* *

After this story, of which we have only given a brief abstract, we place
another, descriptive of the dwellings of the lake-spirits.

THE LAKE-DWELLERS.[42]

(JANNSEN.)

Many years ago a man was driving over a lake with his little son before
the ice was properly formed. It broke, and they all sank in the water,
when an old man with silver-grey hair came up, and upbraided them for
breaking through the winter roof of his palace. He told the man that he
must stay with him, but he would give him a grey horse and a sledge with
golden runners, that he might drive about under the ice in autumn, and
make a noise to warn others that it was unsafe until Father Taara had
strengthened it sufficiently. But he would help the boy and the horse
above the ice, for they were not to blame. When the water-god had
brought them from under the ice, he told the boy to go home, and not to
mourn for his father, who would be very happy under the water, and to be
careful not to drop anything out of the sledge. On reaching home, he
found two lumps of ice in the sledge, and threw them out, but when they
struck against a stone and did not break, he discovered that they were
lumps of pure silver. He had now plenty to live upon comfortably; but
every autumn when the lake was covered with young ice, he went to it,
hoping to see or hear something of his father. The ice often cracked and
heaved just before his footsteps, as if his father was trying to speak
to him, but there was no other sign.

Many years passed by, and the son grew old and grey. One day he went to
the lake as usual, and sat down sorrowfully on a stone, just where the
river falls into it, and great tears rolled down his cheeks. Suddenly he
saw, on raising his eyes, a great door of silver with golden
lattice-work close to the mouth of the river. He rose up and went to it,
and he had scarcely touched it when it sprang open. He hesitated a
moment and then entered, and found himself in a gloomy gallery of
bronze. He went some distance, and presently reached a second door like
the former, but much higher. Before it stood a dwarf with a broad stone
hat on his head and bronze armour. He wore a copper girdle round his
waist, and held in his hand a copper halbert about six feet long. "I
suppose you have come to see your father?" he said in a friendly manner.
"Yes, indeed, my good man," answered the other. "Can you not help me to
see him or meet him? I am already an old m