s head, and nourished his fancy with the fragrance of happy
anticipations. As soon as he woke he joyously began his day's work,
built himself a commodious hut, dug his garden, and planted roses and
lilies, and other sweetly-smelling flowers and vegetables, not without
cabbages and kitchen herbs, besides an assortment of fruit-trees. The
elf did not fail to pay him a visit in the twilight of every evening,
took pleasure in the produce of his industry, walked with him hand in
hand along the reedy bank of the pond, until the waving reed murmured
forth a melodious evening greeting to the friendly pair, when the
breeze rustled through it. The elf initiated her docile pupil into the
secrets of nature, instructed him in the origin and issue of things,
taught him their natural and magical qualities and virtues, and formed
the rough warrior to a thinker and a philosopher.

In the same degree as the feelings and senses of the young man became
more refined by his intercourse with the fair shadow, the tender form
of the elf became denser, and acquired more consistency. Her bosom was
filled with animation and life, fire glistened from her hazel eyes, and
with the form of a young girl, she seemed also to have acquired the
feelings of one. In a few months the sighing Crocus was blessed with
the happiness which the third reed had promised him, and did not regret
that the freedom of his heart was ensnared by the trap of love.
Although the marriage of the tender pair took place without witnesses,
it was productive of as much happiness as the most obstreperous
nuptials, and in due time pledges of conjugal affection were not
wanting. The elf presented her husband with three daughters at one
birth, and the delighted father, in the first embrace, called her who
had cried in his house before the two others, Bela; the next Therba,
and the youngest Libussa. All were like genii in the beauty of their
form; and although they did not consist of such a delicate material as
their mother, their corporeal nature was finer than the coarse earthy
form of their father. They were also free from all the infirmities of
children, and needed no leading strings, for, after the first nine
days, they all ran like so many partridges. As they grew up, they
displayed all their mother's talent for detecting hidden things, and
predicting the future.

With the aid of time, Crocus also acquired much knowledge of these
mysteries. When the wolf had dispersed t