THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN.
The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Miirchen, Berlin, 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of past ages.
THE pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Baltic water o'er, To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian shore;
And in the town of Rambin a little boy and maid Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the sea-surf played.
Alike were they in beauty if not in their degree He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's child was she.
Now of old the isle of Rugen was full of Dwarfs
and Trolls,
The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without
souls;
And for every man and woman in Rugen's island
found
Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was
underground.
It chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled
away
Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves
and goblins play.
That day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had
known
Of evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns
blown.
She came not back; the search for her in field and
wood was vain
They cried her east, they cried her west, but she
came not again.