“A toast for the major’s wife!” they cried.
Ah, she is a matchless woman! What better could they wish for than to serve her, to worship her?
Was it not sad that the devil had got her in his power, and that all her endeavors were to send poor gentlemen’s souls to hell?
CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT BEAR IN GURLITTA CLIFF
In the darkness of the forests dwell unholy creatures, whose jaws are armed with horrible, glittering teeth or sharp beaks, whose feet have pointed claws, which long to sink themselves in a blood-filled throat, and whose eyes shine with murderous desires.
There the wolves live, who come out at night and hunt the peasant’s sledge until the wife must take her little child, which sits upon her knee, and throw it to them, to save her own and her husband’s life.
There the lynx lives, which the people call “göpa,” for in the woods at least it is dangerous to call it by its right name. He who speaks of it during the day had best see that the doors and windows of the sheep-house are well closed towards night, for otherwise it will come. It climbs right up the walls, for its claws are strong as steel nails, glides in through the smallest hole, and throws itself on the sheep. And “göpa” hangs on their throats, and drinks their blood, and kills and tears, till every sheep is dead. He does not cease his wild death-dance among the terrified animals as long as any of them show a sign of life.
And in the morning the peasant finds all the sheep lying dead with torn throats, for “göpa” leaves nothing living where he ravages.