has viciously stained himself cannot approach it."{M}

Two short instances more from the copious fraternal collection, and we
have done. With a temper of pure childlike antiquity, they express in
the persons of the dwarfs--_Teutonic approximative, fairies_--the
sympathy of the spirits with unstained and innocent human manners; and
may, if the traditions which exhibit the fairies under a cloud of sin
and sorrow should have been felt by the reader as at all grating upon
his old love of them, help to soothe and reconcile him by a soft gleam
of illumination, here lingering as in a newly revealed Golden Age of his
own.

GERMAN TRADITIONS.

No. CXLVII. _The Dwarfs upon the Tree._

"In the summer, the dwarfs often came trooping from the cliffs down into
the valley, and joined either with help, or as lookers-on at least, the
human inhabitants at their work, especially the mowers, in hay-harvest.
They, then and there, seated themselves at their ease and pleasantly,
upon the long and thick arm of a maple in the embowering shade. But once
there came certain evil-disposed persons, who, in the night, sawed the
bough through, so that it held but weakly on to the trunk; and when the
unsuspecting creatures, upon the morrow, settled themselves down upon
it, the bough cracked in two, the dwarfs tumbled to the ground, were
heartily laughed at, fell into violent anger, and cried aloud--

'O, how is the heaven high and long!
And falsehood waxen on earth so strong!
Here to-day, and for ever away!'

They kept their word, and never again made their appearance in the
country."

No. CXLVIII. _The Dwarfs upon the Crag Stone._

"It was the wont of the dwarflings to seat themselves upon a great crag
stone, and from thence to watch the haymakers; but a few mischievous
fellows kindled a fire upon the stone, made it red-hot, and swept away
embers and ashes. Morning came, and with it the tiny folk, who burned
themselves pitiably. They exclaimed in high anger--

'O wicked world! O wicked world!'

cried vengeance, and vanished for evermore!"

We have shown,--1. The Anti-christian character imputed by tradition to
the fairies. 2. The occasional dependence of the more powerful spirits
upon the less powerful human beings; and, 3. The strong affectionate
leaning in the will of the spirits towards moral human excellence. Of
the _ability_ which, in virtue of this excellence, the human creature
possesses _to help_, Maud must, f