were sure the elves had taken the animals out and had been riding them
all night. If a cow was sick, or fell down on the grass, it was believed
that the elves had shot an arrow into its body. The inquest, held on
many a dead calf or its mother, was, that it died from an "elf-shot."
They were so sure of this, that even when a stone arrow head--such as
our far-off ancestors used in hunting, when they were cave men--was
picked up off the ground, it was called an "elf bolt," or "elf-arrow."

Near a certain village named Elf-berg or Elf Hill, because there were so
many of the little people in that neighborhood, there was one very old
elf, named Styf, which means Stiff, because though so old he stood up
straight as a lance. Even more than the young elves, he was famous for
his pranks. Sometimes he was nicknamed Haan-e'-kam or Cock's Comb. He
got this name, because he loved to mock the roosters, when they crowed,
early in the morning. With his red cap on, he did look like a rooster.
Sometimes he fooled the hens, that heard him crowing. Old Styf loved
nothing better than to go to a house where was a party indoors. All the
wooden shoes of the twenty or thirty people within, men and women, girls
and boys, would be left outside the door. All good Dutch folks step out
of their heavy timber shoes, or klomps, before they enter a house. It is
always a curious sight, at a country church, or gathering of people at a
party, to see the klomps, big and little, belonging to baby boys and
girls, and to the big men, who wear a number thirteen shoe of wood. One
wonders how each one of the owners knows his own, but he does. Each pair
is put in its own place, but Old Styf would come and mix them all up
together, and then leave them in a pile. So when the people came out to
go home, they had a terrible time in finding and sorting out their
shoes. Often they scolded each other; or, some innocent boy was blamed
for the mischief. Some did not find out, till the next day, that they
had on one foot their own, and on another foot, their neighbor's shoe.