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Main > German folktales > Fairy tale "The Water Spirit"

The Water Spirit

About the middle of the sixteenth century, when Zündorf was no larger than it is at present, there lived at the end of the village, hard by the church, one of that useful class of women termed midwives. She was an honest, industrious creature, and what with ushering the new-born into life, and then assisting in making garments for them, she contrived to creep through the world in comfort, if not in complete happiness.

The summer had been one of unusual drought, and the winter, of a necessity, one of uncommon scarcity, so that when the spring arrived the good woman had less to do than at any period in the preceding seven years. In fact she was totally unemployed. As she mused one night, lying abed, on the matter, she was startled by a sharp, quick knock at the door of her cottage. She hesitated for a moment to answer the call, but the knocking was repeated with more violence than before. This caused her to spring out of bed without more delay, and hasten to ascertain the wish of her impatient visitor. She opened the door in the twinkling of an eye, and a man, tall of stature, enveloped in a large dark cloak, stood before her.

"My wife is in need of thee," he said to her abruptly; "her time is come. Follow me."

"Nay, but the night is dark, sir," replied she. "Whither do you desire me to follow?"

"Close at hand," he answered, as abruptly as before. "Be ye quick and follow me."

"I will but light my lamp and place it in the lantern," said the woman. "It will not cost me more than a moment's delay."

"It needs not, it needs not," repeated the stranger; "the spot is close by. I know every foot of ground. Follow, follow!"

There was something so imperative, and at the same time so irresistible, in the manner of the man that she said not another word, but drawing her warm cloak about her head followed him at once. Ere she was aware of the course he had taken, so dark was the night, and so wrapt up was she in the cloak and in her meditations, she found herself on the bank of the Rhine, just opposite to the low fertile islet which bears the same name as the village, and lies at a little distance from the shore.

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