Approaching them, she asked permission to take some of the burning coals to kindle her fire.
They gave no answer, but sat motionless and gazed upon the ground.
At last she took some coals, saying to herself, "No answer means yes," carried them home and laid them on the hearth, but they would not burn. This she repeated several times, but the coals, once thrown on the hearth refused to burn.
At last it became broad day, and a great heap of gold lay on the hearth, and on the spot where she had seen the fire, lay only pebbles. Search was made, and the wealth of the mountain discovered.
A similar tradition, with slight variations, is told of the Burgmühle, or castle mill, near Aschersleben, on the Wolfsberg.
The tradition is quite as probable that Askanas, grandson of Noah, died on the Wolfsberg in 1964 after the Creation, having left the East a few centuries previously to escape idolatry.
Legend of the Hoppelberg
Many and mighty tribes, as the Wenden, Katten, and Sassen, once dwelt in the Harz. Bloody battles have been fought for the possession of this district, whose dense forests and impassable valleys afforded not only defence, but the pleasures of the chase.
We find proofs of their existence here in huge mounds filled with human skulls and bones, and in the names of some of her villages, as, for example, Dorf Kattenstedt.