred by their possessors. As far as a theory can be made out on the subject, it seems that money obtained in this way proved a curse;-first, when its acquisition was prompted by an avaricious disposition, as when men, led by an inordinate desire of riches, rashly put themselves in communication with, and under the power of these superhuman beings; or, secondly, when he with whom they had to deal, was an actual representative of, or in league with, the Evil one, with whom all commerce was, of course, wicked and ruinous. On the other hand, it appears that the well-disposed -the honest and pious poor, for instance-might, without danger, avail themselves of these treasures, provided they were free from covetous dispositions, and were willing to put to a good use what they became possessed of:—such gifts were sanc

tified to them; and we may then view both the gold, and the medium through which it came, simply as instruments in the hands of Him whom all things serve, whether in the material or the spiritual world. A variety of instances of this kind will occur to the reader, where a harmless elf, or troll, for instance, has been the means of extricating some honest fellow from his difficulties, or of rewarding him for some act which betokened a kind heart. Some of the amusing German stories in this volume will be seen to contain this moral. As the advantages, accruing to persons so favoured, varied according to circumstances, so did the evils inflicted upon another class. In the former case it might be merely some household implement, or other homely gift; or again, some chips of wood taken home, and found afterwards to be gold; or higher still, some valuable gift which eventually led the possessor to permanent dignity and happiness. In the latter, too, we find various grades of punishment. A mischievous prank played upon the offending party; or perhaps a heap of gold coin turning out to be merely a pocketful of pebbles, and so disappointing the greedy possessor; at other times a train of

Many of the supernatural beings of romance are not improbably simple personifications of what are called the powers of nature. Thus we have spirits of the fountains, waterfalls, &c.; and again, we find the elements stirred into fury, and, as it werc, animated by some being who directs the storm. In the latter case, indeed, we may recognise the substance of a great truth, viz., the working of an Almighty power in all parts of the material world, who, for aught we know, does employ personal agency in the production of such effects. Whatever may be the amount of fiction and superstition in such matters, certainly one salutary lesson may be derived from the perusal of these old legends, and one too much needed in this sceptical age,-that of a belief in an invisible world and its powers of good and evil, with which we are all, in this state of probation, in some way mysteriously connected

misfortunes, or a sudden and mysterious death, or a captivity to the Enemy of mankind. Of this fearful class is the story which precedes this notice; and others will be found scattered throughout the volume. On this subject it may not be uninteresting to append the account which Sir John Mandeville gives in his curious book of travels of

THE VALLEY PERILOUS.

In

BESIDE that isle of Mistorak, upon the left side, nigh to the river Phison, is a marvellous thing. There is a vale between the mountains that dureth nigh four miles. And some call it the Vale Enchanted, some call it the Vale of Devils, and some call it the Vale Perilous. In that vale hear men oftentime great tempests and thunders, and great murmurs and noises, all day and night; and great noise, as it were sound of tabors and of drums and trumps, as though it were of a great feast. This vale is all full of demons, and hath been always. And men say there, that it is one of the entries of hell. that vale is plenty of gold and silver; wherefore many misbelieving men, and many christian men also, go in often time for to have of the treasure that there is, but few comen again; and namely, of the misbelieving men, ne, of the christian men neither; for they ben anon strangled of devils. And in mid place of that vale, under a rock, is an head of the visage of a devil bodily, full horrible and dreadful to see; and showeth not but the head to the shoulders. But there is no man in the world so hardy, christian man, ne other, but that he would ben afraid for to behold it; and that it would seemen him to die for dread; so is it hideous for to behold. For he beholdeth

every man so sharply with dreadful eyes that ben evermore moving and sparkling as fire, and changeth and steereth so often in divers manner, with so horrible countenance, that no man dare approach towards him. And from him cometh smoke, and stink, and fire, and so much abomination, that scarcely no man may there endure. But the good christian men, that ben stable in the faith, entren well withouten peril : for they will first confess themselves, and marken them with the token of the holy cross; so that the fiends have no power over them. But albeit that they ben without peril, yet nevertheless ben they not withouten dread, when that they see the devils visibly and bodily all about them, that make full many divers assaults and menaces in air and in earth, and terrify them with strokes of thunder-blasts and of tempests. And the most dread is, that God will taken vengeance then of that men han misdone against his will. And should understand, that when my fellows and I weren in that vale, we weren in great thought whether that we dursten putten our bodies in adventure, to gon in or non, in the protection of God. And some of our fellows agreed to enter, and some not. So there were with us two worthy men, friars minors that were of Lombardy, that said, that if any man would enter, they would go in with us. And when they had said so, upon the gracious trust of God and of themselves, we let sing mass, and made every man to be shriven and confessed; and then we entered fourteen persons; but at our going out we were but nine, and so we knew never whether that our fellows were lost, or else turned again for dread; but we ne saw them never after; and they were two men of Greece, and three of Spain; and our other fellows that would not go in with us, they went by

D

ye