Page:Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (Volume 1).djvu/266

 “Dotard!” cried Walter,”Walter, [sic] interrupting him, “how may I hate that which I love with such intensity of passion? how should I abhor that for which my every drop of blood is boiling?”

“Then be it even as thou wishest,” answered the sorcerer; “step back.”

The old man now drew a circle round the grave, all the while muttering words of enchantment. Immediately the storm began to howl among the tops of the trees; owls flapped their wings, and uttered their low voice of omen; the stars hid their mild, beaming aspect, that they might not behold so unholy and impious a spectacle; the stone then rolled from the grave with a hollow sound, leaving a free passage for the inhabitant of that dreadful tenement. The sorcerer scattered into the yawning earth, roots and herbs of most magic power, and of most penetrating odour, so that the worms crawling forth from the earth congregated together, and raised themselves in a fiery column over the grave: while rushing wind burst from the earth, scattering the mould before it, until at length the coffin lay uncovered.