She told him she would return the next morning, at first in the same form which he now saw, after which she would become a serpent. If he would kiss her in her serpent form, she would be free.
The shepherd promised solemnly.
The next morning she appeared again on the cliffs and sang as before.
When the sheep had all filed past, the maiden descended from the rocks, came to him as a serpent, and sprang upward toward him, that he might give her the serpent-kiss; but he turned aside in horror.
The serpent suddenly vanished, with such a shriek of anguish that the shepherd was ever afterward perfectly deaf.
She is seen on the Staufenburg bei Zorge every seven years at Easter, with a bunch of keys and a Pomeranian dog white as snow.
She waits from eleven to twelve for a rescuer, and when the time is expired the dog barks.
This dog is said to have been her lap-dog before the curse.
There is a Harz legend that the Ascension took place from the mountain of the Staufenburg.