legs would carry him, and after that neither orders nor threats
would drive anybody to the enchanted moor.

A few miles from the Tontlawald was a large village, where dwelt
a peasant who had recently married a young wife. As not
uncommonly happens in such cases, she turned the whole house
upside down, and the two quarrelled and fought all day long.

By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good
quiet girl, who only wanted to live in peace, but this her
stepmother would not allow. She beat and cuffed the poor child
from morning till night, but as the stepmother had the whip-hand
of her husband there was no remedy.

For two years Elsa suffered all this ill-treatment, when one day
she went out with the other village children to pluck
strawberries. Carelessly they wandered on, till at last they
reached the edge of the Tontlawald, where the finest strawberries
grew, making the grass red with their colour. The children flung
themselves down on the ground, and, after eating as many as they
wanted, began to pile up their baskets, when suddenly a cry arose
from one of the older boys:

'Run, run as fast as you can! We are in the Tontlawald!'

Quicker than lightning they sprang to their feet, and rushed
madly away, all except Elsa, who had strayed farther than the
rest, and had found a bed of the finest strawberries right under
the trees. Like the others, she heard the boy's cry, but could
not make up her mind to leave the strawberries.