nd beheld with horror the maiden standing with outstretched
arms on the very edge of the precipice. The steering of the boat was
forgotten for the moment, and the frail craft ran on the rocks. Lorelei
saw her lover's peril and, calling his name, leapt into the tide.

Nothing more was seen of the lovers; together they sleep the sleep of
death beneath the waters of the Rhine.

A Blending of Legends

In these legends we observe how the tradition of a mere water-nymph has
developed into a story concerning a hapless damsel. The first applies to
the Lorelei as a water-spirit pure and simple, but legends which refer
to beings originally water-spirits have a knack of becoming associated
in later times with stories of distressed ladies. Indeed, one such came
to the writer's knowledge only a few months ago. The mansion of Caroline
Park, near Edinburgh, dating from the end of the seventeenth century,
has in its vicinity a well which is reputed to be inhabited by a 'Green
Lady,' who emerges from her watery dwelling at twilight and rings the
great bell of the old manor-house. On visiting the vicinity for the
purpose of verifying the legend information was gleaned respecting
another story of a captured lady who had been incarcerated in a room in
the mansion and had written some verses to her lover with her diamond
ring on a window-pane. The strange thing is that these stories, though
obviously of different origin, appear now to have become fused in the
popular imagination: the 'Green Lady' and the verse-writing damsel
become one and the same, thus affording a case in point of the fusion of
a mythological tale with a later and probably verifiable incident. The
Lorelei is of course a water-spirit of the siren type, one who lures
heedless mariners to their destruction. In Scotland and the north of
England we find her congener in the water-kelpie, who lurks in pools
lying in wait for victims. But the kelpie is usually represented in the
form of a horse and not in that of a beauteous maiden.

The Nixie

Another water-spirit not unlike the Lorelei is the nixie, which is both
male and female, the male appearing like any human being, but, as in the
case of the water-spirits of the Slavonic peoples and England, Scotland,
and Central America, being possessed of green teeth. The male is called
nix, the female nixie, the generic term for both being nicker, from a
root which perhaps means 'to wash.' There is perhaps some truth in the
stateme