Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/97

 to-morrow he won’t know you; ever in contradiction with himself, he gives way to the impulse of the moment, and you have no more hold upon him than upon a shadow.

A long, long time ago, ere the race of Japhet had extended itself so far northwards, so that these regions were as yet uninhabited by man, Rubezahl used to divert himself in their wild solitudes with setting the bears and the aurochs together by the ears, exciting them to fight it out to the death; or else with frightening, by his hideous shouts and uproar, the more timid animals, driving them up and down, here and there, until at last the poor things blindly threw themselves over some precipice, and got dashed to pieces. After a time, tired of this sport, he withdrew to his underground domain, where he remained quiet for ever so many centuries, until, by and by, it came into his head that he should like to go up and bask in the sun once more, and see what was going on in the world above. How great was his surprise, on stepping out upon the snow-capped summit of the Riesengeberg, to find the whole surrounding region utterly changed from what it was when he last saw it. The vast forests which then stretched out miles and miles on every side, dark, gloomy, impenetrable by man, were now well nigh all cleared away, and a large portion of their site converted into rich corn fields, glowing with golden crops. Amid flourishing