Elementary Spirits of Air, Fire, and Water.—Sylphs, their Amusements and Domestic Arrangements.—Little Queen Mab. —Will-o’-the-Wisps.—White Elves and Black Elves.—True Causes of Natural Somnambulism.—The Wind’s Betrothed.—Fire-damp.—Master Haemmerling.—The Last of the Gnomes.

The reader is requested to recall what I have said before, that in Germany manners, customs, and creeds, matters of prejudice as well as matters of art, and even of science, may have a beginning, but never have an end. In that ancient home of mysticism and of philosophy, everything is permanently rooted, everything is made for eternity, like those old oak trees of the Hercynia of antiquity: when the parent tree is cut down, and has no longer a trunk to bear boughs and branches, it sends forth new shoots from the roots. Druidism also has become permanent there. We have seen it fight against the gods of the Romans; it fought in like manner against Christianity under Witikind; it was kept alive, though in concealment, by the first iconoclasts or image breakers, and when that whole vast country was at last conquered and became wholly devoted to Catholicism, it broke forth once more quite unexpectedly in the first days of the Reformation. Luther was a Druid still.

Thanks to this tenacity of life which characterizes creeds, and thanks to the prolific nature of that soil, whatever seems to have disappeared, rises again, under new forms, and whatever has perished is recalled to life in some way or other. Let us prove this.

Among all those gods which we have mentioned before, none surely would seem to have been more readily forgotten, swept away by the wind, which they claimed to render useless, or buried in the dust with which they seemed to compete, than those tiny, microscopic deities, called Monads. And yet this was by no means the case. Did they not, in fact, represent the elementary spirits? And the worship of the elements continued in spite of all other creeds which tried to suppress it forever.

Only these atomic deities, still quite small, exceedingly small, had increased in the most astonishing manner, when compared with their original diminutiveness. They had even assumed a form and a body, a visible body and a shape by no means void of grace.

They had become Alps or Alfs, better known afterwards under their Eastern designation of Sylphs.

It happened occasionally that a belated traveller, a peasant or a charcoal burner, returning homeward from a wedding towards the beginning of night, would be fortunate enough to meet at a clearing in the woods or on the banks of a brook with a band of little goblins, who were making merry in the dim twilight.

These were Sylphs, a little people flying in swarms through the air, making their nest in a flower or building one with a few bits of grass at the foot of a broom-sedge, and going out only in the evening to pay visits and as good neighbors to perform their social duties.

If the traveller, the peasant, or the charcoal burner had walked softly on the fine sand of the brook or on a grass-grown path on which his steps could not be heard, and if he had then stopped in time so as to be able to see without being seen, he might witness their gambols and ascertain the secrets of their private life, without running any risk.

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Have you, dear reader, have you heard Mercutio, in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” relate how Queen Mab came, and say:—

Well, the peasant, the traveller, or the charcoal burner, enjoyed a sight which was by no means less curious.

Some of his Sylphs, suspending a thread of gossamer from one blade of grass to another, made a delightful swing for their amusement, or took a spiders web to supply them with a hammock. Others danced wildly about in the air, beating their tiny wings with harmonious accuracy and furnishing thus an orchestra for the aerial ball.

Not far from them some little sylph ladies, no doubt excellent housekeepers, were washing their linen in the beams of the moon, or preparing a feast.

The provisions consisted of a mixture of honey with the nectar of flowers, a few drops of milk which the hanging udders of young heifers had left on the high grass, and a few pearls of that precious dew which aromatic plants secrete; this mixture was used as a seasoning for some butterfly-eggs beaten up white as snow.

If during the repast darkness fell upon them and suddenly covered the guests with its sombre cloak, other hobgoblins, the Will-o’-the-Wisps, with wings of fire, came and took seats at the hospitable table, paying for their entertainment by diffusing a pleasant light all over the place.

The principal occupation of these elves consisted in walking before the wanderer who had lost his way so as to lead him back again into the right path.

Such were some of the harmless spirits of Air and Fire. Everything has, however, been changed in these two elements. The Will-o’-the-Wisps especially, angry at the reports of wicked people, that they are nothing more than the products of burning hydrogen, or at best phosphorus in a volatile form floating above damp places, have conceived a veritable hatred against men and now only appear when they wish to tempt travellers into marshes and deep ravines.

As to the Sylphs, they also seem to have heard similar stories which have been told about them, or they may have been irritated by the chemist Liebig, who in his “Treatise on the Composition of the Air,” absolutely denies their existence, having found in his apparatus neither Sylphs nor Sylphides.

They have changed into faithless Elves, hostile to men, like the other Gnomes.

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The Fairies of our day are divided into two formidable classes.

The White Fairies are damsels who wander about on meadows and in woods, like the Willis of the Slaves, and lie in wait for inexperienced young men, whom they persuade to join in their dances and keep dancing, till they lose their breath and generally fall to the ground never to rise again. German stories are full of such wicked tricks. The place where they perform their diabolic dances, becomes quite silvery under their feet. The shepherds can thus at once recognize the place where they have been, and are sure to hasten away at once with their flocks.

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The Black Fairies personify Nightmare and Somnambulism, but only Natural Somnambulism, it must be borne in mind. When men fall into this state, the Black Elf directs all the motions of the sleeper; he lives in him, thinks and acts for him, makes him get upon the furniture and climb upon roofs, and keeps him from falling, unless... Poor sleeper, he allowed them breath enough to swell the sails of a vessel or to chase the clouds from one end of the heavens to another.

Among the Celts all magicians had been able to command the winds and the tempests at will; even now certain men in Norway and in Lapland will sell you, for a small price, the wind you desire to carry you home.

Careful! The Black Fairies are treacherous and cruel; the Fairy who controls you for the moment may at any moment take a fancy to throw you from your height.

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The Alfs, who have thus become Elves or Fairies, are of course not the only Spirits of the Air; their fragile and delicate structure would never have been inGermany, on the contrary, the wind was looked upon as an elementary power. It was not deified, as in Rome, where there was a whole windy family of gods, like Eurus, Æolus, Boreas, and Favonius, but it was an important personage, with a will of his own and independent action. The poets did their part to give importance to Master Wind.

I have in my hand a ballad, which will enable the reader to judge for himself:—

“Gretchen, the pretty miller’s daughter, was courted by the son of the king. Her father, the miller, knowing that kings’ sons are not apt to marry, had chosen her a husband, a young flour merchant from Rotterdam.

“The Dutchman was on his way up the Rhine; that very evening he was expected to arrive, to make his proposals.

“Gretchen called upon Master Wind to help her; he came in by the window, but not without breaking a number of panes.

“‘What do you wish me to do?’

“‘A man wants to marry me, against my will; he is coming in a sail boat; contrive it so that he cannot land at Bingen.’

“The wind blew, and blew so well that the boat, instead of coming up to Bingen, was driven back again as far as Rotterdam. "At Rotterdam also it could not make land; it was driven into the North Sea, and there the Dutchman is perhaps still sailing about at this day.

“But Master Wind had made his conditions before he went to work blowing so well; and the pretty miller’s daughter had agreed to them without hearing them, for all around her the furniture, the doors, and the blinds were shaking and rattling furiously, thanks to her visitor. Thus it came about that poor Gretchen found herself betrothed to Master Wind, which made her very sad, for now she had less hope than ever of marrying the king’s son.

“However, Master Wind was as gallant towards his fair betrothed as he could be. Every morning, when she opened her window, he would throw her in beautiful bouquets of flowers which he had torn off in the neighboring gardens.

“If any young man of the village, whom she had rejected, passed without saluting her, Master Wind was promptly at hand to carry off his hat and send it up in the air so high, that soon it looked no bigger than a lark. It was well for him that Master Wind did not, with the hat, take his head off at the same time.

“One day (when Master Wind must have been asleep), the king’s son came to the mill, made his way without difficulty to Gretchen’s chamber, and forthwith desired to kiss her. Gretchen did not object. But at once, and although out of doors all was quiet, the tables and chairs performed a wild dance, and the doors and windows began to slam as if they had been mad.

“Gretchen herself began to twirl around and around in the most unaccountable manner; her hair was loosened by an invisible hand and whisked about her head with strange rustling and dismal whistling.

“Terrified by the sight of a tempest in a close room, the prince cried:—

“‘Ah! accursed one, you are the betrothed of Master Wind!’

“And at the same moment a terrible gust of wind carried off the king’s son, the miller’s daughter, and the mill, and no one ever saw or heard anything more of them.

“Perhaps they went to join the Dutchman, who was all the time sailing about in the North Sea, or the hat, which was still on its way in the clouds.”

The legend does not tell us whether it was before or after this occurrence that Master Wind married Mistress Rain.

So much for the Spirits of the Air.

As for the Spirits of the Fire, it must be remembered that the Will-o’-the-Wisps were by no means their only representatives. There were also Salamanders, too well known to be described here; and St. Elmo Fires, near relations of the Will-o’-the-Wisps. But we must pause a moment to speak of the formidable Fire-damp, the miner’s terror. The remarkable feature about it is that it plays so insignificant a part in the popular German myths, although it has destroyed so many victims in all mountainous countries, and above all in the Hartz mountains.

This subterranean lightning, far more fatal than that of the upper regions, is known to the people of the Rhine simply as a tall monk, whom they call Master Haemmerling.

Master Haemmerling visits the mines from time to time in the guise of a harmless amateur, or of an inspector, who is not fond of being hurried. However, on Fridays especially, he is subject to violent attacks of anger. If a laborer handles his pickaxe awkwardly, or if he is insolent to his master, or the master harsh to him and requiring too much, he is, quick as a flash of lightning, between them when they are as yet half way under ground. Then he suddenly draws his long legs together, and between his two knees crushes their heads with as little hesitation and ceremony as a mother would show in destroying between her two thumbs the little hateful insect that has troubled her darling child.

Nothing more need be said of the elementary spirits of Air and Fire; but as we have followed Master Haemmerling into the lower depths of the mountains, we might just as well remain there a while and make the acquaintance of the Gnomes, the Spirits of the Earth.

Can you see, through the dense air which fills these immense caverns, the long, gigantic stalactites, reaching from the ceiling to the floor and strongly impregnated with iron? They are the columns of this subterranean palace, and around these stalactites, peaceful, slumbering waters form a kind of little lakes, the shores of which look as if they were covered with rust.

Here and there, in the damp low grounds, half choked with ore and slag of various kinds, dark reeds are growing in the shape of lizards; like lizards they bend backwards, moving their heads from side to side and showing thus the diamond eye which shines brilliantly at the extreme end.

These dark depths seem to teem with fantastic creatures; close by a heap of grains of gold, stands immovable a watchful, silent guardian, a griffin; a pack of black dogs, also guardians of the treasures hid in this world of precious metals and stones, are roaming incessantly along the ceiling. On the sloping sides, dwarfs not larger than grasshoppers, and jumping about like peas in the sieve of the winnower, are gathering right and left the tiny gold and silver spangles which are left at their disposal, while enormous toads are posted about as watchmen.

Finally, far back in the remotest part of these abysses the kings of this empire are moving about; these thick-set men, with stout limbs and monstrous heads, are the Gnomes.

But people hardly believe in Gnomes any longer; the hard-working miners who ought to come every day in contact with them, deny their existence, and they have gradually passed into the class of fabulous beings.

Still, I am told that as recently as last year, a pretty peasant girl from the neighborhood of Hamburg appeared on a certain evening at a ball, with a large ruby on her finger. She professed to have received this gem from an Earth Spirit, who had appeared to her at the entrance to the Faunus mines.

The gossips of the village were not satisfied, however, with the account, and suspected the Gnome to have been an English Gnome, who was travelling abroad for his health and courting pretty girls for his amusement. This conviction was so strong that the poor girl had to leave the country in disgrace.

This is the last Gnome that has been mentioned in that part of Germany.

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