226

THE WATER-MAN.

She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world-ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'
I said, ‘Go up, dear heart, through the waves,
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'
She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Perhaps we should find the antecedents of this Merman's lost Margaret, whom he called back in vain, in the Danish ballad of The Merman and the Marstig's Daughter,' who, in Goethe's version, sought the winsome May in church, thither riding as a gay knight on

horse of the water clear, The saddle and bridle of sea-sand were.

They went from the church with the bridal train,
They danced in glee, and they danced full fain ;
They danced them down to the salt-sea strand,
And they left them standing there, hand in hand.

'Now wait thee, love, with my steed so free,
And the bonniest bark I'll bring for thee.'
And when they passed to the white, white sand,
The ships came sailing on to the land;

But when they were out in the midst of the sound,

Down went they all in the deep profound!

Long, long on the shore, when the winds were high,
They heard from the waters the maiden's cry.

I rede ye, damsels, as best I can—

Tread not the dance with the Water-Man !

According to other legends, however, the realm under-sea was not a place for weeping. Child-eyes beheld all that the Erl-king promised, in Goethe's ballad

Wilt thou go, bonny boy? wilt thou go with me?
My daughters shall wait on thee daintily;

My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep,
And rock thee and kiss thee, and sing thee to sleep!

Or perhaps child-eyes, lingering in the burning glow of manhood's passion, might see in the peaceful sea some picture of lost love like that so sweetly described in Heine's 'Sea Phantom:'

But I still leaned o'er the side of the vessel,
Gazing with sad-dreaming glances

Down at the water, clear as a mirror,
Looking yet deeper and deeper,-
Till far in the sea's abysses,

At first like dim wavering vapours,
Then slowly-slowly-deeper in colour,

Domes of churches and towers seemed rising,
And then, as clear as day, a city grand . . .
Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow,

Steal through my heart,—

My heart as yet scarce healed;

....

It seems as though its wounds, forgotten,
By loving lips again were kissed,

And once again were bleeding
Drops of burning crimson,

Which long and slowly trickle down
Upon an ancient house below there

In the deep, deep sea-town,

On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house,
Where, lone and melancholy,

Below by the window a maiden sits,

Her head on her arm reclined,—

Like a poor and uncared-for child;

And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child!

. . . I meanwhile, my spirit all grief,

Over the whole broad world have sought thee,

And ever have sought thee,

Thou dearly beloved,

Thou long, long lost one,

Thou finally found one,—

At last I have found thee, and now am gazing

Upon thy sweet face,

With earnest, faithful glances,

Still sweetly smiling;

And never will I again on earth leave thee.

I am coming adown to thee,

228 SUNKEN TREASURES AND CITIES.

And with longing, wide-reaching embraces,

Love, I leap down to thy heart!

The temptations of fishermen to secure objects seen at the bottom of transparent lakes, sometimes appearing like boxes or lumps of gold, and even more reflections of objects in the upper world or air, must have been sources of danger; there are many tales of their being so beguiled to destruction. These things were believed treasures of the little folk who live under water, and would not part with them except on payment. In Blumenthal lake, 'tis said, there is an iron-bound yellow coffer which fishermen often have tried to raise, but their cords are cut as it nears the surface. At the bottom of the same lake valuable clothing is seen, and a woman who once tried to secure it was so nearly drowned that it is thought safer to leave it. The legends of sunken towns (as in Lake Paarsteinchen and Lough Neagh), and bells (whose chimes may be heard on certain sacred days), are probably variants of this class of delusions. They are often said to have been sunk by some final vindictive stroke of a magician or witch resolved to destroy the city no longer trusting them. Landslides, engulfing seaside homes, might originate legends like that of King Gradlon's daughter Dahut, whom the Breton peasant sees in rough weather on rocks around Poul-Dahut, where she unlocked the sluice-gates on the city Is in obedience to her fiend-lover.

Dr.

If it be remembered that less than fifty years ago Belon1 thought it desirable to anatomise gold fishes, and prove in various ways that it is a fallacy to suppose they feed on pure gold (as many a peasant near Lyons declares of the laurets sold daily in the market), it will hardly be thought wonderful that perilous visions of precious things were seen by early fishermen in pellucid depths, and that

1 'The Mirror,' April 7, 1832.

these should at last be regarded as seductive arts of Lorelei, who have given many lakes and rivers the reputation of requiring one or more annual victims.

Possibly it was through accumulation of many dreams about beautiful realms beneath the sea or above the clouds that suicide became among the Norse folk so common. It was a proverb that the worst end was to die in bed, and to die by suicide was to be like Egil, and Omund, and King Hake, like nearly all the heroes who so passed to Valhalla. The Northman had no doubt concerning the paradise to which he was going, and did not wish to reach it enfeebled by age. But the time would come when the earth and human affection must assert their claims, and the watery tribes be pictured as cruel devourers of the living. Even so would the wood-nymphs and mountain-nymphs be degraded, and fearful legends of those lost and wandering in dark forests be repeated to shuddering childhood. The actual dangers would mask themselves in the endless disguises of illusion, the wold and wave be peopled with cruel and treacherous seducers. Thus suicide might gradually lose its charms, and a dismal underworld of heartless gnomes replace the grottoes and fairies.

We may close this chapter with a Scottish legend relating to the Shi'ichs,' or Men of Peace, in which there is a strange intimation of a human mind dreaming that it dreams, and so far on its way to waking. A woman was carried away by these shadowy beings in order that she might suckle her child which they had previously stolen. During her retention she once observed the Shi'ichs anointing their eyes from a caldron, and seizing an opportunity, she managed to anoint one of her own eyes with the ointment. With that one eye she now saw the secret abode and all in it ‘as they really were.' The deceptive splendour

had vanished. The gaudy ornaments of a fairy grot had become the naked walls of a gloomy cavern. When this woman had returned to live among human beings again, her anointed eye saw much that others saw not; among other things she once saw a 'man of peace,' invisible to others, and asked him about her child. Astonished at being recognised, he demanded how she had been able to discover him; and when she had confessed, he spit in her eye and extinguished it for ever.