thick branches, so choked and blocked up the entrance that no one could get either in or out. And because the oak proved harder than their iron tools, and could in no manner or wise, and with no power which they could apply to it, be hewn and cut to pieces, the nobleman was compelled, by unavoidable necessity, to break through the walls in another part of the court-yard, and to have a new door made, which was not done but at great labour and expense.
Note.—Busching’s Volksmarchen, likewise from Prætorius.—(Th. 1, s. 275—277.)
‘This legend,’ says Busching, ‘is elsewhere related of the Devil, who took compassion upon a peasant similarly oppressed.’
RUBEZAHL SELLS PIGS.—[C.]
Once upon a time, Rubezahl made, from what materials is not known, a quantity of pigs, which he drove to the neighbouring market and sold to a peasant, with a caution, that the purchaser should not drive them through any water.
Now, what happened? Why these same swine having chanced to get sadly covered with mire, what must the peasant do but drive them to the river, which they had no sooner entered, than the supposed pigs suddenly became wisps of straw, and were carried away by the stream. The purchaser was moreover obliged to put up with his loss, for he neither knew what was become of, nor from whom he had purchased the pigs.
