gardener. He readily assented; but after some weeks he began to be
homesick, and, taking leave of his mistress, went home. On arriving
there he was astounded that he knew no one, and no one knew him, save an
old crone, who at length came to him and said: "Where have you been? I
have been looking for you for two hundred years." Thus saying, she took
him by the hand and he fell dead; for the crone who had sought him so
long was Death.[142]

Save in the legends that tell of a mother leaving her child in the
mountain from her eagerness to gather treasure, we have encountered but
few instances of women being beguiled. They are, indeed, not so numerous
as those where the sterner sex is thus overcome; nor need we be detained
by most of them. A Danish tradition, however, runs that a bride, during
the dancing and festivities of her wedding-day, left the room and
thoughtlessly walked towards a mound where the elves were also making
merry. The hillock was standing, as is usual on such occasions, on red
pillars; and as she drew near, one of the company offered her a cup of
wine. She drank, and then suffered herself to join in a dance. When the
dance was over she hastened home. But alas! house, farm, everything was
changed. The noise and mirth of the wedding was stilled. No one knew
her; but at length, on hearing her lamentation, an old woman exclaimed:
"Was it you, then, who disappeared at my grandfather's brother's
wedding, a hundred years ago?" At these words the aged bride fell down
and expired. A prettier, if not a more pathetic, story is widely current
on the banks of the Rhine. A maiden who bore an excellent character for
piety and goodness was about to be married. She was fond of roses; and
on the wedding morning she stepped into the garden to gather a small
bunch. There she met a man whom she did not know. He admired two lovely
blossoms which she had, but said he had many finer in his garden: would
she not go with him? "I cannot," she said; "I must go to the church: it
is high time." "It is not far," urged the stranger. The maiden allowed
herself to be persuaded; and the man showed her beautiful, beautiful
flowers--finer she had never seen--and gave her a wonderful rose of
which she was very proud. Then she hastened back, lest she should be too
late. When she mounted the steps of the house she could not understand
what had happened to her. Children whom she knew not were playing there:
people whom she did not recognize were