Kobolds
The Heinzelmänchen.
It is not over fifty
years since the Heinzelmänchen, as they are called, used to live and
perform their exploits in Cologne. They were little naked mannikins,
who used to do all sorts of work; bake bread, wash, and such like
house-work. So it is said, but no one ever saw them.
In the time
that the Heinzelmänchen were still there, there was in Cologne many a
baker, who kept no man, for the little people used always to make
over-night, as much black and white bread as the baker wanted for his
shop. In many houses they used to wash and do all their work for the
maids.
Now, about this time, there was an expert tailor to whom
they appeared to have taken a great fancy, for when he married he found
in his house, on the wedding day, the finest victuals and the most
beautiful vessels and utensils, which the little folk had stolen
elsewhere and brought their favourite. When, with time, his family
increased, the little ones used to give the tailor's wife considerable
aid in her household affairs; they washed for her, and on holidays[Pg
258] and festival times they scoured the copper and tin, and the house
from the garret to the cellar. If at any time the tailor had a press of
work, he was sure to find it all ready done for him in the morning by
the Heinzelmänchen. But curiosity began now to torment the tailor's
wife, and she was dying to get one sight of the Heinzelmänchen, but do
what she would she could never compass it. She one time strewed peas
all down the stairs that they might fall and hurt themselves, and that
so she might see them next morning. But this project missed, and since
that time the Heinzelmänchen have totally disappeared, as has been
everywhere the case, owing to the curiosity of people, which has at all
times been the destruction of so much of what was beautiful in the
world. The Heinzelmänchen, in consequence of this, went off all in a
body out of the town with music playing, but people could only hear the
music, for no one could see the mannikins themselves, who forthwith got
into a boat and went away, whither no one knows. The good times,
however, are said to have disappeared from Cologne along with the
Heinzelmänchen.
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