THE FOUR GIFTS OF THE WATER-SPRITE. (JANNSEN.)

FOUR boys were playing one Sunday on the banks of Lake Peipus, when the water-spirit appeared to them in the form of an old man with long grey hair and beard, and gave each of them a present—a boat, a hammer, a ploughshare, and a little book. As they grew up, one became a smith, another a fisherman, another a farmer, and the last a great king, who conquered the Danes and Swedes. After this story, of which we have only given a brief abstract, we place another, descriptive of the dwellings of the lake-spirits.