But the old honoured faith did not so easily die out from the hearts of the Saxons, and though they were obliged to join in the newly-enforced worship, they clung long to their ancient divinities, and secretly brought them the usual sacrifices.

At last the power of the Gospel triumphed, and the innocent child who had yearly been offered to the water-spirit on St. John's day was now withheld.

Wild was the rage of the mortified elf. All day long he watched among the willows on the bank, whence he could look unseen far over the fields, to see if they had really forgotten him. No sacrifice was brought. He felt that the last vestige of his power was gone. In gloomy anger against the thankless race, he resolved to take by force the victim of which he had been cheated.

A lovely child approached the bank, heedless of danger, holding in its tiny hand a bunch of forget-me-nots. Close by the water's edge were more of the blue flowers, and he ran forward to pluck the tempting blossoms. Then the waters of the Saale suddenly rose, swept over the place where the child was standing, and carried him down in their cold embrace. From that time people were careful to avoid the river on St. John's day, fearing a similar fate.

As Christianity became more powerful, the cloister, formerly a centre of holy influence, became the seat of arrogance and idle luxury, and the water-elf, who knew that the God whom he hated was a righteous judge, who would punish evil, often sat on moonlight nights among the willows gazing at the cloister, from whose lighted windows came the noise of clinking glasses and wild revelry. Then he murmured between his teeth—

"I shall live to see you brought to shame! Your God cannot suffer such doings, and I shall have my revenge."

And he did live to see it.

One night, when, instead of pious hymns, drinking-songs were ascending from the cloister cells, a dark storm-cloud spread across the sky. Thunder growled and lightning flashed, making all nature tremble. Men fell on their knees; the monks alone heeded not the voice of the Almighty. At every peal of thunder they raised their voices in the vain attempt to drown with their wild chorus the tumult without.

Then came an awful flash, which gleamed like a coronet of fire on the summit of the tower, and darted through the roof to the refectory, where in one moment its deadly shaft sent all the profane and godless scoffers before the throne of the eternal. The flame next seized the furniture of the hall, and it was not long till the fire burst from the shattered windows, for every hand was still that might have been raised to check its progress.

The water-sprite sat on a stone at the river's edge, contentedly watching the awful spectacle.

Every moment the flames gained greater force. Their fiery tooth gnawed beam and pillar till they burst asunder with a crash, and at last the devouring element rose from the ruined pile below to the belfry tower. Then the bell, swayed by the heat, began to stir. Faster and faster came the strokes, like a cry of anguish or a mournful knell sounding in wild and awful tones through the uproar of the storm. The beams from which it hung gave way, and with a great swing it fell into the Saale, making the water foam and hiss as it felt the glowing metal. The tower fell in, and the stately building was changed into a mass of smoking ruins.

Gradually the rage of the elements was stilled, and nature sank again to peaceful repose. The clouds were parted, and from the once more azure sky the moon looked down on the heaps of rubbish with the same mild and gentle glance as it used formerly to cast on the proud cloister.

And what of the water-fairy. The downfall of his foes almost reconciled him with his lot. The hated chimes no longer reached his ear, reminding him of what he so wished to forget, his lost dominion. The bell had found a resting-place on a beautiful green meadow which lay at the bottom of the Saale. The sprite planted water-lilies all round it, just as human beings adorn graves with the fairest of flowers. Then he built a crystal castle right in front of it, and brought home as his bride a beautiful water-fairy from the neighbouring river, Elbe.

After a time children played in the shell-adorned halls of the crystal castle, two beautiful boys with bright eyes and little red caps, and their sister, a gentle little water-elf, as sweet and beautiful as her relations of the land, the fairies of mountains and trees.

The sons were like their father; they hated the human race, of whom the old fairy had told them nothing but evil, and they helped him every St. John's day to entice some heedless mortal down into the stream.

Their lovely little sister was of a very different stamp. A secret longing drew her heart towards the land and its inhabitants, and it was only by the sternest prohibition that her father could induce her to remain at home. But at night, when sleep reigned in the crystal castle, she would rise to the surface of the water, take her stand on the great white water-lilies, which willingly joined to do her service, and thus on this slender raft she would float up and down the stream. Her long fair hair flowed down till it touched the water; in her white arms she held a golden harp; and when she touched the strings and sang her sweet songs that told of her longing after the beautiful sunlight, after the blue sky and the unknown human race, the trees bowed their tall heads to the water's edge, the birds hushed their song, and even the night-wind held his breath while he listened to the music of the little water-sprite.

It was once more St. John's day, and the old water-elf was in one of his tempers.

The sun was shining on the river, and its rays flashed back in rainbow hues from the crystal pillars of the water-castle. The meadows in the cool bed of the Saale showed their freshest green, and the long grass waved to and fro among the water, while fishes and water-beetles darted between its stalks like golden stars.

The two boys sharpened their scythes and began to mow the grass, for it was haymaking time. Their sister stood among the lilies beside the great bell, holding one of the white flowers in her hand, and striking the metal with its slender stem, so that it answered her in strange and mellow tones. But she did it softly, very softly, for she knew how hateful the sound of the old bell was to her father, especially on this day. The sound was deep and musical, reminding the little fairy of the chimes which she sometimes heard on quiet nights, as she floated up and down the river on her raft of water-lilies.

Pleased with the dear, familiar tones, she forgot that her father was near, and she struck the bell so loudly that the sound, borne on the waves, thrilled through the castle, where the old fairy was leaning, lost in thought, against a pillar, passing his fingers through his grey-green beard, and dreamily watching his sons at their work.

When the hated sound struck on his ear, he started up with a cry of anger, and looked fiercely at his trembling daughter. But before he had time to give vent to his wrath a shadow fell over the palace and meadow, followed by a crash, as if something had been broken in the castle.

And such was indeed the case.

A boat was passing slowly through the waves above; the steersman had happened to let the rudder fall, and its iron point struck with such force against one of the crystal panes of the water-sprite's palace that it fell, shattered into a thousand pieces.

This was too much for the enraged fairy. He rose foaming through the water, and stood with flaming eyes before the boatman. "Insolent man," he growled, "what hast thou done? Repair the injury at once. If the pane is not replaced within half-an-hour, thou shalt pay for it with thy life."

The boatman laughed. "I don't understand glazier's work," said he, "and I shall hardly be able to find any one who could work down there in the water; so I cannot satisfy your demand. But as for your threats, my good fellow, the time of your authority is long gone by. There is not even a child now who fears you; and, besides, I have a cargo of steel bars, and you know, my dear waterman, that they would prevent you from coming into my boat to do me any harm."

At the mention of steel, a metal very hurtful to water-elves, the fairy unwillingly retired. He cast one more look of anger on the bold boatman, and on the little girl, who, on seeing the wrathful apparition, had clung terrified to her father's arm; then he slowly sank into the water. He sat down in his crystal hall, leaned his head on his hand, and tried to devise some plan by which he could entice the little girl from the boat into his kingdom, and, by choosing her as the victim of the day, avenge himself on the boatman.

"I have it!" he cried at length; "the trick with the green ribbon that I learned the other day from my cousin the water-prince in Bohemia will be of use to me now. To-day there is some great ceremony in the next village, and I am sure the father will send his child there to have her out of my way, and then I may find an opportunity of trying my skill."

So saying, he put on his hat of plaited rushes, drew on his green coat, and rose to the surface to place himself not far from the boat among the willows by the river's brink.

He had guessed rightly. Though the boatman had seemed courageous when speaking to the water-sprite, a secret uneasiness rankled in his heart. It was not for himself he feared, but for his only child; for he had seen the wicked glance that the waterman had cast on the girl as he disappeared beneath the stream. He consulted his wife about what they ought to do for their child's safety; for they knew well the dangers of St. John's day, which the mischance with the rudder had unhappily doubled.

In the next village lived a distant relation, and the fair gave an excellent excuse for paying her a visit. The little girl dressed herself in her best, said good-bye to her parents, and received injunctions to stay all night with her friends, and not return to the boat before morning. Joyfully she hastened along the high-road, which lay for some distance by the river-side, till she came to the place where the water-sprite sat so quietly in his summer clothes, that no one would have recognised in him the angry and revengeful spirit of the morning.

"Where are you going so briskly, fair maiden?" he asked pleasantly.

"To the village, to the dance!" answered the little one merrily; "don't you hear the music?"

"My dear child," said the water-sprite artfully, "the girls there are all so finely dressed that you in your plain clothes will look very shabby among them, and perhaps you will not even be able to get a partner. But look at this lovely ribbon, of which I have such a quantity. If you had that twined in among your golden hair, or wound as a sash round your slender waist, you would outshine all the girls at the fair."

The little one, who had thought until the old man spoke to her that she would never get soon enough to the dance, now stopped, and looked with a critical eye, first on herself, and then on the bright green ribbon, which the water-sprite was pulling in endless lengths from the river which flowed on the other side of the willows.

"Look how pretty it is!" said he, and she let him wind it, as if to try the effect, around her slender form.

But immediately she was in the old fairy's power. With a mocking laugh, he said—

"Now, my little one, thou art mine! We shall see whether thy father will say to-morrow that my authority is overthrown, and that I have no longer power to frighten a child. Come!"

As he spoke he seized the ribbon, and walked towards the river.

The terrified child began to scream, but father and mother were far away. She tried to escape, but the ribbon forced her to follow the water-sprite. Her feet would bear her in no other direction, no matter how she tried. Nearer and nearer to the rushing stream was she drawn by the dreadful ribbon. Soon the water touched her feet.

"Father, mother, farewell!" she cried in a voice of anguish. Then the old water-elf caught her in his arms, and, with a horrid laugh, plunged with her into the stream. The waters did their deadly work on the poor child's body, but the water-sprite kept the soul of the drowned girl prisoner at the bottom of the Saale. She could not mount to heaven; she could not even rejoice in the sunlight which pressed in softened radiance through the water to the meadow on the river's bed, nor might she play like the little water-elf with the silvery fishes. Heedless of her entreaties, the water-man put her under the heavy bell among the lilies, and said, as he went back to his castle, "Here thou shalt stay in punishment for thy father's insolence; and my watchful eye and the weight of the bell will prevent any one from setting thee free."

He went away, and left the soul of the poor little girl alone in her prison. Her sighs and lamentations could not pierce through the thick metal walls, but they were only sent back to her in dismal echo.

Meantime the little water-elf stood outside the bell in sympathetic grief. She wound a garland of the fairest lilies round the little girl's corpse, carried it gently up through the water, and left it near the boat. The parents would never again see their dear child alive, but she had laid the little body in a soft bed of flowers, to make the sad sight less startling to their loving hearts.

Next morning, when the sun began to gild the waters of the Saale, the boatman left his cabin to make preparations for departure, while the mother, shading her eyes with her hand, stood looking along the high-road, where she expected every moment to see the child appear.

"Look there, wife!" said the boatman, pointing to an object in the water, which slowly approached the boat. "Look there! What is that?"

The woman turned to see. The waters of the Saale were gently bringing a great garland of blooming lilies, and in their midst lay, with closed eyes and folded hands, their loved and only child.

The little girl's soul sat beneath the bell. She could not leave her prison. Not a chink was visible, and the heavy bell would not move one hairsbreadth, notwithstanding all her efforts.

"What will my father and mother say if I do not come home?" sighed the child's soul. "Oh, my poor dear parents! Never to see the pleasant sunlight or the blue sky! To stay down here for ever in this narrow, dark coffin—oh, how dreadful!" And if a soul could have died with terror, grief, and longing, that would certainly have been the fate of the little girl's spirit The hours passed silently over her and her prison. The hours became days. How many had gone by? The little soul did not know. At last she sank into a kind of stupor, and almost ceased to feel.

But one day something approached her prison, the edge of the bell was raised, and the water-sprite's rough voice said, "Come out."

The opening through which the light was peeping was small, but souls, with their light transparent forms, do not need much space, and in a moment the little spirit slipped out, and now stood trembling before the wicked water-man.

"Thou mayest play here for a little," he said; "but in an hour thou must return to the bell."

The soul looked up. She had been so long in that dismal tomb, and now she found herself all at once in God's gloriously beautiful creation, though only for a short time, and as a prisoner! She forgot her past sorrow, and thought not of the future; she rejoiced in the delightful present, and looked up at the sun, which in noontide splendour stood in the blue canopy of heaven, sending its rays down on the green meadow, their brilliance softened by the crystal flood.

Then she looked around. Before her stood the splendid palace, with its glittering walls and transparent pillars, and round her swam the prettiest little fishes as fearlessly as if the little soul had been an acquaintance for years.

A lovely young girl came out of the shining building, and asked her to play with her.

The old water-sprite frowned in displeasure at his daughter's friendliness, but the little elf did not look at him, and the child's soul thought, "I must go back to prison at any rate, and he cannot do anything worse to me!" So she took the friendly fairy's hand, and rose with her through the silvery flood, chasing the fishes and trying to grasp the sunbeams with her little transparent hand. Then she wound garlands of reeds, and let them rise to the top of the water, after she had pressed sweet kisses on them, and laden them with loving messages for her dear ones up above.

As she stood watching them with tearful longing as they rose nearer and nearer to her home, she heard herself called once more. The water-sprite stood behind her, seized her hand, and led her back to the bell. She turned for a last look at the clear blue sky; the next moment she was back in her dark and narrow prison.

Hours and days passed slowly by. The time seemed endless to the poor little soul. Her only amusement and her only pleasure was to go over again and again that one hour of freedom and happiness.

One day, just as she was doing this, there was a noise outside the bell; the ray of light pierced her prison again, and before the old water-sprite had time to give her permission the little prisoner slipped through, spread out her delicate transparent arms towards the light of heaven, and with a cry of joy greeted the fair, free world. Her playfellow was standing waiting for her, and together they left the bell with joyous haste, slipped through the waving grass, and danced on the sunbeams with the dragon-flies and fishes.

"Oh!" said the little soul sadly, "why does this delightful hour come so seldom. Why may I not get out every day?"

"I do not know," answered the water-fairy; "but it is only on Saturday, between twelve and one o'clock, that the spirits are allowed to leave their prison down here and play in the sunlight."

"But it is so lonely and dark in the bell," said the child's soul dolefully.

The little nymph looked at her compassionately. Both had lost all pleasure in their joyous play, and arm-in-arm they looked up through the water at the clouds which were slowly sailing past.

"There comes your father to fetch me," said the little girl's soul, shuddering. "Oh! do come once, just once, every day to my prison; knock against the bell, and when the sound pierces through my metal walls I shall know that I am not quite alone in the world. Will you?"

A thought struck the young water-sprite; she opened her mouth to tell it to her playmate, but just then her father came up, and she had to be silent. She could only nod kindly at the poor little prisoner, whom the old water-sprite led roughly away to the dismal prison, whose narrow walls soon shut her out from the cheerful daylight.

It was night. Souls cannot sleep, but they may have waking dreams.

Thus the child's spirit was led back in imagination to her home. She saw herself once more in the ship on which she had been born, and fancied herself sitting beside her mother, listening to pleasant stories told by the dear gentle voice, and as she dreamed she forgot the impassable gulf which separated her from the living ones above the stream.

Then the sound of a bell fell gently on her ear. She had been so absorbed in her dreams that she started in alarm at the unexpected sound, and it was a moment or two before she could collect her thoughts to think. Then she remembered her request, of which this was evidently the fulfilment, so she struck softly against the inside of the bell as a sign that she had heard her friend's greeting.

Then the edge of her prison was gently lifted, and with a cry of joy she slipped out into the water. There stood the little water-sprite.

"Will you go up with me to the surface of the stream?" asked she. "Would you like to float up and down on my lily-raft?"

"Indeed I should," answered the little soul. "What do I want but freedom, air, and light? Oh yes, take me with you!"

The lovely nymph took the child's hand, and a little shining wave bore them upwards as on the wings of a swan.

Now they are standing on the surface of the water. The little water-sprite beckoned, and from far and near swam the water-lilies and anemones to make a boat of flowers for their young mistress and her dear little pale companion.

They glided down the stream. Oh, how beautiful it was!