The Elf Hill
Some lizards were nimbly running in and out of the clefts in an old tree. They understood each other very well, for they all spoke lizard language.
“What a rumbling and grumbling is going on inside the old Elf-hill,” said one of the lizards. “I have not closed my eyes for the last two nights for the noise. I might just as well be having toothache, for all the sleep I get!”
“There is something up inside,” said the other lizard. “They propped up the top of the hill on four red posts till cockcrow this morning, to air it out thoroughly; and the elf maidens have been learning some new dancing steps, which they are always practising. There certainly must be something going on.”
“Yes, I was talking to an earthworm of my acquaintance about it,” said the third lizard. “He came straight up out of the hill, where he had been boring into the earth for days and nights. He had heard a good deal, for the miserable creature can’t see, but it can feel its way, and plays the part of eavesdropper to perfection. They are expecting visitors in the Elf-hill, grand visitors; but who they are the earthworm refused to say or perhaps he did not know. All the will-o’-the-wisps are ordered for a procession of torches, as it is called; and the silver and gold plate, of which there is any amount in the hill, is all being polished up and put out in the moonlight.”
“Whoever can the strangers be?” said all the lizards together.
“What on earth is happening? Hark! what a humming and buzzing!”
At this moment the Elf-hill opened, and an elderly elf-maiden tripped out. She was hollow behind, but otherwise quite attractively dressed. She was the old elf-king’s housekeeper, and a distant relative. She wore an amber heart upon her forehead. She moved her legs at a great pace, “trip, trip.” Good heavens! how fast she tripped over the ground; she went right down to the night-jar in the swamp.
“You are invited to the Elf-hill for to-night,” she said to him. “But will you be so kind as to charge yourself with the other invitations. You must make yourself useful in other ways, as you don’t keep house yourself. We are going to have some very distinguished visitors, goblins, who always have something to say, and so the old elf-king means to show what he can do.”