path went over some damp marshy ground, and
there were water and mud in the way, she threw the bread into the
mud, in order to step upon it and get over with dry shoes; but just
as she had placed one foot on the bread, and had lifted the other up,
the bread sank in with her deeper and deeper, till she went entirely
down, and nothing was to be seen but a black bubbling pool.

That is the story.

What became of the girl? She went below to the _Old Woman of the
Bogs_, who brews down there. The Old Woman of the Bogs is an aunt of
the fairies. _They_ are very well known. Many poems have been written
about them, and they have been printed; but nobody knows anything more
of the Old Woman of the Bogs than that, when the meadows and the
ground begin to reek in summer, it is the old woman below who is
brewing. Into her brewery it was that Inger sank, and no one could
hold out very long there. A cesspool is a charming apartment compared
with the old Bog-woman's brewery. Every vessel is redolent of horrible
smells, which would make any human being faint, and they are packed
closely together and over each other; but even if there were a small
space among them which one might creep through, it would be
impossible, on account of all the slimy toads and snakes that are
always crawling and forcing themselves through. Into this place little
Inger sank. All this nauseous mess was so ice-cold that she shivered
in every limb. Yes, she became stiffer and stiffer. The bread stuck
fast to her, and it drew her as an amber bead draws a slender thread.

The Old Woman of the Bogs was at home. The brewery was that day
visited by the devil and his dam, and she was a venomous old creature
who was never idle. She never went out without having some needlework
with her. She had brought some there. She was sewing running leather
to put into the shoes of human beings, so that they should never be at
rest. She embroidered lies, and worked up into mischief and discord
thoughtless words, that would otherwise have fallen to the ground.
Yes, she knew how to sew and embroider, and transfer with a vengeance,
that old grandam!

She beheld Inger, put on her spectacles, and looked at her.

"That is a girl with talents," said she. "I shall ask for her as a
_souvenir_ of my visit here; she may do very well as a statue to
ornament my great-grandchildren's antechamber;" and she took her.

It was thus little Inger went to the infernal regions. People do not
gener