something about them. But as far as I have seen and heard I cannot
speak well of them. The greater part of them are always quarrelling and
complaining of each other's faults, while nobody thinks of his own.'

Hans tried to deny the truth of these words, but he could not do it, and
sat silent, hardly listening to what his friend was saying. Then he went
to sleep in his chair, and knew nothing of what was happening.

Wonderful dreams came to him during his sleep, where the bars of gold
continually hovered before his eyes. He felt stronger than he had ever
felt during his waking moments, and lifted two bars quite easily on
to his back. He did this so often that at length his strength seemed
exhausted, and he sank almost breathless on the ground. Then he heard
the sound of cheerful voices, and the song of the blacksmiths as they
blew their bellows--he even felt as if he saw the sparks flashing before
his eyes. Stretching himself, he awoke slowly, and here he was in the
green forest, and instead of the glow of the fire in the underworld
the sun was streaming on him, and he sat up wondering why he felt so
strange.

At length his memory came back to him, and as he called to mind all the
wonderful things he had seen he tried in vain to make them agree with
those that happen every day. After thinking it over till he was nearly
mad, he tried at last to believe that one night between Christmas and
the New Year he had met a stranger in the forest, and had slept all
night in his company before a big fire; the next day they had dined
together, and had drunk a great deal more than was good for them--in
short, he had spent two whole days revelling with another man. But here,
with the full tide of summer around him, he could hardly accept his own
explanation, and felt that he must have been the plaything or sport of
some magician.

Near him, in the full sunlight, were the traces of a dead fire, and when
he drew close to it he saw that what he had taken for ashes was really
fine silver dust, and that the half burnt firewood was made of gold.

Oh, how lucky Hans thought himself; but where should he get a sack to
carry his treasure home before anyone else found it? But necessity is
the mother of invention: Hans threw off his fur coat, gathered up the
silver ashes so carefully in it that none remained behind, laid the gold
sticks on top, and tied up the bag thus made with his girdle, so that
nothing should fall out. The load was not,