Gradually the river subsided to its usual low level. Minute by minute passed, and the spell over the soldiers was gradually broken. First, they could move their toes; then, their fingers; and, after a while, their arms and legs. When at last, by a sign, the captain gave the order to march, they faced about, towards the river. Embarking on their boats, they rowed down the Rhine to Basel and Cologne, and told their weird story.

Never again was the Lorelei seen by man. [[249]]The people, who live around the old place of moonlight music, say that the siren felt insulted at this invasion of her domain. In her view, what were the lives of a few sailors, and the loss of one fisherman’s son, for a lover, compared with such music as she gave so freely?

So, to punish foolish men, she has never again left her shining caves, under the Rhine, to appear on earth. Yet, inspired by her example, the musicians have continued her sweet music, while the poets never weary of telling her story in their rhymes and stanzas. [[250]]

[[Contents]]

XXIV

THE ASS THAT SAW THE ANGEL

In that part of the Swiss Republic, called the Grisons, there is a sharp mountain, thin and round, like a horn. Because it is red, its name has always been Rothhorn, or Red Peak.

In one of the towns near by, lived a proud man, named Gruntli, who scouted the idea of there being any fairies, or Santa Claus. To his view, there was no intelligence, or virtue, in dumb brutes. He did not believe in anything but what he could see, taste, smell, hear, or handle with his ten fingers. This was what he called “science.”

This old fellow, Gruntli, boasted of being “a man of science.” He considered that everything belonging to religion was superstition. Mule drivers, cow milkers, cheese makers, and such folk, whom he called “the ignorant common people,” might have faith in such things, but not he.

Gruntli was rich. He had a large house, with one room full of books, but not one of these contained any poetry, or stories, or novels, or romances. He sneered at anybody who said they [[251]]believed in Santa Claus, and he openly insulted people who loved to think that William Tell, their national hero, ever lived. As for the exploits of Joan of Arc, or of Arnold of Winkelried, he used to say that what was told of them was only the same as nursery stories.