Going once with some friends along the sea-shore, he all of a sudden stood still, as if in amazement, pointed to the sea, and cried out, "My soul! there they are again at full work, and there are several thousands of them employed about a few sunken casks of wine that they are rolling to the shore; oh! what a jovial carouse there will be to-night!" He then told his companions that he could see them both by day and by night, and that they did nothing to him; nay, they were his most particular friends, and one of them had once saved his house from being burnt by waking him in the night out of a profound sleep, when a firebrand, that had fallen out on the floor, was just on the point of setting fire to some wood and straw that lay there. He said that almost every day some of them were to be seen on the sea-shore, but that during high storms, when the sea was uncommonly rough, almost all of them were there looking after amber and shipwrecks, and for certain no ship ever went to pieces but they got the best part of the cargo, and hid it safe under the ground. And how grand a thing, he added, it is to live under the sand-hills with them, and how beautiful their crystal palaces are, no one can have any conception who has not been there.
[237] Arndt, Märchen und Jugenderinnerungen. Berlin, 1818.
[239] A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 79) tells the same of the sand-hills of Nestved in Zealand. A Troll who dwelt near it wished to destroy it, and for that purpose he went down to the sea-shore and filled his wallet with sand and threw it on his back. Fortunately there was a hole in the wallet, and so many sand-hills fell out of it, that when he came to Nestved there only remained enough to form one hill more. Another Troll, to punish a farmer filled one of his gloves with sand, which sufficed to cover his victim's house completely. With what remained in the fingers he formed a row of hillocks near it.
[242] Grimm also appears to regard them as genuine.
[243] The population of Lusatia (_Lausatz_) is like that of Pomerania and Rügen, Vendish. Hence, perhaps, it is that in the Lusatian tale of the Fairy-sabbath, we meet with caps with bells, and a descent into the interior of a mountain in a kind of boat as in this tale: Wilcomm, Sagen und Märchen aus der Oberlausitz. Hanov. 1843. Blackwood's Magazine for June, 1844.
