t to her father. The coachman is
condemned to death, and Peter produces the horns and claws of the
dragon, and marries the princess, when the dogs, whose mission is
accomplished, assume the forms of swans, and fly away.

[Footnote 5: Peeter.]

[Footnote 6: Not a bad description of a conventional dragon. If these
stories could be traced back to their original source, we should
certainly find them to be founded on traditions of some of the great
extinct Saurians. They are too explicit, and too discordant, to be
founded only on rumours of the existence of crocodiles.]

THE DWARF'S CHRISTENING.

(JANNSEN.)

This story takes a very similar form in Esthonia to that familiar to us
nearer home. A young lady out walking with her maid encounters a snake,
which the maid wishes to destroy, but the lady remonstrates. A few days
afterwards, a little man enters her room and asks her to become
godmother to his child. She at last consents, and he promises to fetch
her at the right time, and informs her that he lives under the kitchen
steps in the subterranean kingdom.

Next Thursday evening, the dwarf leads her down a long flight of stairs
to a great house with many rooms, all lit up with tapers and full of
company. She was invited to take her seat at table, but on looking up,
she saw a sharp sword suspended over her head. She wanted to flee, but
the master ordered the sword to be removed, and the child's mother told
her that her own life lately hung on a hair, for she was the snake whose
life she had saved. When the young lady left, the master filled her
apron with earth, but she shook it out, whereupon he raked it up, and
pressed it on her again, saying, "Don't despise the least gift from a
grateful heart." In the morning, of course, it had turned to gold and
silver.

After this, the dwarf often visited the young lady, and at length asked
her to pour a jug of milk under the kitchen-stairs every morning. But
one day the wicked maid ordered a dishful of boiling milk to be poured
down very early. Presently the dwarf came weeping to the young lady,
saying that his child had been scalded to death by the hot milk. But he
knew who was to blame; let her put what she most valued together, and
leave the house at once. She did so, and on looking back, she saw the
whole house in flames, and in a few hours nothing remained of it and its
inhabitants but a heap of ashes. But the lady took another house,
married happily, and lived to