He had a little old fiddle,
A shabby and wonderful thing,
Patched at end, patched and glued in the middle
Oft lacking a key or a string,
But, oh, it could sing!
Barber's 'prentice was Frieder, but having
No sense of the true barber's art,
He cut every face in the shaving,
Pulled hair, and left gashes and smart,
Getting blows for his part.
Blows he liked not, and so off he started
One morning, his fortune to seek,
Comb and fiddle his all, yet light-hearted
As long as his fiddle could squeak,
Be it ever so weak.
Ran away! Highway rutted or dusty
Seemed velvety grass to his feet;
Sang the birds; his own stout legs were trusty;
To his hunger a black crust was sweet,
And life seemed complete.
Towards twilight he came to a meadow
Where a lovely green water, outlaid
Like a looking-glass, held in clear shadow
Low iris-grown shores—every blade
Its double had made.
Neck, the Nixie, lived under this water,
In a palace of glass, far below
Where fishes might swim, or the otter
Could dive, or a sunbeam could go,
Or a lily root grow.
And, lo, Frieder spied him that minute
In a little red coat, sitting there
By the pond, with his feet hanging in it,
And clawing his knotted green hair
In a comic despair.
Green hair, full of duck weed, and tangled
With snail shells, and moss and eel-grass
It was, and it straggled and dangled
Over forehead and shoulders—alas,
A wild hopeless mass.
"Good evening," hailed Frieder, "I know you,
Sir Neck, the Pond Nixie! I pray
You will come to the shore, and I'll show you
How hair should be combed, if I may,
The real barber's way."
Neck swam like a frog to him, grinning,
And Frieder attacked the green mane
That had neither end nor beginning!
Neck bore like a hero the strain
Of the pulling and pain.