"'You may borrow it, but not keep it,' said I.
"'Not keep it!' they all exclaimed together, as they seized my sausage-stick, and, dancing away to the green mossy spot, placed the sausage-stick there in the centre of it. They determined also on having a Maypole; and the stick they had just captured seeming quite suited to their purpose, it was soon ornamented.
"Small spiders spun gold threads around it--hung up waving veils and flags so finely worked, shining so snow-white under the moonbeams, that my eyes were quite dazzled. They took the colours from the wings of the butterflies, and sprinkled them on the white webs, till they seemed to be laden with flowers and diamonds. I did not know my own sausage-stick--it had become such a magnificent Maypole, that certainly had not its equal in the world. And now came tripping forwards the great mass of the elves, most of them very slightly clad; but what they did wear was of the finest materials. I looked on, of course, but in the background, for I was too big for them.
"Then what a game commenced! It was as if a thousand glass bells were ringing, the sound was so clear and full. I fancied the swans were singing, and I also thought I heard cuckoos and thrushes. At length it seemed as if the whole wood was filled with music. There were the sweet voices of children, the ringing of bells, and the songs of birds; and all these melodious sounds seemed to proceed from the elves' Maypole--an orchestra in itself--and that was my sausage-stick. I never would have believed that so much could have come from it; but much, of course, depended on what hands it fell into. I became very much agitated, and I wept, as a little mouse can weep, from sheer pleasure.
"The night was all too short; but, at this time of the year, the nights are not long up yonder. At the dawn of day there arose a fresh breeze; the surface of the lake became ruffled; all the delicately fine veils and flags disappeared in the air; the swinging kiosks of cobwebs, the suspension bridges and balustrades, or whatever they are called, which were constructed from leaf to leaf, vanished into nothing; six elves brought me my sausage-stick, and at the same time asked if I had any wish they could fulfil; whereupon I begged them to tell me how soup could be made from a sausage-stick.