Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte Fouqué

“ A young spark, whom he took for a student like himself, comes up to him, and, after talking all sorts of learned stuff, takes his guitar, pretending that he was going to teach him a very pretty song. But no sooner has he got hold of the instrument than up he jumps with it, faster than any squirrel, into a very high tree, and there he sits among the green branches, and sings and plays away quite at his ease! ”

“ Once upon a time a certain man took his way up the Giant Mountain with the special design of meeting with Number Nip, and begging from the Spirit the gift of a little magical book which should teach him how to rule the weather according as it pleased him, how to transform himself into any shape, how to bewitch his neighbour’s cattle, and, in short, how to perform a great many very strange and surprising tricks. ”

“ The brilliance of the heavenly gems gap only excited their cupidity to a higher pitch,—one loaded himself with a huge rafter,—another groaned under the load of rushes and straw he had piled upon his own back,—and jealousy and anger had their full play amongst them, each one striving to appropriate to himself the largest portion of what appeared inestimable treasures. ”

“ The peasants laughed aloud at so modest a speech, but promised to listen to all that he might say without taking offence, and to pay his reckoning for him besides, if he should be able to deduce some profitable moral from every story that they might tell him of Number Nip. ”

“ The young stranger made several ineffectual attempts to change the subject of conversation. At last one of the peasants, willing to display his wit, thus addressed him: “Now, my young lily-faced master, as you look somewhat like a travelling scholar, methinks it would be but wise and fitting in you to draw some good moral from all our stories; and, I suppose, one is quite as good as another to you in this respect.”
“Oh,” replied the student, “I would willingly comply with what you suggest ”