Then she began to tremble, and said:
“I am afraid. Behold, the sun is setting, the sky is pale, the stars are awakening, it is the hour of the spirits. And look at these ruddy exhalations which rise all about us and seem as it were to trail along the ground. Tyl, my beloved, what monster from hell may he be who thus in the mist begins to open his fiery mouth? And look over there towards Philipsland. It was there that the murderer king had all those poor men done to death, not once but twice, and all for the sake of his cruel ambition! And there this night the will-o’-the-wisps are dancing. For this is the night when the souls of poor men killed in battle leave their bodies all cold in purgatory, and come to warm themselves once again in the tepid air of earth. This is the hour when you may ask anything you will of Christ, He who is Lord of all good wizards.”
“The ashes beat upon my heart,” said Ulenspiegel. “Would that He would show me those Seven whose ashes, they say, when thrown to the winds, would make Flanders happy again, and all the world!”
“O man without faith,” said Nele. “By the power of the balm it may be you will see them.”
“Maybe,” said Ulenspiegel, “if some spirit, forsooth, would come down to visit us from that cold star.” And he pointed with his finger to the star Sirius.
No sooner had he made this gesture than a will-o’-the-wisp that had been flying round them came and attached itself to his finger, and the more Ulenspiegel tried to shake it off the firmer the little wisp held on. Nele tried to free Ulenspiegel, but now she also had a little wisp firm on the tip of her finger, and neither would it let her go. Ulenspiegel began to flick at the wisp with his free hand, saying:
“Answer me now, are you the soul of a Beggarman or of a Spaniard? If you are a Beggarman’s you may go to Paradise, but if a Spaniard’s, return to the hell whence you came.”
Nele said to him:
“Do not abuse the souls of the dead, even though they be the souls of murderers!”
Then, making the little will-o’-the-wisp to dance at the end of her finger: