'Like fairy moonlight to me thou seemest,
Like midsummer fires from afar thou gleamest.'
"He thought it did him good to sit there, and he fell into the way of going thither whenever anything went amiss at home. The wife wept when she was left alone.
"But one day, while the youth was sitting on the crag, the hulder, her living self, appeared on the opposite side, and blew her horn. He eagerly cried,—
'Ah, dear, art thou come! all around thee is shining!
Ah, blow now again! I am sitting here pining.'
"Then she answered,—
'Away from thy mind the dreams I am blowing,—
The rye is all rotting for want of mowing.'
"But the youth was frightened, and went home again. Before long, though, he was so tired of his wife that he felt compelled to wander off to the wood and take his seat on the crag. Then a voice sang,—
'I dreamed thou wast here; ho, hasten to bind me!
No, not over there, but behind you will find me.'[20]
"The youth started up, looked about him, and espied a green skirt disappearing through the woods. He pursued. Now there was a chase through the woods. As fleet of foot as the hulder was, no mortal could be; he cast steel[21] over her again and again; she ran on the same as before. By and by she began to grow tired. The youth knew this from her foot-fall, though her form convinced him that it was the hulder herself, and none other. 'You shall surely be mine now,' thought the youth, and suddenly flung his arms about her with such force that both he and she rolled far down the hill before they could stop. Then the hulder laughed until the youth thought the mountains fairly rang; he took her on his knee, and she looked so fair, just as he had once thought his wife would look.
"'Oh, dear, who are you that are so fair?' asked the youth, and as he caressed her, he felt that her cheeks were warm and glowing.