Old Père Sauvet lit a fire, and smoked the snake out, killing it with a stick as it glided over the stones.
After that they dug out the hole, when they found the handkerchief. Digging still further along, they came upon a hollow place, at the bottom of which they found a lot of gold.
THE FISHERMEN OF SHETLAND.
There was a snug little cove in one of the Shetland Islands. At the head of the cove stood a fishing hamlet, containing some twenty huts. In these huts lived the fisher-folk, ruled by one man—the chief—who was the father of two beautiful daughters.
Now these fishermen for some years had been very lucky, for a fairy queen and her fairies had settled there, and she had given her power over to a merman, who was the chief of a large family of mermaids. The fairy queen had made the merman a belt of sea-weed, which he always wore round his body. The merman used to turn the water red, green, and white, at noon each day, so that the fishermen knew that if they cast their nets into the coloured waters they would make good hauls.
Amongst these fishermen were two brave brothers, who courted the chief’s daughters, but the old man would not let them get married until they became rich men.
Whenever the fishermen went off in the boats the merman was used to sit on a rock, and watch them fishing.
Close by the hamlet was a great wood, in which lived a wicked old witch and a dwarf.