Käthchen and the Kobold

Birds flew in and out singing and keeping time to the music and rhythm of the dance. It was a strange sight, grotesque yet beautiful; the trees took half human forms and faces; it was funny to see how they joined hands (or branches) from time to time in the dance. After they had watched for some time and the sport had become monotonous, Green Ears took Käthe to the top of the hill, and there they saw the beautiful peaked mountain called the Rossert, bathed in the moonlight.

"Well, children, enjoying yourselves on this fine night, I hope?" said a woman of tall and commanding presence. "Will you come home and have supper with me? I am sure Green Ears has forgotten to offer you anything to eat."

Here she chucked him under his pointed chin.

The two children, fairy and human, turned and followed her, they felt that she was a person of authority and must be obeyed. Her fair hair fell in waving masses almost to her feet, it was covered with soft feathers, as if she had recently been filling feather beds.

The children saw a lighted cottage before them, with red roof and black-beamed walls like so many in the Taunus. A strong smell of honeysuckle was wafted towards them.

"This is my wood cottage, it is quite close to the Rossert, as you see. Some people call me the wood-woman, others Frau Holle," she said. "The Old King (the mountain called Altkönig) is my brother; Olle (slang in German for old) or Holle, it is all the same, we are all relations in the Taunus, you must know!"

In front of the house was a dear little garden. The moonlight shone brightly on the flower-beds. The fairies were awake and peeped out with the greatest interest as the children entered.

Over the door was written in letters made of light, like those beautiful advertisements of beer and chocolate which so adorn the city of London by night:

THIS WAY TO FAIRYLAND.

Käthe felt that she was learning more in one night than in all her life before of that strange dream-world on the borders of which we live.