“Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!”
And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, butterflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-pronged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in space and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.
And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:
“Dear one, we are about to die.”
A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:
“Mankind,” he bawled, “mankind in this place!”
And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.
And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:
“Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and lass? They come to visit us, the puny things.”
And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying: