RANUNCULUS, THE MEADOW SPRITE

      Once upon a time there was a young schoolmaster who, in spite of his youth, was so wise and learned that when the seven wise men of Greece, during a visit to the upper world, held a disputation with him, they stood like dunces before him.
      This same schoolmaster started out into the fields, one spring morning, to hear the grass grow; for he knew all about that too. And as he wandered through the bright green meadows, and saw the variegated marvels of the air flying around the star-flowers, and heard the crickets in the grass, the birds in the branches, and the frogs in the meadow brook, singing their wedding songs, then he thought of his native village, which he had left years before, to go to college, and he thought, too, of the little black-eyed lassie who had given him a gingerbread heart, as a farewell present, and shed bitter tears over it; and a strange feeling came over him.
      On the following day the schoolmaster tied up his bundle, took his knotted staff in his hand, and started forth, with joy and happiness in his heart, out of the city, into the green world.
      Three days after, he caught a glimpse, through the blossoming fruit-trees, of the blue slate-covered roof of his own village church tower, and the wind brought the mellow sound of bells to his ears.
      “I wonder if she will know me,” he said to himself. “Hardly; and I, too, shall have difficulty to find, in the eighteen-year-old girl, the little Greta of former days. But her eyes, her big black eyes, they must betray her to me. And if I see her sitting by her door, on the stone bench, I will step up to her side, and - and the rest will come of itself.”
      The schoolmaster threw his hat into the air, and shouted so loud that he was frightened at his own voice. He looked shyly about him to see if anybody had witnessed his unruliness; but, except a field mouse, which made a hasty retreat into her hole, there was no living creature in sight.
      With loud-beating heart, the learned man took his way into the village. The bells were no longer; but, instead, came the merry sounds of fiddles and flutes. A wedding procession was passing through the narrow village street.
      The bridegroom, a splendid young peasant, looked happy and proud, - as though he would ask the dear Lord, “How much would you take for the world?” The bride, adorned with a glittering crown, cast her eyes modestly on the ground. Once only she raised her lids; and her eyes, her big black eyes, betrayed to the schoolmaster who it was that was walking under the bridal wreath. And the poor man turned him about and went back, unrecognized, by the way he had come.
      It was midday. Green-gold shone the fields; and wherever there was running water, there the sun scattered thousands and thousands of glistening sparkles. The creatures rejoiced in the sunlight; but to-day it was painful to the schoolmaster, and he shaded his eyes with his hand. Thus he strode along.
      A traveller joined him, who must have already gone a long distance; for he looked like a wandering cloud of dust.
      “Good friend,” said the stranger to the schoolmaster, “the sunlight blinds your eyes, does it not?”
      The schoolmaster assented.
      “See!” continues the other, “there is no better help for it than a pair of gray spectacles such as I wear. Try them once!” And with these words he took the spectacles off his nose, and handed them to the schoolmaster.
      The latter consented, and put on the dull-colored glasses. They really did his hot eyes good. The sun lost its bright glare; the meadow, with its red and yellow flowers, the trees and bushes, and the roof of heaven, - everything was gray. And so it seemed quite right to the schoolmaster.
      “Are you willing to sell them?” he asked of the strange traveller.
      “They are in good hands,” was the reply, “and I always carry several pairs of such spectacles with me. Keep them to remember me by, Herr Magister.”
      “Ah, do you know me? And may I ask-”
      “Who I am?” interrupted the stranger, finishing out the question. “My name is Grumbler. Farewell!”
      With these words he struck into a bypath, and soon was out of sight. The schoolmaster pressed the gray glassed firmly on his nose, and went his way.
      Years had fled since this took place; the schoolmaster had become a crusty old bachelor, and had forgotten how to find pleasure in the world. He still went out in the fields; but the green of the trees no longer existed for him. He pulled up the plants by their roots, carried them home, and pressed and dried them; then he laid the flower-mummies on gray blotting-paper, wrote a Latin name beneath: and this was his only pleasure, if pleasure it could be called.
      One day, during one of his expeditions, the schoolmaster came to an out-of-the-way valley; through it flowed a brook, which turned a mill; and as he was thirsty, he asked the old woman, who was sunning herself before the door, if she would give him a drink. The old woman said yes, invited the guest to sit down, and went into the house. Soon after, a young girl brought some bread and milk, and placed them on a stone table before the guest. Then the schoolmaster wondered whether the maiden were ugly; but he could not quite make out through his gray spectacles; and he could not take off the spectacles, because he thought the sunlight would hurt his eyes. In silence he ate what was set before him; and as the miller's daughter would take no pay, he pressed her hand and went away. But she looked after the melancholy man till he disappeared behind the bushes.
      The meadow valley in which the mill stood must have fostered many kinds of strange plants; for, three days after his first visit, the learned schoolmaster came again and had a talk at the mill. And he came more and more often, and was soon a welcome guest.
      He brought sugar, coffee, snuff, and other judicious gifts, to the old grandmother, and entertained the miller with edifying conversation; but to his fair-haired daughter he said never a word, but contented himself with looking at the beautiful girl, from time to time, through his gray spectacles. Then the miller would nudge the grandmother gently with his elbow, and the old woman would nod her white head.
      One day, when the schoolmaster had left the mill and was going along the edge of the meadow, he noticed a mole, caught in a snare, kicking and struggling to escape death on the gallows. The good-hearted man stepped up to him, set the prisoner free, and put him on the ground. Then mole and schoolmaster each went his way.
      As the learned man was sitting in his study, on the evening of the same day, it happened that a bat came flying in at the open window. That was not at all strange; but that on the bat rode a little man, no bigger than your finger, and that this little man got down and made a low bow before the schoolmaster, - this, indeed, appeared very extraordinary.
      “What do you want here?” he asked the little creature, not very graciously. “Go to some story-teller, and don't disturb the work of sensible people!”
      But the little man did not allow himself to be confused. He came nearer, sat down on the box of writing-sand, and said:-
      “Do not send me away from you! I have kind intentions towards you, for you helped me out of serious trouble to-day; I was the mole that you released from the snare.”
      “So! And who are you, in reality?” asked the scholar, inspecting the little fellow through his glasses. He had a dainty, trim figure; and if the spectacles had not been gray, the schoolmaster could have seen that the little man wore a green coat and a golden-yellow cap.
      “I am the meadow sprite, Ranunculus,” said the dwarf. “My servants care for the grass and the flowers; some wash them with dew, others comb them with sunbeams, and still others carry food to their roots. The last-named I wished to watch their work this morning, and, that they might not recognize me, I took the form of a mole. By this means I fell into the snare from which your hand set me free. And now I am here to thank you, and to do you some service in return.”
      “What can you mean”? said the schoolmaster.
      “You are a learned man,” continues Ranunculus. “You are familiar with the flowers and plants in the meadow and on the mountains, in the woods and fields; but there is one flower you do not know.”
      “What is that?” asked the schoolmaster, excitedly.
      “It is the flower called heart's-joy.”
      “No, I do not know it.”
      “But I do,” said Ranunculus, “and I will tell you where to find it. If you follow along the mill brook, - which you are familiar with, - to its source, you will come to a rock. There you will find a cave, which the people call the goblin's cavern, and, in front of the entrance, blooms the flower heart's-joy, but only on Trinity Sunday, at the hour of sunrise; and whoever is on the spot then can pluck the blossom. Do you understand all that I have said?”
      “Perfectly.”
      “Then good luck to you!” said the little man; and he mounted his winged steed, and flew out at the open window.
      The schoolmaster rubbed his forehead, in amazement, and shook his head. Then he buried himself in the folio volume bound in pigskin.
      A couple of days after this occurrence, at the hour of twilight, the miller's pretty daughter sat before the meadow mill, and the grandmother by her side. The spinning-wheels hummed; and the old woman was telling the story of Lady Perchta, who sends the swiftest spinners knots of flax which afterwards change to yellow gold, and about other marvels of the sort. She related, too, about the sleeping man who sits in the goblin's cave. Once in a hundred years he becomes visible; and if a maiden kisses him three times, he is released, and as a reward, the maiden will be given a sweetheart. The old woman went on telling stories; and the pretty maiden listened, and spun the fairy tales further, like the threads of flax which she twisted in her white fingers. The stars rose in the sky; and as it was the time of year when the elder-tree was in bloom, sweet weariness came over the maiden's eyes. She sought her chamber, and went to rest.
      In the night she dreamed that there came to her a little man wearing a green coat and a golden-yellow cap. And the little being looked very friendly, and said to the maiden:-
      “Thou lucky child! For thee, and none other,the sweetheart in the goblin's cavern is destined. To-morrow is the day when the sleeping man becomes visible. At sunrise he will sit, slumbering, at the entrance of the cave; and if thou art not afraid, and wilt kiss him heartily three times on the mouth, the spell will be broken, and the sweetheart won. But take great care, while working his release, not to speak a word, or even to utter a sound; for, otherwise, the sleeping man will sink three thousand fathoms deep into the earth, and will have to wait another hundred years for his ransom.
      Thus spoke the sprite, and vanished. But the maiden awoke and rubbed her eyes. A sweet odor, as from new-mown hay, filled the chamber, and the gray mourning light peeped in through the cracks of the shutters. Then the damsel, full of courage, arose from her couch, and dressed herself. Quietly she left the house, and, tucking up her petticoats, hastened through the dewy grass to the goblin's cavern.
      In the boughs the wood birds were already stirring, and, still half-asleep, were beginning to tune up their songs. The white mist sank to the earth, and spread out in streaks over the meadow; and the tips of the fir-tree took on a golden tinge. There stood the miller's lovely daughter at the entrance of the cavern; and truly, just as the little dwarf had predicted, there sat the sleeping man on a moss-covered stone. The maiden almost uttered a loud cry; for the sleeping man looked so exactly like the schoolmaster, even to wearing a pair of gray glasses on his nose.
      Fortunately the damsel bethought herself of the little man's warning; and silently, but with a loud-beating heart, she drew near the sleeper to perform the benignant task of setting him free - and it did not seem to her nearly as frightful as she had imagined beforehand.
      Gently she bent over the slumberer, and kissed him on the mouth; the man stirred, as if he would awaken.
      The maiden kissed him a second time; the man opened his weary eyelids, and looked at the damsel dreamily through his gray spectacles.
      But she remained resolute, and pressed the third kiss on his lips.
      Then the man, fully awake, jumped up from his seat in such haste that the glasses fell from his nose and broke into a thousand pieces on the stony ground. And he saw again, for the first time in many years, the verdure of spring gleaming in the sunlight, the bright flowers, the blue sky, and, in the midst of all this glory, a maiden as beautiful as a May rose and slender as a lily. And he took her in his arms, and gave her the three kisses back again, and countless others followed these.
      But on a bright yellow marigold sat the meadow sprite Ranunculus, kicking his little legs for joy. Then he jumped down, making the flower shake violently, and went about his momentous affairs. He had kept his word: the schoolmaster had found his heart's-joy, and the miller's pretty daughter her sweetheart.