25 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
25 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
The Water-Nix
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A little brother and sister were once playing by a well, and while they
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were thus playing, they both fell in. A water-nix lived down below, who
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said, "Now I have got you, now you shall work hard for me!" and carried
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them off with her. She gave the girl dirty tangled flax to spin, and
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she had to fetch water in a bucket with a hole in it, and the boy had
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to hew down a tree with a blunt axe, and they got nothing to eat but
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dumplings as hard as stones. Then at last the children became so
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impatient, that they waited until one Sunday, when the nix was at
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church, and ran away. But when church was over, the nix saw that the
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birds were flown, and followed them with great strides. The children
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saw her from afar, and the girl threw a brush behind her which formed
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an immense hill of bristles, with thousands and thousands of spikes,
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over which the nix was forced to scramble with great difficulty; at
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last, however, she got over. When the children saw this, the boy threw
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behind him a comb which made a great hill of combs with a thousand
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times a thousand teeth, but the nix managed to keep herself steady on
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them, and at last crossed over that. Then the girl threw behind her a
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looking-glass which formed a hill of mirrors, and was so slippery that
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it was impossible for the nix to cross it. Then she thought, "I will go
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home quickly and fetch my axe, and cut the hill of glass in half." Long
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before she returned, however, and had hewn through the glass, the
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children had escaped to a great distance, and the water-nix was obliged
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to betake herself to her well again.
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