Before he had done speaking human voices reached him from a distance. Three young men were passing below, the boldest of whom was bawling incessantly:—“Come down, Rubezahl! come down, thou girl-stealer!”
During all these centuries, the scandalous chronicle of the district had preserved the history of Rubezahl’s amour, and as a matter of course, from mouth to mouth through so many generations, had not failed to receive infinite embellishments. All the travellers who passed over the Riesengeberg narrated the adventure to each other, and each added something to the tale he himself had heard. Many an awful story was current, altogether unfounded in fact, but the recital of which failed not to cause the very flesh to creep on the bones of timorous travellers; while, on the other hand, the strong-minded folks, the wits and philosophers, who in broad day-light, and with plenty of friends about them, had no belief in ghosts, and made themselves exceedingly merry at all such ridiculous notions, were in the habit, whenever a party of them passed the mountain in the day-time, of shouting out very valorously and scornfully the Mountain Spirit’s nickname, and calling upon him to appear; and when he did not appear, they got
