Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/165

IV.] but keep underground, or, when they come up, they sit in the elder-trees, and screech horribly like owls, or mew like cats. They, too, are great metal-workers, especially in steel; and in old days they used to make arms and armour for the gods and heroes: shirts of mail as fine as cobwebs, yet so strong that no sword could go through them; and swords that would bend like rushes, and yet were as hard as diamonds, and would cut through any helmet, however thick.

So long as they keep their caps on their heads the dwarfs are invisible; but if any one can get possession of a dwarfs cap he can see them, and becomes their master. This is the foundation of one of the best of the dwarf stories—the story of John Dietrich, who went out to the sand-hills at Ramfin, in the isle of Rügen, on the eve of St John, a very, very long time ago, and managed to strike off the cap from the head of one of the brown dwarfs, and went down with them into their underground dwelling-place. This was quite a little town, where the rooms were decorated with diamonds and rubies, and the dwarf people had gold and silver and crystal table-services, and there were artificial birds that flew about like real ones, and the