discharged their pieces when the whole
host sank into the earth. Every seventh year they may be seen by night
on their horses, exercising. Concerning them it is said that a baker's
daughter of Ruffach, in the Ochsenfeld valley, was carrying white bread
to the next village, when she met a soldier on a white horse who offered
to lead her to a place where she could sell the bread immediately for a
good price. She accordingly followed him through a subterranean passage
into a great camp quite full of long-bearded soldiers, who were all fast
asleep. Here she sold all her bread, and was well paid; and for several
years she continued daily to sell her bread there, so that her father
became a rich man. One day she was ill and unable to go, whereupon she
sent her brother, describing the place to him. He found it, but a door
blocked up the passage, and he could not open it. The girl died soon
after, and since then no one has entered the subterranean camp. From
Buetow in Pomerania comes a saga similar to that of Olger at Kronburg. A
mountain in the neighbourhood is held to be an enchanted castle,
communicating by an underground passage with the castle of Buetow. A
criminal was once offered his choice whether to die by the hangman, or
to make his way by the passage in question to the enchanted castle, and
bring back a written proof from the lord who sat enchanted within it. He
succeeded in his mission; and the document he brought back is believed
to be laid up among the archives of the town. According to another
account a man once met two women who led him into the mountain, where he
found a populous city. They brought him safely back after he had spent
six hours within the mountain. A saga referred to by Grimm relates how a
shepherd found in the cavern of the Willberg _a little man_ sitting at a
stone table through which his beard had grown; and in another three
unnamed malefactors are spoken of. In Sweden there is a story that may
remind us of the Sutherlandshire legend. In a large cleft of the
mountain of Billingen, in West Gothland, called the Giant's Path, it is
said there was formerly a way leading far into the mountain, into which
a peasant once penetrated, and found a man lying asleep on a large
stone. No one knows how he came there; but every time the bell tolls for
prayers in Yglunda church, he turns round and sighs. So he will continue
until Doomsday.[162] In none of these stories is the hero identified
with any known his