Sing-song; ding-dong;
And so good-night to the moon.”
“It is but a meaningless jingle, as you said,” quoth the woodcutter.
But the next day when he went to his work in the forest, he stood still among the rushes by the pool, and sang the lullaby aloud; and that same evening as he came by he heard the cradle rocking under water, and the sweet voice singing the cradle-song; but as he drew nearer it broke off, and called to him the third time, and said; “Of what use to me are a cradle and a lullaby, except I have a baby also? Good master woodcutter, I pray you bring me a baby.” Then, because he was bewitched, the woodcutter went home and said to his wife, “Wife, there is a fair to-morrow at the town. Would you like to go?”
“I should like nothing half so well,” said she, “but I cannot leave the little one.”
“Give the child to me,” said her husband, “and I promise you that no harm shall befall him.”
So when it was morning the woodcutter took his little son, and went and laid him down on a bed of sorrel by the pool, and hurried on into the forest; and that same evening as he came by again, he heard the cradle rocking under water, and the sweet voice singing the lullaby and the happy cooing of a baby. But when he reached home he told his wife that as he had been hewing timber in one of the forest glades, a kite had swooped down and carried off the child. Then the poor mother wept bitterly, and would not be consoled.
Now within the pool there dwelt a beautiful pixie, fair and white as any swan, with radiant golden hair, and eyes clearer than crystal. Yet for all she was so fair, and had her home in among the white and yellow waterlilies, the pixie hated her life and was weary of it, for she had lived already through unnumbered years.
“Did I not know the world when it was young?” sighed she to herself, “ah, would that I might grow old along with it.”
