ess of heart. A short time before she had been
raking hay in a field, when she caught a large and fat toad between the
teeth of her rake. She gently released it, saying: "Poor thing! I see
that thou needest help; I will help thee." That toad was the troll-wife,
and as she afterwards attended her she was horrified to see a hideous
serpent hanging down just above her head. Her fright led to explanations
and an expression of gratitude on the part of the troll-wife. This
incident is by no means uncommon; but a very few examples must suffice
here. Generally the woman's terror is attributed to a millstone hanging
over her head. At Grammendorf, in Pomerania, a maid saw, every time she
went to milk the cows, a hateful toad hopping about in the stable. She
determined to kill it, and would have seized it one day had it not, in
the very nick of time, succeeded in creeping into a hole, where she
could not get at it. A few days after, when she was again busy in the
stable, a little Ulk, as the elves there are called, came and invited
her to descend with him into Fairyland. On reaching the bottom of a
staircase with her conductor, she found her services were required for
an Ulkwife, whose time was at hand. Entering the dwelling she was
frightened to observe a huge millstone above her, suspended by a silken
thread; and the Ulk, seeing her terror, told her she had caused him
exactly the same, when she chased the poor toad and attempted to kill
it. The girl was compelled to share in the feast which followed. When it
was over she was given a piece of gold, that she was carefully to
preserve; for so long as she did so she would never be in want of money.
But her guide warned her at parting never to relate her experience,
otherwise the elves would fetch her again, and set her under the
millstone, which would then fall and crush her. Whether this was indeed
the consequence of her narrating this very true story we do not know.
After some of the beliefs we have been considering in the foregoing
pages it is, however, interesting to note that no ill attended her
eating and drinking in Fairyland, and that the gold she received did not
turn to dross, though it possessed other miraculous qualities which
might very well have led her to the bad end threatened by the Ulk.
Perhaps a portion of the story has been lost.[27]

Sometimes a different turn is given to the tale. A Swabian peasant-woman
was once in the fields with her servant-maid, when they sa