her 'peat bog.' Her house stood
behind this in the midst of a weird forest. All the trees and bushes
were polyps, half animal and half plant; they looked like hundred-headed
snakes growing out of the sand, the branches were long slimy arms, with
tentacles like wriggling worms, every joint of which, from the root to
the outermost tip, was in constant motion. They wound themselves tightly
round whatever they could lay hold of and never let it escape. The
little mermaid standing outside was quite frightened, her heart beat
fast with terror and she nearly turned back, but then she remembered the
prince and the immortal soul of mankind and took courage. She bound her
long flowing hair tightly round her head, so that the polyps should not
seize her by it, folded her hands over her breast, and darted like a
fish through the water, in between the hideous polyps, which stretched
out their sensitive arms and tentacles towards her. She could see that
every one of them had something or other, which they had grasped with
their hundred arms, and which they held as if in iron bands. The
bleached bones of men who had perished at sea and sunk below peeped
forth from the arms of some, while others clutched rudders and
sea-chests, or the skeleton of some land animal; and most horrible of
all, a little mermaid whom they had caught and suffocated. Then she came
to a large opening in the wood where the ground was all slimy, and where
some huge fat water snakes were gambolling about. In the middle of this
opening was a house built of the bones of the wrecked; there sat the
witch, letting a toad eat out of her mouth, just as mortals let a little
canary eat sugar. She called the hideous water snakes her little
chickens, and allowed them to crawl about on her unsightly bosom.

'I know very well what you have come here for,' said the witch. 'It is
very foolish of you! all the same you shall have your way, because it
will lead you into misfortune, my fine princess. You want to get rid of
your fish's tail, and instead to have two stumps to walk about upon like
human beings, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and
that you may win him and an immortal soul.' Saying this, she gave such a
loud hideous laugh that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground and
wriggled about there.

'You are just in the nick of time,' said the witch; 'after sunrise
to-morrow I should not be able to help you until another year had run
its course. I will m