But the youth wished to retain the gloves as a token of love, and the maiden was compelled to leave them and to hasten away with her companions. The youth followed the three maidens quickly; for he wished above all things to know where his beautiful partner lived. He pursued them further and further, until they reached the river Meuse. The three maidens threw themselves into the stream and vanished.
When, on the following morning the love-sick youth returned to the river where he had lost sight of his partner, he found the water at that place blood-red; and the three maidens have never appeared again.[74]
IGNIS FATUUS.
As regards the 'Will-o'-the-Wisp,' or 'Jack-in-a-Lanthorn,' there are various opinions prevailing in folk-lore. The Germanic races generally regard these fiery phenomena as wandering souls which, for some culpable cause, have not become partakers of the heavenly rest. Among these are especially classed the souls of covetous husbandmen, who in tilling their fields encroached upon the property of their neighbours; and also the souls of unbaptized children. A Dutch parson, happening to go home to his village late one evening, fell in with three Will-o'-the-Wisps. Remembering them to be the souls of unbaptized children, he solemnly stretched out his hand, and pronounced the words of baptism over them. But, what was the consequence? A thousand and more of these apparitions suddenly made their appearance, evidently all wanting to be baptized. They frightened the good man so terribly, that he took to his heels, and made for home as fast as he could.[75]
On the ridge of the high Rhön, near Bischofsheim, where there are now two morasses, known as the red and the black morass, there stood formerly two villages, which sunk into the earth on account of the dissolute life led by the inhabitants. There appear on those morasses at night maidens in the shape of dazzling apparitions of light. They float and flutter over the site of their former home; but they are now less frequently seen than in the olden time. A good many years ago, two or three of these fiery maidens came occasionally to the village of Wüstersachsen, and mingled with the dancers at wakes. They sang with inexpressible sweetness; but they never remained beyond midnight. When their allowed time had elapsed, there always came flying a white dove, which they followed. Then they went to the mountain, singing, and soon vanished out of sight of the people who followed, watching them with curiosity.[76]
THE FAIRY MUSIC OF OUR COMPOSERS.
Ancient myths and miracles have always been favourite subjects for operas, and the lover of music does not need to be told that several of our dramatic composers have admirably succeeded in producing music of the fairies and of other aërial conceptions of the fancy. It is, however, not only in their great operatic works, but even in ballads with the accompaniment of the pianoforte, that we meet with exquisitely enchanting strains of fairy music. Take, for instance, Franz Schubert's 'Erl-King,' or Carl Lœwe's 'Herr Oluf.' Nor have some composers been less happy in music of this description entirely instrumental. Mendelssohn's overture to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' his first orchestral work of importance, and perhaps his best, seems to depict the fairies dancing in a ring on a moonlight night. But, probably no composer has written instrumental pieces which might be classed with the fairy music, so beautifully as has Beethoven. The Largo assai in his pianoforte Trio in D major, Op. 70, is a remarkable instance. Beethoven does not head this movement with words intimating that he intends to tell a fairy-tale in tones. Very possibly he did not even think of the fairies when he composed that wonderful music. Be this as it may, its tremulous chords with their tenderly-vibrating passages, descending the scale pianissimo, occasionally swelling to loudness and then subduing again into their former soft Æolian murmur—and, above all, its mysterious and unhomely modulations—convey an impression more analogous to the effect produced by some of our best fairy-tales than is the case with many musical compositions which avowedly were suggested by such stories.
