Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/70

62 night, when he was sleeping at the root, she would whisper pleasant dreams into his ear, and announce to him in expressive images the events of the coming day. When any horse had strayed into the desert, and the keeper had lost its tract, and gone to sleep with anxious thoughts, he failed not to see in vision the marks of the hidden path, which led him to the spot where his lost steed was grazing.

The farther the new colonists extended, the nearer came they to the dwelling of the Elf; and as by her gift of divination, she perceived how soon her life-tree would be threatened by the axe, she determined to unfold this sorrow to her guest. One moonshiny summer evening, Krokus had folded his herd somewhat later than usual, and was hastening to his bed under the lofty oak. His path led him round a little fishy lake, on whose silver face the moon was imaging herself like a gleaming ball of gold; and across this glittering portion of the water, on the farther side, he perceived a female form, apparently engaged in walking by the cool shore. This sight surprised the young warrior: What brings the maiden hither, thought he, by herself, in this wilderness, at the season of the nightly dusk? Yet the adventure was of such a sort, that, to a young man, the more strict investigation of it seemed alluring rather than alarming. He redoubled his steps, keeping firmly in view the form which had arrested his attention; and soon reached the place where he had first noticed it, beneath the oak. But now it looked to him as if the thing he saw were a shadow rather than a body; he stood wondering and motionless, a cold shudder crept over him, and he heard a sweet soft voice address to him these words: “Come hither, beloved stranger, and fear not; I am no phantasm, no deceitful shadow: I am the Elf of this grove, the tenant of the oak, under whose leafy boughs thou hast often rested. I rocked thee in sweet delighting dreams, and prefigured to thee thy adventures; and when a brood-mare or a foal had chanced to wander from the herd, I told thee of the place where thou wouldst find it. Repay this favour by a service which I now require of thee; be the Protector of this tree, which has so often screened thee from the shower and the scorching heat; and guard the murderous axes of thy brethren, which lay waste the forest, that they harm not this venerable trunk.”