lly poor he had been servant to one of the timber
merchants, when all at once he became immensely rich; for which some
accounted by saying he had found a pot full of money under an old pine
tree, while others asserted that he had fished up in the Rhine, near
Bingen, a packet of gold coins with the spear which these raftsmen
sometimes throw at the fish as they go along in the river, that packet
being part of the great "Niebelungenhort," which is sunk there. But
however this might be, the fact of his suddenly becoming rich caused
him to be looked upon as a prince by young and old.

Often did poor Peter Munk the coal burner think of these three men,
when sitting alone in the pine forest. All three indeed had one great
fault, which made them hated by every body: this was their insatiable
avarice, their heartlessness towards their debtors and towards the
poor, for the Schwarzwaelder are naturally a kind-hearted people.
However, we all know how it is in these matters; though they were hated
for their avarice, yet they commanded respect on account of their
money, for who but they could throw away thalers, as if they could
shake them from the pines?

"This will do no longer," said Peter one day to himself, when he felt
very melancholy, it being the morrow after a holiday when every body
had been at the inn; "if I don't soon thrive I shall make away with
myself; Oh that I were as much looked up to and as rich as the stout
Hesekiel, or as bold and powerful as the tall Schlurker, or as renowned
as the king of the ball-room, and could like him throw thalers instead
of kreutzers to the musicians! I wonder where the fellow gets his
money!" Reflecting upon all the different means by which money may be
got, he could please himself with none, till at length he thought of
the tales of those people who, in times of old, had become rich through
the Dutchman Michel, or the glass-mannikin. During his father's
lifetime other poor people often made their calls, and then their
conversation was generally about rich persons, and the means by which
they had come by their riches; in these discourses the glass-mannikin
frequently played a conspicuous part. Now, if Peter strained his
memory a little he could almost recall the short verse which one must
repeat near the Tannenbuehl in the heart of the forest, to make the
sprite appear. It began as follows:

"Keeper of wealth in the forest of pine,
Hundreds of years are surely thine:
Th