es or
water-spirits, one of whom, in Norwegian legend, was seen weeping
bitterly because of the want of a soul. Sometimes the nymph is a wicked
siren like the Lorelei; but in many of these tales she weds an earthly
lover, and deserts him after a time, sometimes on finding her diving
cap, or her seal-skin garment, which restores her to her ocean kindred,
sometimes on his intruding on her while she is under a periodical
transformation, as with the fairy Melusine, more rarely if he becomes
unfaithful.

There is a remarkable Cornish tale of a nymph or mermaiden, who thus
vanished, leaving a daughter who loved to linger on the beach rather
than sport with other children. By and by she had a lover, but no sooner
did he show tokens of inconstancy, than the mother came up from the sea
and put him to death, when the daughter pined away and died. Her name
was Selina, which gives the tale a modern aspect, and makes us wonder
if the old tradition can have been modified by some report of Undine's
story.

There was an idea set forth by the Rosicrucians of spirits abiding in
the elements, and as Undine represented the water influences, Fouque's
wife, the Baroness Caroline, wrote a fairly pretty story on the sylphs
of fire. But Undine's freakish playfulness and mischief as an elemental
being, and her sweet patience when her soul is won, are quite
original, and indeed we cannot help sharing, or at least understanding,
Huldbrand's beginning to shrink from the unearthly creature to something
of his own flesh and blood. He is altogether unworthy, and though in
this tale there is far less of spiritual meaning than in Sintram, we
cannot but see that Fouque's thought was that the grosser human nature
is unable to appreciate what is absolutely pure and unearthly.

C. M. YONGE.

CHAPTER 1

In the high castle of Drontheim many knights sat assembled to hold
council for the weal of the realm; and joyously they caroused together
till midnight around the huge stone table in the vaulted hall. A rising
storm drove the snow wildly against the rattling windows; all the oak
doors groaned, the massive locks shook, the castle-clock slowly
and heavily struck the hour of one. Then a boy, pale as death, with
disordered hair and closed eyes, rushed into the hall, uttering a wild
scream of terror. He stopped beside the richly carved seat of the mighty
Biorn, clung to the glittering knight with both