Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/463

Rh amount, and he said, "I will hire you; you shall come to me, and here are your arles" (God's-penny). The girl had been very glad when he said that he would hire her; but as he put the money in her hand, she shivered all over, and felt that there was something awful about this stranger. She took the arles, however, and then he told her that at twelve o'clock on the following night she was to come to him at a place very near her father's house, where four roads met. When she got home she told her father and mother what she had done, and what she thought about this stranger, and they too were much alarmed and convinced that he was the Devil. They sent for the priest, who came in the morning. He, too, said that the stranger was the Devil, but declared that the girl must keep her word with him. So when night came she went to the place where the four roads met, and by the priest's orders, drew a circle, and stood within it, saying always the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria. At midnight there was a loud clap of thunder, and an angry flash of forked lightning, and immediately after a host of horrible black fiends rushed forward against her, screaming and gesticulating as if they would rend her in pieces. Her alarm was intense; but somehow she was just able to remember that the priest had told her never for a moment to cease praying, and making the sign of the cross, and never by any chance to allow herself to be terrified into overstepping the limits of the circle. She was likewise not to turn her back to her enemies. They, for their part, did their utmost to make her leave the circle and to weary her out with terror, that she might lose all power of resisting them. Sometimes they attacked her in front, sometimes behind, rushing madly on her, making the most horrible faces, uttering the most horrible cries, glaring at her with fierce fiery eyes, or seeming about to claw her forth and destroy her. Over and over again she felt as if she must faint for very weariness, or turn and fall into their power, but at length after many hours, a pale light in the sky showed that day would ere long dawn, and a cock crowed, on which all vanished, and she was delivered.—.]

From the Maine district. There is a similar story in Frei's Gartengesellschaft (1557), chap. 1., and one with corresponding incidents, but told in different words, in Kirchhof's Wendunmut (1565), 1. No. 81. We give the story from the former book.

In the valley of Geslinger dwelt a very rich widow, who had an only son, who was heavy-headed and dull-witted, and the most foolish of all the dwellers in this valley. This same dolt once upon a time saw at Saarbruck the daughter of a nobleman of high repute. The fool fell in love with her at once, and charged his mother to get this girl to be his wife, or else he would