, to teach me the language: when I
pointed to anything, she told me the name of it in her own tongue; so
that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to.
She was very good-natured, and not above forty feet high, being
little for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, which the family
took up, and afterwards the whole kingdom. The word imports what the
Latins call _homunculus_, the Italians _homunceletino_, and the
English _mannikin_. To her I chiefly owe my preservation in that
country; we never parted while I was there: I called her my
_Glumdalclitch_, or little nurse; and should be guilty of great
ingratitude if I omitted this honorable mention of her care and
affection toward me, which I heartily wish it lay in my power to
requite as she deserves, instead of being the innocent but unhappy
instrument of her disgrace, as I have too much reason to fear.

It now began to be known and talked of in the neighborhood that my
master had found a strange animal in the field, about the bigness of a
_splacnuck_, but exactly shaped in every part like a human creature,
which it likewise imitated in all its actions: seemed to speak in a
little language of its own, had already learned several words of
theirs, went erect upon two legs, was tame and gentle, would come when
it was called, do whatever it was bid, had the finest limbs in the
world, and a complexion fairer than a nobleman's daughter of three
years old.

Another farmer who lived hard by, and was a particular friend of my
master, came on a visit on purpose to inquire into the truth of this
story. I was immediately produced and placed upon a table, where I
walked as I was commanded, drew my hanger, put it up again, made my
reverence to my master's guest, asked him in his own language how he
did, and told him he was welcome--just as my little nurse had
instructed me. This man who was old and dim-sighted, put on his
spectacles to behold me better; at which I could not forbear laughing
very heartily, for his eyes appeared like the full moon shining into a
chamber at two windows. Our people, who discovered the cause of my
mirth, bore me company in laughing; at which the old fellow was fool
enough to be angry and out of countenance. He had the character of a
great miser; and to my misfortune, he well deserved it, by the cursed
advice he gave my master to show me as a sight upon a market-day in
the next town, which was half an hour's riding, about two-and-t