!"

Then the master and coachman drove fast home. Next day people said they
had never seen the Northern Lights so bright as the night before.

The coachman held his tongue, and trusted no one with the story of his
nocturnal journey. But when he was old and grey he told the story to his
grandson, and so it became known to the people. And it was said that
such spirits still exist, and that when the Northern Lights flame in the
heavens in winter they hold a wedding in the sky.

[Footnote 43: In Canto xvi. of the _Kalevipoeg_, the spirits of the
Northern Lights are described as carrying on mimic combats in the air.]

THE SPIRIT OF THE WHIRLWIND.

(JANNSEN.)

Two men were walking together when they saw a haystack carried away by
the wind. The elder man said it was the Spirit of the Whirlwind; but the
other would not believe him till they saw a cloud of dust, when they
turned their backs to it, and the young man repeated a spell after the
old one. When they turned round, they saw an old grey man with a long
white beard, a broad flapping coat, and streaming hair, devastating the
woods. He took no notice of them, but the elder one cautioned the other
not to forget to repeat the spell whenever he saw him. However, he
forgot it, and the whirlwind in a fury carried him many miles from home,
and ever afterwards persecuted him till he went to his friend and
learned the spell again. Next time he saw the whirlwind he was fishing;
and on his repeating the spell, the spirit passed him angrily, and a
great wave surged up from the river, and wetted the man to the skin. But
after that the spirit never reappeared to him, and left him in peace.

THE WILL O' THE WISPS.

(JANNSEN.)

A farmer was driving home one winter evening from Fellin across the
Parika heath, when he suddenly saw a little blue flame on one side, and
his horse stopped short and would not move. It was as if he had been
stopped by a ditch. He dismounted, and found not a ditch, but an open
pit; and he could not drive round it, because there was deep water on
all sides. Presently he saw a light flare up like a torch, and then
another, till many of them were flitting about everywhere. In
consternation, the farmer cried out, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
what's going on here tonight?" The horse sprang forward, as if somebody
had stuck a pin into him, and the farmer had only just time to tumble on
the sledge, when they went off at full gallop; and the far