fields, without care for my life, in defiance of all the world.' On parting from him his father said, 'I cannot keep you--I give you up; but once more I warn you, beautiful youth, take care of your cap with the silken birds, and guard your long locks. You go amongst those whom men curse, and who live upon the wrongs of the people. I dreamt I saw you groping about on a staff, with your eyes out; and again I dreamt I saw you standing on a tree, your feet fall a fathom and a half from the grass. A raven and a crow sat on a branch over your head, your curly hair was entangled; on the right hand the raven combed it, and on the left the crow parted it. I repent me that I have reared you.' But the son exclaimed, 'Never will I give up my will as long as I live. God protect you, father, mother and children.'

"So he trotted off and rode up to a castle, whose lord lived by fighting, and was glad to retain any who would serve him as a trooper. There the lad became one of the retainers, and soon was the most nimble of robbers. No plunder was too small for him, and none too great; he took horses and cattle, he took mantles and coats, what others left he crammed into his sack. The first year everything went according to his wishes; his little vessel sailed with favourable winds. Then he began to think of home; he got leave of absence from the court, and rode to his father's house. All flocked together--man and maid-servant did not say, 'Welcome, Helmbrecht;' they were advised not to do so. But they said, 'Young gentleman, God give you welcome!' He answered, 'Kindeken, ik yunsch üch ein gud leven'^[7] (Children, I wish you a good life). His sister ran and embraced him; then he spoke to her, 'Gratia vestra!' The old people followed, and oft embraced him; then he called to his father, 'Dieu vous salut!' and to his mother he spoke in Bohemian, 'Dobraybra!' The father and mother looked at one another, and the latter said to her husband, 'Goodman, are we not out of our senses? it is not our child; it is a Bohemian or a Wend.' The father exclaimed, 'It is a foreigner; he is not my son whom I commended to God, however like he may appear to him.' And his sister Gotelind said, 'He is not your son, he spoke Latin to me; he must truly be a priest.' And the servant, 'From what I have seen of him he must belong to Saxony or Brabant; he said ik and Kindeken; he must, undoubtedly, be a Saxon.'

"Then the master of the house spoke in homely phrase, 'Are you my son Helmbrecht? Show your respect for your mother and me by speaking a word of German, and I myself will rub down your horse--I, and not my servant.' 'Ei wat segget ihr Gebureken? min parit,^[8] minen klaren Lif soll kein bureumaun nimmer angripen' (What are you boors saying? my steed and my fine body shall be touched by no boors). Then the master of the house, quite horrified, replied, 'Are you Helmbrecht, my son? In that case I will this very night boil one hen and roast another; but if you are a stranger--a Bohemian or a Wend--you may go to the winds. If you are of Saxony or Brabant, you must take your repast with you; from me you will receive nothing, though the night should last a whole year. For a Junker, such as you, I have no meal or wine; you must seek that from the nobles.'

"Now it had waxed late, and there was no host in the neighbourhood who would have received the youth, so, having weighed the matter, he said, 'Truly I am your son, I am Helmbrecht; once I was your son and servant.' The father answered 'You are not him.' 'But I am so.' 'Tell me the four names of my oxen.' Then the son mentioned the four names, 'Auer, Räme, Erke, Sonne. I have often flourished my switch over them; they are the best oxen in the world; will you recognise me now? Let the door be opened to me.' The father cried out, 'Gate and door, chamber and cupboard, shall all be opened to you now.'

"Thus the son was well received, and had a soft bed prepared for him by his sister and mother, and the latter called out to her daughter, 'Run, fetch a bolster and a soft cushion.' That was put under his arm and laid near the warm stove, and he waited in comfort till the meal was prepared. It was a supper for a lord; finely minced vegetables with good meat, a fat goose as large as a bustard, roasted on the spit, roasted and boiled fowls. And the father said, 'If I had wine it should be drunk to-day; but drink, dear son, of the best spring that ever flowed out of the earth.'

"The young Helmbrecht then unpacked his presents for his father, a whetstone, a scythe, and an axe, the best peasant-treasures in the world; for his mother, a fur cloak, which he had stolen from a priest; to his sister, Gotelind, a silk sash and gold lace, which would have better suited a lady of distinction,--he had taken it from a pedlar. Then he said, 'I must sleep, I have ridden far, and rest is needful for me to night.' He slept till late the next day in the bed over which his sister Gotelind had spread a newly washed shirt, for a sheet was unknown there.

"So the son abode with his father.

"After a time the father inquired of his son what were the court customs where he had been living. 'I also,' he said, 'went once when I was a boy, with cheese and eggs to court. The knights were then very different from now, courteous, and with good manners; they occupied themselves with knightly games, they danced and sang with the ladies; when the musician came with his fiddle, the ladies stood up, the knights advanced to them, took them elegantly by the hand, and danced featly; when that was over, one of them read out of a book about one Ernst;^[9] all was carried on then with cheerful familiarity. Some shot at a mark with bow and arrows, others went out hunting and deer shooting; the worst of them would now be the best. For now those are esteemed who are liars and eaves-droppers, and truth and honour are changed for falsehood; the old tournaments are no longer the custom, others are in vogue instead of them. Formerly one heard them call out in the knightly games "Hurrah, knight, be joyful!" There now only resounds through the air, "Hunt knight, hunt; stab, strike, and mutilate this one, cut off this man's foot for me, and the hands of that one, and hang the other for me, or catch this rich man who will pay us a hundred pounds." I think, therefore, things were better formerly than now. Relate to me, my son, more of the new manners.'

"'That I will. Drinking is now the court fashion. Gentlemen exclaim "Drink, drink; if you drink this, I will drink that." They no longer sit with the ladies, but at their wine. Believe me, the old mode of life which is lived by such as you, is now abjured both by man and woman. Excommunication and outlawry are now held in derision.'

"'Son,' said the father, 'have nothing to do with court usages, they are bitter and sour. I had much rather be a peasant than a poor courtling, who must always ride for his living, and take care that his enemies do not catch, mutilate, and hang him.'

"'Father,' said the young man, 'I thank you, but it is more than a week that I have drank no wine; since then I have taken in my girdle by three holes. I must capture some cattle before my buckle will return to its former place. A rich man has done me a great injury. I saw him once riding over the standing crops of my godfather the knight; he shall pay