of mermen, with green beards and hair like
sea-weed streaming over their shoulders, who sing
at evening amongst the breakers to entice the
maidens, and bear them off to their crystal grots.
They hide sorcerers who, by force of enchantments,
raise tempests to wreck the boats of the
fishermen, against whom they bear a grudge.
They have ghastly huntsmen, condemned for
their crimes to an endless chase through thicket
and marsh. Priest Island recals a saintly legend.
There dwelt on it a priest named Anders, revered
by every one on account of his virtues. He was
very poor, being possessed of one penny only.
But when he wanted anything, he sent his penny
to the dealer or the labourer, who invariably and
devoutly returned it, with the addition of the
thing required. The island still retains its name,
but has, unfortunately, lost the marvellous penny.

At another part of the coast, a church sunk
to the bottom of the sea, after being profaned
by impious men. By night, you may hear the
unhappy wretches chant the penitential psalms,
intermingled with sobs and wailings. When the
sea is calm, you may see through the transparent
waves the lighted candles before the altar. For
their sins, they are condemned to bitter imprisonment
in this sunken church until the day of
judgment.

In the same neighbourhood, the sailors have
often beheld, in. the midst of tempests and by
the glare of lightning, a strange built vessel
hoisting an unknown flag. The captain and his
crew one day committed a great crime; and they
are to wander over the waves, without halt or
repose, till the end of the world. When these
poor maritime wandering Jews perceive another
vessel at a distance, they send off to it letters
for their relations and friends. But the letters
are addressed to persons who have not existed
for centuries, and to streets with names known
to no living creature.

In Falster Island there was once a very rich
woman who had no children. Wishing to devote
her fortune to pious uses, she built a church,
which, when finished, appeared in her eyes so
beautiful, that she felt herself entitled to ask a
recompense. She therefore prayed to be
permitted to live as long as her church should stand.
Her desire was granted. Death passed before her
door without entering it. He knocked at the
doors of all her relations and friends, but did not
show her so much as the tip of his scythe. She
lived unscathed through all the wars, through all
the plagues and pestilences, through all the
famines which ravaged her country. She lived
so long, that she had nobody left to talk with; for
she always talked of such ancient times and ways
that nobody could understand her. But when
she asked i'or extension of life, she forgot to
ask for a continuation of youth and middle age.
She received what she begged for and no more.
She grew older and older. "She lost her strength,
her sight, her hearing, and her speech. She
then had herself shut up in an oaken coffer and
carried to the church. Once a year, at Christmas,
she recovers the use of her senses for an
hour, and every year, at that hour, the priest
approaches her to take her orders. She then
half uprises in her oaken chest, and asks, " Is
my church still standing?" "Yes," replies the
priest. " Would to Heaven," she answers, "it
had fallen to the ground!" She then sinks
back with a deep sigh, and the lid of the coffer
is closed again.

A poor sailor, who lost his son in a
ship-wreck, went mad for grief. Every day he gets
into his boat and sails away to the open sea.
There, he rolls a drum with all his might, and
calls to his son in a loud voice, "Come, come;
come out of your hiding-place! Swim hither,
and I will put you beside me in my boat. If
you are dead, I will give you a grave in the
cemetery, a grave among the shrubs and
flowers. You will sleep better there than
beneath the waves." But he calls and looks out
in vain. At nightfall he returns, saying,
"To-morrow, I will go further; my poor boy
did not hear me."

Most of these legends are melancholy in their
character, and turn upon the different phases of
family affection. For instance: Dyring went
to a distant island and took a handsome girl to
wife. They lived together seven years, and she
presented him with seven children. Then death
came into the country, and carried off the wife,
so fresh and so rosy. Dyring went to a distant
island, married another girl, and brought her
home. But this one was unkind and
hard-hearted. When she entered her husband's
house, the seven children wept; they wept and
were anxious. She repulsed them with her foot.
She gave them neither beer nor bread, and told
them, "You shall sleep on straw, with nothing to
cover you." She extinguished the great torches,
and said, "You shall remain in darkness."

The children wept very late into the night.
Their mother heard them, where she lay, under
the earth. "Oh!" she cried, "that I could go
and see my little children!" She prayed and
prayed till she obtained permission to go and see
her little children, on condition that, at cock-crow,
she would leave them. So the poor mother
raised herself on her weary legs, and climbed
over the stone wall of the burial-ground. She
traversed the village, and the dogs howled as
they heard her pass. She reached the door of
her former dwelling; her eldest daughter was
standing there.

"What are you doing here, my child?" she
asked. "How are your brothers and sisters?"

"You are a fine grand lady, but you are not
my darling mother. My mother's cheeks were
white and red, whilst you are as pale as death."

"And how can I be white and red, after
reposing so long in my coffin?"

She went into the chamber; her little children
were there with tears on their cheeks. She took
one and combed it, smoothed the hair of another,
and caressed a third and a fourth. She took
the fifth in her arms and opened her bosom to
it. Then, calling her eldest daughter, "Go
and tell Dyring to come here," she said. When
Dyring came, she spoke to him angrily.
"I left you beer and bread, and my children are