ine is the tall pine's dwelling place--"
But he might tax his memory as much as he pleased, he could remember no
more of it. He often thought of asking some aged person what the whole
verse was. However, a certain fear of betraying his thoughts kept him
back, and moreover he concluded that the legend of the glass-mannikin
could not be very generally known, and that but few were acquainted
with the incantation, since there were not many rich persons in the
Wald;--if it were generally known, why had not his father, and other
poor people, tried their luck? At length, however, he one day got his
mother to talk about the mannikin, and she told him what he knew
already, as she herself remembered only the first line of the verse,
but she added, that the sprite would show himself only to those who had
been born on a Sunday, between eleven and two o'clock. He was, she
said, quite fit for evoking him, as he was born at twelve o'clock at
noon; if he but knew the verse.
When Peter Munk heard this he was almost beside himself with joy and
desire to try the adventure. It appeared to him enough to know part of
the verse, and to be born on a Sunday, for the glass-mannikin to show
himself. Consequently when he one day had sold his coals, he did not
light a new stack, but put on his father's holiday jacket, his new red
stockings, and best hat, took his blackthorn stick, five feet long into
his hand, and bade farewell to his mother, saying, "I must go to the
magistrate in the town, for we shall soon have to draw lots who is to
be soldier, and therefore I wish to impress once more upon him that you
are a widow, and I am your only son." His mother praised his
resolution; but he started for the Tannenbuehl. This lies on the
highest point of the Schwarzwald, and not a village or even a hut was
found, at that time, for two leagues around, for the superstitious
people believed it was haunted; they were even very unwilling to fell
timber in that part, though the pines were tall and excellent, for
often the axes of the wood-cutters had flown off the handle into their
feet, or the trees falling suddenly, had knocked the men down, and
either injured or even killed them; moreover, they could have used the
finest trees from there only for fuel, since the raftsmen never would
take a trunk from the Tannenbuehl as part of a raft, there being a
tradition that both men and timber would come to harm, if they had a
tree from that spot on the wa
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