Then the hunter understood that it was no mere peasant he saw, but the Wood Sprite, and he aimed at him with his gun, Bang! and he hit him in the belly. The Wood Sprite groaned, almost fell down from the stump, and that very instant jumped up again and crept into the thicket. After him ran the dog, and after the dog ran the hunter. So he went on and on and on, and he came up to the mountains, and on one of the mountains there was a fissure, and in the fissure stood a little hut.

He entered the hut and looked, and there was the Wood Sprite rolling on a bench, absolutely out of breath, and beside him a maiden who was weeping bitterly. “Who will now give me food and drink?”

“Hail, fair maiden!” said the hunter; “tell me what you are and whence.”

“O doughty youth, I do not know myself: I have never seen the free world, and I have never known my father and mother.”