Legends from River & Mountain

by Carmen Sylva; Alma Strettell

And one timid maiden cried, “Oh, I pray not! There is no pleasure in the dance for me when I know they are by, the silent, uncanny creatures!”

“Little care I for that,” rejoined Katrine, who was standing near; “’tis for another cause I would wish them away. They say many a heart has been broken in the village, ay, through these hundred years and more, for the sake of the vain, misty things. Now ’tis enough! Let not one of them touch aught that concerns me!”

The maidens shrank back in terror. “Hush, hush, Katrine!” they cried; “how canst thou dare speak thus—thou who dwellest by the water-side, too? Who can tell what may befall?”

Katrine laughed scornfully, all the more so, no doubt, that Veit had just joined the group, and was listening with a mocking air.

“To be sure,” he said, “Katrine is not afraid, I’ll be bound; and why should she be? I, for one, do not believe in these Nixies and their spells; there is not a Nixie of them all can lay a spell on me!”

Now it was the men’s turn to murmur. “’Tis the ignorant who boast,” said an old white-haired fellow, who leaned, smoking his pipe, against the tavern door. “Thou art a foolish fellow, Veit. There is many a one among us could speak of the Nixies’ spells. Dost thou mind poor Heinrich, who wanders about as if he were daft and speaks to no one? Hast thou marked him sitting alone in a corner of the ale-house at night? He is a living proof that the Nixies are no dream. To be sure, he has not taken the matter aright. A kiss and a laugh—that is the way to use with them.”

“They may get the laugh from me, but never a kiss,” rejoined Veit, angered at the old man’s reproof; and he exchanged a glance with Katrine, who turned away with an unwonted blush upon her cheek.

The dance was at its height. Lanterns, fastened with garlands of flowers, hung from the trees that surrounded the village-green, but their light was not needed, for the rays of the young moon flooded the dancing-space with their silvery radiance. Veit leaned against a tree; he was hot from the dance, and glad to rest as he waited for his turn to lead Katrine out. All at once he felt a cool breeze fan his cheek, and yet no wind stirred the branches above him. This was as the cool, moist breath of a fountain. He turned his head, for he fancied he caught a glimpse of something glistening in the shadow behind him. Yes, indeed, there was some one standing by him, a misty form, whose white draperies shone like a ray of moonlight among the trees. And then a pair of eyes were raised to his—eyes as deep, and yet transparent, as the waters of some mountain lake, eyes that shone, beneath the masses of pale hair, as the lake shines when the stars are mirrored in it. And that gaze drank up Veit’s very soul, and with it the memory of Katrine, and of all his promises and all his boasts. In vain Katrine waited for her partner, and turned at last in a rage to seek another, hoping by jealousy to win back her truant lover. In vain! All night long Veit danced with that misty form on the outskirts of the green, where the trees throw their deepest shadow. For the Nixies do not willingly mingle with the throng of mortal youths and maidens. There, too, in the shadow, Heinrich danced, the clouds all lifted from his brow; and yet another dancer drew near and clasped the third fairy sister in his arms. The hours flew by, and the enraptured dancers could hardly believe that the dawn was breaking, but there, on the necklace of each of the sisters, hung the water-lily, scarcely whiter than the fair bosom on which it rested—and the petals of the flower were drooping! Then suddenly Veit felt the gentle pressure lifted from his arm, and even as he looked round, the glistening forms were already disappearing among the dark pine-stems. He hastened after them, his comrades at his heels, but not all their entreaties could stay the Nixies’ fast-fleeting steps; and when their partners reached the edge of the forest, where it meets the lush, green river-meadows, the rising mists of morning had already swallowed up those fairy beings, that seemed, indeed, born of the mists themselves.

Heinrich sighed heavily, and wandered away by himself down another path that led to the river-side; and the third youth, a merry, reckless fellow, sauntered off with a careless laugh; but Veit made an angry gesture, and exclaimed as he turned his steps homeward: “I shall catch them yet; it is not thus she shall baulk me.”

But many a time was Veit doomed to disappointment. True, the Nixies returned, and oftener than was their wont; for now, whenever the moon shone, and the lads and maidens danced on the green in their spare moments, even though it might be but of a work-day evening, the white sisters crept like the moonbeams through the trees, seeking out always the same partners. And between times Heinrich grew more and more melancholy, and Veit more forgetful of his old love for Katrine, and more reckless, withal, in his speech. The old folk in the village shook their heads ever more gravely, and whispered ancient tales of boatmen who had been drawn down into the deep water by the Nixies’ rock. “Veit had better guard his tongue, and not try to blind their eyes with his foolish boasts, now that he was plainly more under the spell than any man of them all.” What would they have said had they known that the white sisters, too, had warnings whispered to them by the friendly folk who came to the crystal palace? “It was ill for Nixies ever to seek out the same man among mortals, and, indeed, to love the haunts of any mortals over-much.” Perhaps these speeches were prompted by jealousy as much in the crystal palace as they might have been in the village hut, but however this may be, the Nix-maidens heeded them not, and seemed, indeed, more eager than ever before to join the dances on the green.