o be a leader
of the souls of the dead; and as such she is followed by a band of
children. For her the peasants on Twelfth Night set a repast, of which,
if she be pleased, she and her troop partake. A servant boy at a
peasant's farm in the Tirol on one such occasion perceived Lady
Berchta's approach, and hid himself behind the kneading-trough to watch
what she would do. She immediately became aware of his presence as he
peeped through a chink, and called to one of her children to go and stop
that chink. The child went and blew into it, and the boy became
stark-blind. Thus he continued for a year, nor could any doctor help
him, until an old experienced man advised him to go to the same place on
the following Twelfth-tide, and falling down on his knees behind the
kneading-trough, to bewail his curiosity. He accordingly did so. Dame
Berchta came again, and taking pity on him, commanded one of her
children to restore his sight. The child went and blew once more through
the chink, and the boy saw. Berchta, however, and her weird troop he saw
not; but the food set out for them had disappeared.[42]

The tradition of the goddess Hertha lingered until recently, and
perchance lingers still, in the island of Ruegen. She had her dwelling,
it is believed, in the Herthaburg; and often yet, in the clear
moonlight, out of the forest which enfolds that hill, a fair lady comes
surrounded by her maids to bathe in the lake at its foot. After awhile
they emerge from the waters, and, wrapt again in their long white veils,
they vanish flickering among the trees. But to the belated wanderer, if
any such there be, who looks upon this scene, it is a vision of dread;
for he is drawn by irresistible might to the lake wherein the white lady
is bathing, to be swallowed up in its depths. And it is said that every
year the lady must lure one unhappy mortal into the flood. So in the
classic mythology, if Ovid report aright, Actaeon met the fearful fate of
transformation into a stag by "gazing on divinity disrobed," and was
torn in pieces by his own hounds. Hertha was, indeed, according to
Tacitus, more terrible than Diana, since death was the penalty even when
duty called her slaves to the awful sight.[43]

These traditions have led us away from the Magical Ointment, which thus
appears to be only one aspect of the larger theme of the objection on
the part of supernatural beings to human prying. Nor need we regret
having strayed; for we are brought nat