Suddenly the room was filled with people, who were laden with tables and all kinds of table furniture, silver, cloths, and all, which they spread out, and having done so, sat down to a rich supper, which they had also brought with them.  They feasted noisily, and spent the remainder of the night in drinking and dancing.  Two of them were appointed to keep guard, in order to give the company due warning of the approach either of anybody or of the day.  Three times they went out, always returning with the news that they saw neither the approach of any human being, nor yet of the break of day.

But when the man-servant suspected the night to be pretty far spent, he jumped from his place of concealment into the room, and clashing the two planks together with as much noise as he could make, shouted like a madman, “The day! the day! the day!”

On these words the whole company rose scared from their seats, and rushed headlong out, leaving behind them not only their tables, and all the silver dishes, but even the very clothes they had taken off for ease in dancing.  In the hurry of flight many were wounded and trodden under foot, while the rest ran into the darkness, the man-servant after them, clapping the planks together and shrieking, “The day! the day! the day!” until they came to a large lake, into which the whole party plunged headlong and disappeared.

From this the man knew them to be water-elves.

Then he returned home, gathered the corpses of the elves who had been killed in the flight, killed the wounded ones, and, making a great heap of them all, burned them.  When he had finished this task, he cleaned up the house and took possession of all the treasures the elves had left behind them.

On the farmer’s return, his servant told him all that had occurred, and showed him the spoils.  The farmer praised him for a brave fellow, and congratulated him on having escaped with his life.  The man gave him half the treasures of the elves, and ever afterward prospered exceedingly.

This was the last visit the water-elves ever paid to that house.

THE CROSSWAYS

It is supposed that among the hills there are certain cross-roads, from the centre of which you can see four churches, one at the end of each road.

If you sit at the crossing of these roads on Christmas Eve (or as others say, on New Year’s Eve), elves come from every direction and cluster round you, and ask you, with all sorts of blandishments and fair promises, to go with them; but you must continue silent.  Then they bring to you rarities and delicacies of every description, gold, silver, and precious stones, meats and wines, of which they beg you to accept; but you must neither move a limb nor accept a single thing they offer you.  If you get so far as this without speaking, elf-women come to you in the likeness of your mother, your sister, or any other relation, and beg you to come with them, using every art and entreaty; but beware you neither move nor speak.  And if you can continue to keep silent and motionless all the night, until you see the first streak of dawn, then start up and cry aloud, “Praise be to God!  His daylight filleth the heavens!”