Page:Foreign Tales and Traditions (Volume 1).djvu/375

 avarice, could not abstain from counting the most trifling of his possessions,—the turnips of his garden. This derivation has in our days obtained most credit from the authority of Musæus, the well-known writer of Tales; only, according to him, the appellation does not mark the avarice of the spirit—for of this feature the world of tradition knows nothing—it is grounded on a love adventure. For many thousand years, Musæus relates, Rubezahl had inhabited the Giant Mountains; at last the lovely daughter of a neighbouring prince attracted his regards, and by his spells he succeeded in getting her into his power. To beguile the gloomy and cheerless solitude around her new residence, and to gain her heart,—in which he had hitherto failed,—he created a host of servants to wait upon her, out of a number of turnips, and bestowed upon them the forms of her companions and acquaintances. But as the turnips faded upon the field, these enchanted beings also withered away, and yearly left the forsaken maiden in sadder solitude than ever. Rubezahl had once prepared a large field of turnips, to procure, against the arrival of the following spring, a numerous attendance of servants for his beloved. But she was enamoured of a prince of Ratibor, and found means to inform him of her situation. In the meanwhile she began to show herself somewhat more gracious, and as the day approached on which she expected her lover, she flattered Rubezahl that she was almost vanquished by his love, and would be ready to return it if he would count with the greatest accuracy his whole field of turnips, and tell her their exact number, neither one more nor less. But whilst the spirit, to make sure of his reckoning, was busy counting his turnips over and over again, the maiden took the opportunity of making her escape with the prince of Ratibor, and ere he returned they were far beyond his domains. The enraged spirit left the mountain for several thousand years, and at last came back in a very misanthropical mood. The whole tale as given by Musæus has something absolutely modern and sen-