At last, one evening, he went to find Katheline, thinking to inquireof her some way of remedy or revenge.
She was alone with Nele, sewing by the light of the lamp. At the soundwhich Ulenspiegel made as he came in, Katheline raised her head slowlylike one that is awakened from a heavy sleep.
He said: "The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast, and I am fain todo somewhat to save this land of Flanders. But what can I do? I haveentreated the great God of earth and heaven, but he has answeredme nothing."
Katheline said: "The great God cannot hear you. First of all youshould have recourse to the spirits of the elemental world, for they,uniting in themselves two natures, both celestial and terrestrial, areenabled to receive the plaints of men and hand them on unto the angels,who themselves in their turn carry them up thereafter to the Throne."
"Help me," he said, "only help me now, and I will repay you with myblood if need be."
"I can help you," said Katheline, "on one condition only: that a girlwho loves you is willing to take you with her to the Sabbath of theSpirits of Spring, which is the Easter of Fruitfulness."
"I will take him," said Nele.
Whereupon Katheline took a crystal goblet and poured into it a certainmixture of a greyish colour, and she gave it to them both to drink, andrubbed their temples with this mixture, and their nostrils likewise,and the palms of their hands, and their wrists, and she also causedthem to eat a pinch of white powder, and then she told them to gaze theone at the other in such manner that their two souls might become one.
Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and straightway the sweet eyes of thegirl illumined in him a mighty flame, and because of the mixture hehad taken he felt as it were a thousand crabs nipping his skin allover him.
After that Nele and Ulenspiegel undressed, and very beautiful theylooked in the lamplight, he in the pride of his manly strength, andshe in all her youthful grace and sweetness. But they were not able tosee one another, for already it was as though they were asleep. ThenKatheline rested the neck of Nele upon the arm of Ulenspiegel, andtaking his hand she placed it upon the young girl's heart. And therethey stayed, all naked, lying side by side. And to both of them itseemed that their bodies, where they touched, were made of tender fire,like the sun itself in the month of roses.
Then, as they afterwards related, they climbed together on to thewindow-sill, whence they threw themselves out into space, and feltthe air all round them, buoying them up as the waters buoy up theships at sea.
Thereafter they lost all consciousness, seeing naught of earth whereslept poor mortals, nor yet of heaven whose clouds were rolling nowbeneath their feet; for now they had set their feet upon Sirius,the frozen star, and from thence again they were flung upon the Pole.
There it was that a fearful sight awaited them, a giant all naked,the Giant Winter. His hair was wild and tawny, and he was seated on anice-floe, with his back resting against a wall of ice. Near by in thepools of water there disported a host of bears and seals, bellowing allround him. In a hoarse voice the giant summoned to his presence thehail-storms and the snow-storms and the icy showers; also there cameat his behest the grey clouds and brown odorous mists, and the windsamong whom is the sharp north wind, he that blows the strongest ofall. Such were the terrors that raged together in that place of bane.
But smiling in the midst, the giant reclined on a bed of flowersthat had been withered by his own hand, and of leaves dried by hisvery breath. Then, leaning down and scratching the ground with hisfinger-nails, and biting it with his teeth, the giant began to burrowa great pit. For he wanted to discover the heart of the earth todevour it, and to put the blackened coal where once there had beenshady forests, and chaff where once had been corn, and barren sandin place of fruitful soil. But old earth's heart was made of fire,so that he dared not touch it but recoiled therefrom in dread.
There he sat like a king upon his throne, draining his horn of oil. Allround him were his bears and seals, and the skeletons of those whomhe had killed on the high seas or on the dry land or in the cottagesof the poor. He listened joyfully to the roaring of the bears, to thebraying of the seals, and to the sound made by the skeletons of menand animals as the bones clicked together beneath the claws of thecrows and vultures that came for the last remaining piece of fleshthat might still adhere to them. And sweet also to his ears was thenoise the ice-floes made as they were driven one against another bythe waves of that dreary sea.
And when he spoke, the voice of the giant was even as the roaring ofa hurricane or as the noise of winter storms, or as the wind howlingin the chimneys.
"I am cold and afraid," said Ulenspiegel.
"He is powerless against immortal souls," said Nele.
Even as she spoke a great commotion arose among the seals, who beganto rush back into the sea with all haste. And it was apparent thatthe bears also were afraid for they lay back their ears and began tobellow most piteously. As for the crows and ravens, they cawed asthough they were in terror of their lives, and started off to hidethemselves among the clouds.
And now it was that Nele and Ulenspiegel first began to hear a soundas of a mighty battering-ram beating upon the farther side of thatglassy wall against which Giant Winter had been reclining. And thewall cracked visibly and shook to its foundations. But of all thisGiant Winter heard nothing at all, for he went on baying and bellowingmost joyfully, filling and emptying again and again his bowl of oil,and continuing his search for the heart of the earth, that he mightfreeze it to nothing, although, forsooth, whenever he found that fierycentre he always lacked the courage so much as to take it in his hand!
Meanwhile the blows of the battering-ram resounded heavier and louder,and the crack in the wall of ice grew broader every second, and allaround the giant, the rain of icicles ceased not to fall in myriadfragments. And the bears roared ceaselessly and piteously, and theseals sent up their plaintive cries from the dreary waste of water.
Suddenly the wall gave way, and from the bright sky beyond it a mandescended. Naked he was, most beautiful of aspect, holding in one ofhis hands a hatchet of pure gold. This was Lucifer, the light-bringer,Lord of the Spring.
When Giant Winter saw him he immediately cast away his bowl of oiland entreated the new-comer to spare at least his life. But at thefirst warm breath of Spring, Giant Winter lost all his strength,and Lucifer was able to bind him with a chain of diamonds, and tiehim securely to the Pole.
Then, standing still, the Lord of the Spring most tenderly andamorously cried aloud, and from the heavens there descended a woman,naked also, and most fair, most beautiful. She stood beside her lord,and spake to him:
"You are my conqueror, strong man."
And thus he answered her:
"If you are hungry, eat; if you are thirsty, drink; if you are afraid,come near to me. I am your mate."
"I have no hunger, no thirst, but for thee alone," she said.
Then the Lord of the Spring called out yet seven times and again. Mosttremendous was his voice, and there was a mighty din of thunder andlightning, and behind him there came into being a kind of dais allmade of suns and stars. And the lord and his lady sat them down ontwo thrones.
Then these twain, their countenances remaining still and motionless,and without the least tremor to spoil the calmness of their majesty andtheir power, both together cried aloud. And at that sound there wasa movement in the earth like that of a countless multitude of worms,and not in the earth only but in the hard stone and in the ice-floesalso. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a sound like that which mightbe made by gigantic birds trying to crack with their beaks the greatimprisoning egg-shells wherein they were concealed. And amid thisgreat commotion of the earth, heaving and subsiding like the wavesof the sea, there appeared forms like those of eggs.
And suddenly, on all sides, trees emerged, their bare branches allentangled together, and their stems shaking and tottering togetherlike drunken men, which began to separate themselves the one from theother, leaving empty spaces of earth between. And now from the
everrestless soil there emerged the Spirits of Earth, and from the depthsof the forest the Spirits of the Woods, and from the neighbouring sea,now cleared of ice, the Spirits of the Water.
And Nele and Ulenspiegel could discern the guardian spirits of allthese wonders. Dwarfs there were, men of the woods that lived liketrees and carried, instead of mouths and stomachs, little clusters ofroots sprouting from below the face to the end that they might sucktheir nourishment from the bosom of mother earth. Lords of the minesthere were as well, they that know no speech, and are destitute ofheart or entrails, and move about like glittering automatons. Therecame also the dwarfs of flesh and bone, little fellows with lizards'tails and the heads of toads, and a lantern on their head forhead-gear. These are they that leap by night upon the shoulder of thedrunken wayfarer or the tired traveller, and then jump down again,waving their lanterns the while so as to lead into marsh or ditchthat hapless wight who thinks the light he sees is a candle set tobeacon his way home.
There came too the Girl-Flower spirits, blossoms they of womanlyhealth and strength. Naked they were and unashamed, glorying in theirbeauty, and having nothing to cover them but their hair. The eyes ofthese maids shone liquid like mother-of-pearl seen through water;the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and glittering in thesunshine; and from half-opened ruby lips their breath wafted downmore balmy than jasmine.
These are the maids that wander at eventide in the parks or gardens ofthe world, or belike in the shady paths of some woodland glade. Amorousthey are, searching ever for some soul of man to possess it forthemselves. And whenever some mortal lad and lass come walking theirway, they try to kill the girl, but failing in this they breathe abreath of love upon the doubting damsel, so that she fears no longerto abandon herself to the delights of love, but gives herself to herlover. For then the Girl-Flower is permitted to take her share ofthe kisses.
Besides all this, Nele and Ulenspiegel could see descending nowfar from heaven the Guardian Spirits of the Stars, the Spirits ofthe Winds, of the Breezes, and of the Rain: young, winged men thatfertilize the earth. And there appeared from every point in the heavensthe soul-birds, the dear swallows. At their coming the light itselfseemed to grow brighter, and the girl-flowers, the lords of the rocks,the princes of the mines, the men of the woods, the spirits of water,fire, and earth, all cried out with one voice, "O Light, O sap ofSpring, Glory to the Spirit of Spring!" And though the sound of allthis shouting was more powerful than the noise of a raging sea, or of athunder-storm, or of a hurricane let loose, yet it seemed most solemnmusic to the ears of Nele and Ulenspiegel, who stood, motionless anddumb, curled up behind the gnarled and wrinkled stem of a mighty oak.
But sights more terrible yet awaited them, for now the spirits tooktheir places by thousands upon the backs of gigantic spiders, and toadswith trunks like those of elephants, and serpents all intertwined,and crocodiles that stood upright on their tails and held a whole bevyof spirits in their mouths. Snakes, too, there were that carried morethan thirty dwarfs at a time, both male and female, sitting astrideon their writhing bodies; and thousands upon thousands of insects,more huge than Goliath himself, armed with swords, lances, jaggedscythes, seven-pronged forks, and every other kind of murderous andhorrifying implement. Great was the uproar, and stern the battlewhich they fought amongst themselves, the strong eating up the weakand getting fat thereon, thus demonstrating how death is ever bornfrom life, and life from death.
And out of all this throng of spirits, confused and serried, there camea sound as of a deep rumbling of thunder, or of a hundred looms, ofweavers, fullers, and locksmiths, all working together in full swing.
And suddenly the Spirits of the Sap made their appearance on thescene. Short they were, and squat, and their loins were as large asthe great barrel of Heidelberg itself. And their thighs were fatlike hogsheads of wine, and their muscles so strangely strong andpowerful that one would have said that their bodies were made ofnaught but eggs, eggs big and little, joined up to one another, andcovered over with a kind of ruddy skin, strong and glistening liketheir scanty beards and tawny hair. And they carried great tankardsor goblets that were filled with a strange liquor.
When the other spirits saw them coming, there at once arose amongthem a great flutter of joy. The trees and the plants became thevictims of a strange restlessness, and the thirsty earth opened ina thousand fissures that it might drink of the liquor.
And the Spirits of the Sap poured out their wine, and at the samemoment everything began to bud, and to grow green, and to comeinto flower; and the sward was alive with buzzing insects, and thesky was filled with birds and butterflies. The spirits, meanwhile,continued pouring out their sap, and those below them received thewine as they best were able: the girl-flowers opening their mouths andleaping upon the tawny cup-bearers and kissing them for more; othersclasping their hands in prayer; yet others, in their delight, allowingthe precious liquid to rain upon them as it would; but all alike,hungry and thirsty, flying, standing still, running, or motionless,all greedy for the wine, and more alive for every drop they were ableto get. And none was there so old, whether he were plain or handsome,but he was filled with fresh force and with new and lusty youth.
And with great shouting and laughing they pursued each other amongthe trees like squirrels, or in the air like birds, each male seekinghis female, and acting out beneath God's open sky the sacred taskof nature.
And the Spirits of the Sap brought to the King and Queen a mighty bowlbrimming with their wine. And the King and the Queen drank thereof,and embraced one another. And the King, holding the Queen fast inhis arms, threw the dregs of that bowl far away upon the trees andflowers and all the other spirits that were there. And loud did heraise his voice, crying:
"Glory to Life! Glory to the free air! Glory to Force!"
And all with one voice cried aloud: "Glory to Nature! Glory to Life!"
And Ulenspiegel took Nele in his arms. And thus entwined, a dancebegan, an eddying dance like that of leaves in a whirlwind; and inthat vortex everything was swinging together, both trees and plants,and insects, the butterflies, heaven and earth itself, the King andhis Queen, the girl-flowers and the lords of the mines, spiritsof the water, hunchbacked dwarfs, lords of the rocks, men of thewoods, will-o'-the-wisps, guardian spirits of the stars, and thethousand thousand terrible insects all commingled with their lances,their jagged swords, their seven-pronged forks. A giddy dance it was,rolling in the space which it filled, a dance wherein the very sun andmoon took part, and the stars and planets, the clouds, and the winds.
And in that whirlwind the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel wereclinging rolled over on its side, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:
"We are going to die, little one...."
These words of Ulenspiegel one of the spirits overheard, and seeingthat they were mortals:
"Men!" he cried. "Men, here?"
And he dragged them from the tree to which they clung, and cast theminto the very midst of the crowd. But they fell softly on the backs ofthe spirits, who passed them on one to another, bidding them welcomein such terms as these:
"All hail to man! All hail, worms of the earth! Who is there now wouldlike to see a young mortal, a boy or a little girl? Poor wights thatare come to pay us a visit!"
Nele and Ulenspiegel flew from one to the other, crying "Mercy!" Butthe spirits payed no attention to them, and they were suffered to goon flying about, legs in air, heads downwards, whirling about likefeathers in a winter wind. And all the time the spirits were saying:
"Hail to the little men and little women! Come dance like us!" Nowthe girl-flowers desired to separate Nele from Ulenspiegel, and theywould have beaten her to death had not the King of the Spring stoppedthe dance suddenly with a single gesture.
"Bring them to me," he cried; "bring before me these two lice!" Sothey were separated the one from the other, each girl-flower doingall she could to tear Ulenspiegel from her rival, saying:
"Tyl, Tyl, wouldst not die to have me?"
"I shall die soon enough," answered Ulenspiegel.
And the dwarfish spirits of the woods that carried Nele said to heralso: "Why are you not a spirit like us that we might take you?"
And Nele answered: "Only have patience."
So they came at length before the throne of the King, and when theysaw his golden axe and his crown of iron they began to tremble withfear. And he asked them:
"Wherefore have you come to see me, poor little things?"
But they answered him not at all.
"I know you," added the King, "you bud of a witch, and you also,shoot of a charcoal-burner. By power of sorcery have you penetratedinto this laboratory of Nature, yet now your lips are closed likecapon stuffed with bread-crumbs!"
Nele trembled as she gazed upon the awful aspect of that spirit. Butthe manly courage of Ulenspiegel revived, and he made answer bravely:
"The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast. For, Most Divine Highness,Death now goes gathering his harvest through all the land of Flanders,mowing down the bravest of her men and the sweetest of her womenin the name of His Holiness the Pope. And the privileges of mycountry are broken, her charters annulled, she is wasted by famine,her weavers and cloth-workers abandon her to look for work in otherlands. And soon must she die if none comes to her aid. Your Highness,I am naught indeed but a poor little chit of a man that has come intothe world like any other, and I have lived as I was able, imperfect,limited on every side, ignorant, neither virtuous nor chaste, and mostunworthy of any grace, human or divine. Yet my mother Soetkin died asthe result of torture and grief, and Claes was burned in a terriblefire, and I have sworn to avenge them. Once I have been able to dothis. But now I long to see the miserable soil of my native landmade happy, the soil where the bones of my parents lie scattered;and I have asked of God the death of our persecutors, but not yet hasHe heard my prayer. This is why, all weary of my complaining, I haveevoked your presence by the power of Katheline's charm, and this iswhy we are come to you, I and my trembling comrade here, to fall atyour feet and to beg you, Most Divine Highness, to save our poor land!"