Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/153

IV.] them or we shall never have done. But there is one little story of the Danish Nis—who answers to the German Kobold—which I may tell you, because it is like the story of Hodêken which you have just read, and shows that the creatures were of the same kind. There was a Nis in Jutland who was very much teased by a mischievous boy. When the Nis had done his work he sat down to have his supper, and he found that the boy had been playing tricks with his porridge and made it unpleasant. So he made up his mind to be revenged, and he did it in this way. The boy slept with a servant-man in the loft. The Nis went up to them and took off the bed-clothes. Then, looking at the little boy lying beside the tall man, he said, "Long and short don't match," and he took the boy by the legs and pulled him down to the man's legs. This was not to his mind, however, so he went to the head of the bed and looked at them. Then said the Nis—"Short and long don't match," and he pulled the boy up again; and so he went on all through the night, up and down, down and up, till the boy was punished enough. Another Nis in Jutland went with a boy to steal corn for his master's horses. The Nis was