ers,
that it was, at the dividing of the house into two branches, diligently
parted in two. Others yet, that the one half has been melted, since when
it goes ill with that branch: the other half stays with the other branch
at Zichtow. The story moreover goes, that the benevolent lady was a
married woman. When she upon the morrow told her husband the tale of
that had betid her in the night, he would not believe her, until she
said, 'Forsooth, then, an' ye will not trow me, take only the key of yon
room from the table: there lieth, I dare warrant, the ring.' Which was
exactly so. It is marvellous the gifts that men have received of the
fairies."

The most touching by far of the traditions at our disposal for
illustrating at once the dependence of the fairies upon man, and their
anxiety concerning their souls' welfare, is one in which the
all-important hope which we have said that they sometimes solicit from
the grave and authorized lips of priests, appears as floating on the
lightest breath of children. Our immediate author is James Grimm,
speaking in his German _Mythology_ of the water spirit. The tradition
itself is from Sweden, where this mythological being, the solitary
water fairy, bears the name of "The _Neck_."

"Two lads were at play by the river side. The _Neck_ sate and touched
his harp. The children called to him--

"'Why sittest thou here, _Neck_, and playest? Thou wilt not go to
heaven.' Then the _Neck_ began bitterly weeping, flung his harp away,
and sank in the deep water. When the boys came home they told their
father, who was a priest, what had happened. The father said--

"'Ye have sinned towards the _Neck_. Go ye back, and give him promise of
salvation.'

"When they returned to the river, the _Neck_ sate upon the shore,
mourning and weeping. The children said--

"'Weep not so, thou _Neck_. Our father hath said, that thy Redeemer too
liveth.'

"Then the _Neck_ took joyfully his harp, and played sweetly until long
after sundown."

"I do not know," tenderly and profoundly suggests Dr Grimm, "that any
where else in our traditions is as significantly expressed how NEEDY of
the Christian belief the HEATHEN are, and how MILDLY it should approach
them."

* * * * *

III. A few words shall here satisfy the claims of a widely-stretching
subject. Is there _one_ order of spirits which, as the Baron Walckenaer
has assured us, lavishes on chosen human heads love unattracted