a stone table, leaning his head upon his hands, seeming to slumber; but apparently his sleep is very restless, and his head nods, and seems as if he were going to awake, and his red beard has grown through the table down to his feet.  He takes pretty long naps, not more than a hundred years in length at a stretch:  when his slumber is interrupted, he is fabled to be very fond of music; and it is said that there was a party of musicians, who once gave him a regular serenade in his subterranean retreat, doubtless expecting some wonderful token of his generosity in return; but they received nothing for their pains but a number of green boughs, which so disgusted them, that they all threw them away on their return to earth, save one, who, however, had no suspicion of its worth, for on showing it to his wife, to his great astonishment, each leaf became a golden coin.

An author before us observes, that this tale of the emperor’s slumbers cannot, perhaps, be deemed original, and is probably a popular version of the Seven Sleepers, “not a little disfigured by the peculiar superstition of the country.”  The same writer remarks, with justice, that it is surprising how few are the sources, and how scanty the parent stock, from whence all the varieties of European legend are derived.  Indeed, the foundation of a great part of these legendary stories seems to have been the heathen mythology of the different countries, and the various tales of superstition being handed down from one generation to another, have gradually assumed the shape they now bear; from whence may be traced most of our popular superstitions.

THE LEGEND OF THE GOATHERD.

When I behold a football to and fro,
Urged by a throng of players equally,
Methinks I see, resembled in that show,
This round earth poised in the vacant sky.

* * * * *

And all we learn whereas the game is o’er,
That life is but a dream, and nothing more.

AMADIS JANRYN.

“Know’st thou me not?”----------------
“Oh, yes, (I cried,) thou art indeed the same.”

GOETHE.

At the peaceful village of Sittendorf dwelt Peter Klaus, the goatherd.  He daily tended his flocks to pasture in the Kyffhaeusen mountains, and never failed, as evening approached, to muster them in a little mead, surrounded by a stone wall, preparatory to driving them home; for some time, however, he had observed, that one of the finest of his herd regularly disappeared soon after coming to this nook, and did not join her companions till late.  One night, watching her attentively, he remarked that she slipped through a hole or opening in the wall, on which he cautiously crept after the animal, and found she was in a cave, busily engaged in gleaning the grains of corn that fell down singly from the roof.  Peter did not look long before the shower of corn that now saluted him made him shake his ears, and inflamed his curiosity the more to discover the cause of so singular an occurrence in that out-of-the-way place.  However, at last he heard the neigh and stamping of horses, apparently proceed from above; and it was doubtless from their mangers that the oats had fallen.