ter, leaving him soulless to die. This was probably the origin of
the classical story of Narcissus.... The same ancient belief
lingers, in a faded form, in the English superstition that whoever
sees a water-fairy must pine and die.

'Alas, the moon should ever beam
To show what man should never see!--
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she!

I staid to watch, a little space,
Her parted lips if she would sing;
The waters closed above her face
With many a ring.

I know my life will fade away,
I know that I must vainly pine,
For I am made of mortal clay.
But she's divine!'"

Fraser, _The Golden Bough_, London, Macmillan & Co., 1900, vol. i,
pp. 293-294. The object of Fernando's love was evidently an undine
(see p. 43, note 1, and p. 47, note 1).]

LA CORZA BLANCA

I

En un pequeno lugar[1] de Aragon,[1] y alla por los anos de mil
trescientos y pico, vivia retirado en su torre senorial un famoso
caballero llamado don Dionis, el cual, despues de haber servido a su
rey[3] en la guerra contra infieles, descansaba a la sazon, entregado
al alegre ejercicio de la caza, de las rudas fatigas de los combates.

[Footnote 1: un pequeno lugar. Veraton, a feudal town in the
neighborhood of the Moncayo (see p. 8, note 1). Population (1900),
484.]

[Footnote 2: Aragon. "An ancient kingdom, now a captaincy-general of
Spain, capital Saragossa, bounded by France on the north, by
Catalonia on the east, by Valencia on the south, and by New Castile,
Old Castile, and Navarre on the west, comprising the provinces of
Huesca, Saragossa, and Teruel. It is traversed by mountains and
intersected by the Ebro. During the middle ages it was one of the
two chief Christian powers in the peninsula. In 1035 it became a
kingdom; was united to Catalonia in 1137; rose to great influence
through its acquisitions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and the Sicilies; and
was united with Castile in 1479 through the marriage of Ferdinand of
Aragon with Isabella of Castile." _Century Dict._]

[Footnote 3: The kings who reigned in Aragon during the fourteenth
century were as follows: Jaime II _el Justo_ (1291-1327), Alfonso IV
_el Benigno_ (1327-1336), Pedro IV _el Ceremonioso_ (1336-1387),
Juan I _el Cazador_ (1387-1395), and Martin (1395-1410).]

Acontecio una vez a este caballero, hallan