narrow that the ship stuck fast. The captain,
however, was a clever man, and there occurred
to him the happy thought of smearing white
soap over the whole larboard side. This having
been done, the ship slipped through, but in its
passage ground so much soap into the English
coast, that Dover cliffs have been white ever
since.

Shirt buttons are unjustly cast against their
wives by English husbands. Our cousins, the
Germans, show a much more accurate sense
of the character of woman as a wife. The
following legend represents her sense of
tidiness and duty to her husband, in respect
of managing his linen, as surviving when all
else is gone. When, says the legend, seven
boys or seven girls are born in succession, one
of them, without knowing it, is a nightmare.
Now, there was a man who had a nightmare
for his wife, and he became sensible, in course
of time, that she was in the frequent habit of
disappearing from his bed; when in fact she
was gone to sit on other people's chests in their
sleep. One night, the husband kept himself
awake in order to watch his spouse. He saw
her rise from bed, go to the door, and, as her
husband had taken the precaution of locking it,
she slipped out through the hole for the strap
by which the latch was lifted. After some
time she came back by the same road. The
husband thereupon plugged up the hole, and
after having done so, always found his wife to
remain by his side. At length, after a very
long time, he thought that she must now have
been quite broken of her uncomfortable habit,
so he took the peg out of the door in order
that he might be able to use the latch again.
In the very next night his wife was gone, and
what was worse, she never came back again;
although every Sunday morning the man
found that his clean linen was laid out for
him.

That is homage to wives; now here is a
hint to unmarried damsels. In Schleswig, at
a splendid wedding in the noble mansion of
Hoierswort in Eiderstedt (it is essential to be
particular in fixing the spot, lest any one
should doubt the story), there was a young
girl among the company who was a most
enthusiastic dancer. " You are dancing too
much, my dear," said her mamma, " and you
are not being particular enough in choice of
partners." The naughty damsel answered
mamma in a pet, and said, " If the devil
himself were to call me out, I would not refuse
him." A polite stranger at this moment
entered the room, and asked the honour of
her hand for a dance. The courtly stranger
whirled her about so long, that at length
blood streamed from her mouth and she fell
dead. Mamma knew very well who was her
partner. The blood-stains are still visible in
the saloon; of course they cannot be scraped
out, and every night, as the clock strikes
twelve, the music plays, the girl comes in, and
all the house is in an uproar. If any person
dares to pass a night in the saloon, the ghost
of the girl asks him to dance with her.
Nobody ever dares, and yet if any Christian
would, she would be released from her
penalty. This is a fine opportunity, therefore,
for any good man, clever at a polka, who
desires to do a charitable and gallant thing.
Let him go out to Eiderstedt and free the
dancing lady. She once so frightened a wild
young fellow, that he never afterwards went
out to any merrymaking, because the sound
of a fiddle made him fancy that the spectre
and her midnight company had broken loose.
Young ladies will learn from this example to
be particular in saying that they are engaged
six deep, when they are asked to dance by
any gentleman who shows the least trace of
the cloven foot.

There is another moral legend founded on
the will-of-the-wisp, which does credit to the
northern races, when contrasted with the
classic applause bestowed on trickeries of a
like nature with hides and other things by
southern fables. At the time of partition and
fencing of the land, there arose a great
boundary question between two villages in
South Ditmarschen. At length a man
appeared who undertook to settle it by oath.
He filled his shoes with sand from his own
village, and then walking some way into the
lands of his neighbours, stood still on a marshy
tract, and swore that there he stood on ground
belonging to his village. He thought that by
this trick he had avoided perjury: but after
death he was doomed to wander on the
boundary line as a fire-sprite. A flame, of
the height of a man, was often to be seen
dancing about there until the moor dried
up, and people said, " That is the land-
divider!"

The North Frisians are very unmerciful to
people who don't marry. One of their legends
says, that after death old maids are doomed
to cut stars out of the sun when it has sunk
below the horizon, and the ghosts of the old
bachelors must blow them up in the east,
running, like lamplighters, all night up and
down a ladder.

Now-a-days we say " It is of no use wishing;"
once upon a time, wishing was powerful.
There was a man who stole cabbages on
Christmas-eve out of his neighbour's garden.
A number of people saw him walking off
with them, and wished him up in the moon.
There any one with eyes may see him still,
holding his load of cabbages, which he is not
allowed to drop, to all eternity. Perhaps the
Frisians had got this man into a mesmeric
state, and powerfully, consentaneously willing
him up to the moon, they got him there. It
is quite evident that there he is.

We often talk of letting the cat out of the
bag. Here we have probably the origin of
the expression in a popular tradition. If a
man wants what the Germans call a
Heckethaler—that is to say, a piece of gold, which
he may spend as often as he likes, and never
lose out of his pocket—he must select the