and worthy of censure, as
presuming to determine upon the precise character and abode of the spirit, yet
contended it was dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of his gifts, or
hold any communication with him, He was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and
capricious, and those who had intercourse with him seldom came to a good end.
Did he not give the brave knight, Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous black steed,
by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the great tournament at
Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards precipitate itself with its rider
into an abyss so steep and fearful, that neither horse nor man were ever seen
more? Had he not given to Dame Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making
butter come? and was she not burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of
the Electorate, because she availed, herself of his gift? But these, and many
other instances which they quoted, of mischance and ill luck ultimately
attending on the apparent benefits conferred by the Harz spirit, failed to make
any impression upon Martin Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.
    Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous; excelling in all the exercises
which distinguish a mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his familiar
intercourse with the dangers that attend them. He laughed at the timidity of his
brothers. »Tell me not of such folly,« he said; »the demon is a good demon - he
lives among us as if he were a peasant like ourselves - haunts the lonely crags
and recesses of the mountains like a huntsman or goatherd - and he who loves the
Harz forest and its wild scenes cannot be indifferent to the fate of the hardy
children of the soil. But, if the demon were as malicious as you would make him,
how should he derive power over mortals, who barely avail themselves of his
gifts, without binding themselves to submit to his pleasure? When you carry your
charcoal to the furnace, is not the money as good that is paid you by
blaspheming Blaize, the old reprobate overseer, as if you got it from the pastor
himself! It is not the goblin's gifts which can endanger you, then, but it is
the use you shall make of them that you must account for. And were the demon to
appear to me at this moment, and indicate to me a gold or silver mine, I would
begin to dig away even before his back were turned, - and I would consider
myself as under protection of a much Greater than he, while I made a good use of
the