The Water Nixie

A little brother and a little sister were playing at a well, and as they were playing they both fell in. There was a mermaid down there, who said, 'Now I have you, now you shall work well for me,' and led them away with her. She gave the girl confused, nasty flax to spin, and she had to carry water into a hollow barrel, but the boy had to chop a tree with a blunt axe; and they got nothing to eat but rock-hard dumplings. At last the children became so impatient that they waited until the mermaid was in church one Sunday, when they escaped.

And when the church was over, the mermaid saw that the birds had flown out and followed them with great leaps. But the children saw her from afar, and the girl threw a brush behind her, which gave a great mountain of brushes, with a thousand and one thousand spikes, over which the mermaid had to climb with great difficulty; but at last she got over. When the children saw this, the boy threw a comb behind him, which gave a large comb mountain with a thousand times a thousand prongs, but the mermaid knew how to hold on to it and finally got over. Then the girl threw a mirror behind her, which gave a mirror mountain, which was so smooth, so slippery, that she could not possibly get over it. Then she thought, "I'll go home quickly and get my axe and chop the mirror mountain in two. But by the time she came back and had broken the glass, the children had long since fled far away, and the water nymph had to trudge back to her well.