ld woman rapped against the barrels--some were quite full, some
were only half full. She took the little pitcher, drew it full of
wine, and said--

"There, take that to your father, and as often as you have a feast in
your house you may come here again; but, mind, tell nobody but your
father where you get the wine from. Mind, too, you must never sell any
of it--it costs nothing, and for nothing you must give it away. Let
any one but come here for wine to make a profit off it and his last
bread is baked."

The girl took the wine to her father, whose guests were highly
delighted with it, and sadly puzzled to think where it came from, and
ever afterwards, when there was a little merry-making in the house,
would the girl fetch wine from the Kyffhauser in her little pitcher.
But this state of things did not continue long. The neighbours
wondered where so poor a man contrived to get such delicious wine that
there was none like it in the whole country round. The father said not
a word to any one, and neither did his daughter.

Opposite to them, however, lived the publican who sold adulterated
wine. He had once tasted the Old Knights' wine, and thought to himself
that one might mix it with ten times the quantity of water and sell it
for a good price after all. Accordingly, when the girl went for the
fourth time with her little pitcher to the Kyffhauser, he crept after
her, and concealed himself among the bushes, where he watched until
he saw her come out of the entrance which led to the cellar, with her
pitcher filled with wine.

On the following evening he himself went to the mountain, pushing
before him in a wheelbarrow the largest empty barrel he could procure.
This he thought of filling with the choicest wine in the cellar, and
in the night rolling it down the mountain, and in this way he intended
to come every day, as long as there was any wine left in the cellar.

When, however, he came to the place where he had the day before seen
the entrance to the cellar, it grew all of a sudden totally dark. The
wind began to howl fearfully, and a monster threw him, his barrow, and
empty butt, from one ridge of rocks to another, and he kept falling
lower and lower, until at last he fell into a cemetery.

There he saw before him a coffin covered with black, and his wife and
four of her gossips, whom he knew well by their dress and figures,
were following a bier. His fright was so great that he swooned away.

After some hours h