A great lake covered a large portion of it; the ground around this lake was swampy and unfruitful, and dense forests shut out the sunlight.
But the deep shadows of these woodlands, where the foot of man seldom wandered, this sacred stillness, undisturbed by the noise and bustle of human life, was notwithstanding peopled.
Creatures of tender form and rare beauty—not so ethereal as the air, not so material as man—danced lightly, as if borne by the breezes, through the woods, which were their possession, intimately interwoven with their existence, for they grew with the trees which they inhabited, and drooped and died with them.
When the moon mounted her blue throne, and cast her pure silvery glance over the silent and noble forests, it was as if a light shiver fell on the trees, as if they became animated, and assumed the forms of maidens, who in the pale light skipped upon the mountains, or descended to the lake or the Bode, to visit their neighbours the mermaids, still and innocent as themselves, who swam the light waves radiant in the smile of Queen Luna.
But as time went on these pleasant reunions were interrupted by the human race, which penetrated the forests, mercilessly cut down everything that stood in the way of its selfish ends, and made these peaceful regions the stage of its vain ambitions and aims, never dreaming that with every tree that was hewn down a life more pure and beautiful than its own was destroyed.
Soon the joy at these nightly assemblies was changed to sorrow, and when the moonlight called the fairy forms of wood-nymphs and mermaids into life, they wept together over their vanished sisters and friends, and not one was sure that the following day the same sad fate would not be her destiny.
A powerful Kaiser was come into the district with a vast retinue and an army, had built himself a Burg on the banks of the Bode, and bestowed the land on his followers, who were to cut down trees, drain swamps, and transform the wilderness into a fruitful plain.
The woods gave place speedily to a bare tract, and the maiden circle grew ever smaller. There, on the mountain west of Thale, where in its bosom the antediluvian giant animal skeletons were found, an old warrior had received permission from the Kaiser to clear the land.
He toiled unweariedly, dug the soil, felled the trees one after the other, till of the sacred grove only three trees were left standing.
"Now, only these three trees left," thought he to himself, stretched himself wearily in the grass to rest a minute and strengthen himself for the last stroke; but fatigue overcame him, so that he sank into a deep sleep, and only awoke when the moon and stars shone in the heavens.