n the joyful music into pitiful wails. Often priest or
children, discovering their mistake, and touched by the agony of their
victims, would hasten back to the stream and assure the green-toothed
water sprites of future redemption, when they invariably resumed
their happy strains.

"Know you the Nixies, gay and fair?
Their eyes are black, and green their hair--
They lurk in sedgy shores."

Mathisson.

River Nymphs

Besides Elf or Elb, the water sprite who gave its name to the Elbe
River in Germany, the Neck, from whom the Neckar derives its name,
and old Father Rhine, with his numerous daughters (tributary streams),
the most famous of all the lesser water divinities is the Lorelei,
the siren maiden who sits upon the Lorelei rock near St. Goar, on
the Rhine, and whose alluring song has enticed many a mariner to
death. The legends concerning this siren are very numerous indeed,
one of the most ancient being as follows:

Legends of the Lorelei

Lorelei was an immortal, a water nymph, daughter of Father Rhine;
during the day she dwelt in the cool depths of the river bed, but
late at night she would appear in the moonlight, sitting aloft upon
a pinnacle of rock, in full view of all who passed up or down the
stream. At times, the evening breeze wafted some of the notes of
her song to the boatmen's ears, when, forgetting time and place in
listening to these enchanting melodies, they drifted upon the sharp
and jagged rocks, where they invariably perished.

"Above the maiden sitteth,
A wondrous form, and fair;
With jewels bright she plaiteth
Her shining golden hair:
With comb of gold prepares it,
The task with song beguiled;
A fitful burden bears it--
That melody so wild.

"The boatman on the river
Lists to the song, spell-bound;
Oh! what shall him deliver
From danger threat'ning round?
The waters deep have caught them,
Both boat and boatman brave;
'Tis Loreley's song hath brought them
Beneath the foaming wave."

Song, Heine (Selcher's tr.).

One person only is said to have seen the Lorelei close by. This was
a young fisherman from Oberwesel, who met her every evening by the
riverside, and spent a few delightful hours with her, drinking in her
beauty and listening to her entrancing song. Tradition had it that ere
they parted the Lorelei pointed out the places where the youth sho