bowers like little dolls' pleasure-grounds, often displaying only
cabbage and other kitchen plants; and here and there the gardens
cannot be seen at all, for the great elder trees that spread
themselves out by the bank, and hang far out over the streaming
waters, which are deeper here and there than an oar can fathom.
Opposite the old nunnery is the deepest place, which is called the
"bell-deep," and there dwells the old water spirit, the "Au-mann."
This spirit sleeps through the day while the sun shines down upon the
water; but in starry and moonlit nights he shows himself. He is very
old: grandmother says that she has heard her own grandmother tell of
him; he is said to lead a solitary life, and to have nobody with whom
he can converse save the great old church bell. Once the bell hung in
the church tower; but now there is no trace left of the tower or of
the church, which was called St. Alban's.

"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" sounded the bell, when the tower still stood
there; and one evening, while the sun was setting, and the bell was
swinging away bravely, it broke loose and came flying down through the
air, the brilliant metal shining in the ruddy beam.

"Ding-dong! ding-dong! Now I'll retire to rest!" sang the bell, and
flew down into the Odense-Au where it is deepest; and that is why the
place is called the "bell-deep." But the bell got neither rest nor
sleep. Down in the Au-mann's haunt it sounds and rings, so that the
tones sometimes pierce upward through the waters; and many people
maintain that its strains forebode the death of some one; but that is
not true, for then the bell is only talking with the Au-mann, who is
now no longer alone.

And what is the bell telling? It is old, very old, as we have already
observed; it was there long before grandmother's grandmother was born;
and yet it is but a child in comparison with the Au-mann, who is an
old quiet personage, an oddity, with his hose of eel-skin, and his
scaly jacket with the yellow lilies for buttons, and a wreath of reed
in his hair and seaweed in his beard; but he looks very pretty for all
that.

[Illustration: THE AU-MANN LISTENING TO THE BELL.]

What the bell tells? To repeat it all would require years and days;
for year by year it is telling the old stories, sometimes short ones,
sometimes long ones, according to its whim; it tells of old times, of
the dark hard times, thus:

"In the church of St. Alban, the monk mounted up into the tower. He
w