hing themselves
out, and hanging over the running water, which here and there is
deeper than an oar can fathom.

Opposite to the nunnery is the deepest part. It is called "The Bell's
Hollow," and there dwells the merman. He sleeps by day when the sun
shines through the water, but comes forth on the clear starry nights,
and by moonlight. He is very old. Grandmothers have heard of him from
their grandmothers. They said he lived a lonely life, and had scarcely
any one to speak to except the large old church bell. Once upon a time
it hung up in the steeple of the church; but now there is no trace
either of the steeple or the church, which was then called Saint
Albani.

"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" rang the bell while it stood in the steeple;
and one evening when the sun was setting, and the bell was in full
motion, it broke loose, and flew through the air, its shining metal
glowing in the red sunbeams. "Ding-dong! ding-dong! now I am going to
rest," sang the bell; and it flew out to Odensee river, where it was
deepest, and therefore that spot is now called "The Bell's Hollow."
But it found neither sleep nor rest there. Down at the merman's it
still rings; so that at times it is heard above, through the water,
and many people say that its tones foretell a death; but there is no
truth in that, for it rings to amuse the merman, who is now no longer
alone.

And what does the bell relate? It was so very old, it was there before
our grandmothers' grandmothers were born, and yet it was a child
compared with the merman, who is an old, quiet, strange-looking
person, with eel-skin leggings, a scaly tunic adorned with yellow
water-lilies, a wreath of sedges in his hair, and weeds in his beard.
It must be confessed he was not very handsome to look at.

It would take a year and a day to repeat all that the bell said, for
it told the same old stories over and over again very minutely, making
them sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, according to its mood. It
told of the olden days--the rigorous, dark times.

To the tower upon St. Albani Church, where the bell hung, ascended a
monk. He was both young and handsome, but had an air of deep
melancholy. He looked through an aperture out over the Odensee river.
Its bed then was broad, and the monks' meadows were a lake. He gazed
over them, and over the green mound called "The Nuns Hill," beyond
which the cloister lay, where the light shone from a nun's cell. He
had known her well, and he reme