Undine,
"I set out on my enterprise. The stems of the trees caught the red
tints of the morning light which lay brightly on the green turf, the
leaves seemed whispering merrily with each other, and in my heart I
could have laughed at the people who could have expected anything to
terrify them in this pleasant spot. 'I shall soon have trotted
through the forest there and back again,' I said to myself, with a
feeling of easy gayety, and before I had even thought of it I was
deep within the green shades, and could no longer perceive the plain
which lay behind me. Then for the first time it struck me that I
might easily lose my way in the mighty forest, and that this perhaps
was the only danger which the wanderer had to fear. I therefore
paused and looked round in the direction of the sun, which in the
mean while had risen somewhat higher above the horizon. While I was
thus looking up I saw something black in the branches of a lofty
oak. I thought it was a bear and I grasped my sword; but with a
human voice, that sounded harsh and ugly, it called to me from
above: 'If I do not nibble away the branches up here, Sir Malapert,
what shall we have to roast you with at midnight?' And so saying it
grinned and made the branches rustle, so that my horse grew furious
and rushed forward with me before I had time to see what sort of a
devil it really was."

"You must not call it so," said the old fisherman as he crossed
himself; his wife did the same silently. Undine looked at the knight
with sparkling eyes and said: "The best of the story is that they
certainly have not roasted him yet; go on now, you beautiful youth!"

The knight continued his narration: "My horse was so wild that he
almost rushed with me against the stems and branches of trees; he
was dripping with sweat, and yet would not suffer himself to be held
in. At last he went straight in the direction of a rocky precipice;
then it suddenly seemed to me as if a tall white man threw himself
across the path of my wild steed; the horse trembled with fear and
stopped: I recovered my hold of him, and for the first time
perceived that my deliverer was no white man, but a brook of silvery
brightness, rushing down from a hill by my side and crossing and
impeding my horse's course."

"Thanks, dear Brook," exclaimed Undine, clapping her little hands.
The old man, however, shook his head and looked down in deep
thought.

"I had scarcely settled myself in the saddle," continued H