TALES OF THE NISSES.

The Nis is the same being that is called Kobold in Germany, and Brownie
in Scotland. He is in Denmark and Norway also called Nisse god Dreng
(Nisse good lad), and in Sweden, Tomtegubbe (the old man of the house).

He is of the dwarf family, and resembles them in appearance, and, like
them, has the command of money, and the same dislike to noise and
tumult.

His usual dress is grey, with a pointed red cap, but on Michaelmas-day
he wears a round hat like those of the peasants.

No farm-house goes on well without there is a Nis in it, and well is it
for the maids and the men when they are in favour with him. They may go
to their beds and give themselves no trouble about their work, and yet
in the morning the maids will find the kitchen swept up, and water
brought in; and the men will find the horses in the stable well cleaned
and curried, and perhaps a supply of corn cribbed for them from the
neighbours' barns.

There was a Nis in a house in Jutland. He every evening got his groute
at the regular time, and he, in return, used to help both the men and
the maids, and looked to the interest of the master of the house in
every respect.

There came one time a mischievous boy to live at service in this house,
and his great delight was, whenever he got an opportunity, to give the
Nis all the annoyance in his power.

Late one evening, when everything was quiet in the house, the Nis took
his little wooden dish, and was just going to eat his supper, when he
perceived that the boy had put the butter at the bottom and had
concealed it, in hopes that he might eat the groute first, and then find
the butter when all the groute was gone. He accordingly set about
thinking how he might repay the boy in kind. After pondering a little he
went up into the loft where a man and the boy were lying asleep in the
same bed. The Nis whisked off the bed clothes, and when he saw the
little boy by the tall man, he said--

"Short and long don't match," and with this word he took the boy by the
legs and dragged him down to the man's feet. He then went up to the head
of the bed, and--

"Short and long don't match," said he again, and then he dragged the boy
up to the man's head. Do what he would he could not succeed in making
the boy as long as the man, but persisted in dragging him up and down in
the bed, and continued at this work the whole night long till it was
broad daylight.

By this time he was well tired,