into confusion. They howled aloud and ran off in all directions, while
Conrad in the meantime saved himself by recrossing the frontier, and
getting under the protection of the Swedish copsewood. His beautiful
bride, however, was completely lost; and by no endeavours could he ever
obtain her again, though he often came to the Finland border, called out
her name aloud, wept and prayed, but all in vain. Many times, it is
true, he saw her floating about through the pine-trees, as if in chase,
but she was always accompanied by a train of frightful creatures, and
she herself also looked wild and disfigured. For the most part she never
noticed Conrad, but if she could not help fixing her eyes upon him, she
laughed so immoderately, and in a mood of merriment so strange and
unnatural, that he was terrified and made the sign of the cross,
whereupon she always fled away, howling, into one of the thickets.

Conrad fell more and more into melancholy abstraction, hardly ever
spoke, and though he had given over his vain walks into the forest, yet
if one asked him a question, the only answer he returned was--

"Ay, she is gone away beyond the mountains," so little did he know or
remember of any other object in the world but the lost beauty.

At last he died of grief; and according to a request which he had once
made, his father prepared a grave for him on the place where the bride
was found and lost, though during the fulfilment of this duty he had
enough to do--one while in contending with his crucifix against evil
spirits, and at another, with his sword against wild beasts, which were
no doubt sent thither by the magicians to attack and annoy him. At
length, however, he brought his task to an end, and thereafter it seemed
as if the bride mourned for the youth's untimely death, for there was
heard often a sound of howling and lamentation at the grave. For the