upon the magician who had so bewitched them, when suddenly the lights were extinguished, and the peasants could only discern the glaring eyes of an enormous owl which sat before them on the table. In their terror they made a simultaneous rush to the door; but outlet they could find none, while in their distress they kept shouting aloud in the most lamentable tone: “We are sorcerers! We are goblins! The student might have known this from the very beginning!”
Then the owl spoke to them in a grim voice: “Keep yourselves easy, my beloved friends; there is no occasion for alarm. Here I am, quite comfortable I assure you, and just as much the master as ever. Do you not know, my dears, that the owl is the bird of wisdom? Well, a student is just such a bird, and a very merry bird he is too, I assure ye, and there is no occasion for any great change amongst us. To be sure our situation is a little altered; just a trifle of a few hundred miles have we, my worthies, sunk down into the ground. But this should be a matter of no uneasiness to you, for I am Number Nip, and this is one of my palace halls. Don’t you see the roof above you is solid gold, and the rafters are entire diamonds! Come set to work and enrich yourselves for life!”
Stimulated by conflicting terror and avarice, the peasants now began to climb up upon one another’s shoulders to get at the diamonds. The innkeper himself was foremost of the band; and in a short time, so dexterously had they used their knives, the sky with its sparkling stars appeared through the gap in the roof. The brilliance of the heavenly gems gap only excited their cupidity to a higher pitch,—one loaded himself with a huge rafter,—another groaned under the load of rushes and straw he had piled upon his own back,—and jealousy and anger had their full play amongst them, each one striving to appropriate to himself the largest portion of what appeared inestimable treasures.
When the first ray of the morning-sun shone upon them,
