Suddenly a great giant hand took hold of Nele and her lover, and threw them high in air as though they had been a child’s playthings. Then the giant caught them again, rolled them one on the other and kneaded them between his hands, and after that he threw them into a pool of water that lay between the hills, and last of all he dragged them out again full of water and water-weeds. And the giant began to sing in a voice so loud that all the sea-gulls of the islands awakened in terror:
With eyes that squint they would discern,
These silly, wandering insect-mortals,
The sacred symbols none may learn,
Safe guarded now within our portals
Read then, flea, the mystery high,
Read then, louse, the secret vast,
Which to earth and air and sky
By seven nails is anchored fast!
And now it was that Ulenspiegel and Nele discerned on the grass and in the air and in the sky, seven tablets of bronze all strangely luminous. And they were held there by seven flaming nails. And on the tablets was written: