e robbers. Nine
were hung by the hangman; the life of the tenth was allowed to the
hangman as his right, and this tenth was Schlingdengau Helmbrecht; the
hangman revenged the father, by putting out his eyes, and the mother,
by cutting off a hand and a foot. Thus the blind Helmbrecht was led
with the help of a staff, by a servant, home to his father's house.

"Hear how his father greeted him: 'Dieu salue, monsieur Blindman, go
from hence, monsieur Blindman; if you delay, I will have you driven
away by my servant; away with you from the door!'

"'Sir, I am your child.'

"'Is the boy become blind, who called himself Schlingdengau? Now do you
not fear the threats of the hangman or all the magistrates in the
world! Heigh! how you 'ate iron' when you rode off on the steed for
which I gave my cattle. Begone, and never return again!'

"Again the blind man spoke. 'If you will not recognise me as your
child, at least allow a miserable man to crawl into your house, as you
do the poor sick; the country people hate me; I cannot save myself if
you are ungracious to me.'

"The heart of the host was shaken, for the blind man who stood before
him was his own flesh and blood--his son; yet he exclaimed with a
scornful laugh, 'You went out daringly into the world; you have caused
many a heart to sigh, and robbed many a peasant of his possessions.
Think of my dream. Servant, close the door and draw the bolt; I will
betake me to my rest. As long as I live, I had rather take in a
stranger whom my eyes never beheld, than share my loaf with you.' Thus
saying, he struck the servant of the blind man. 'I would do so to your
master, if I were not ashamed to strike a blind man; take him, whom the
sun hates, from before me!' Thus did the father exclaim, but the mother
put a loaf in his hand as to a child. So the blind man went away, the
peasants hooting and scoffing at him.

"For a whole year he endured great hardships. Early one morning when he
was going through the forest to beg bread, some peasants who were
gathering wood saw him, and one of them from whom he had taken a cow
called to the others to help him. All of them had been injured by him,
he had broken into the hut of one and stripped it; he had dishonoured
the daughter of another; and a fourth, trembling like a reed with
passion, said, 'I will wring his neck; he thrust my sleeping child into
a sack, and when it awoke and cried, he tossed it out into the snow, so
that it died.' Thus t