And Ulenspiegel took Nele in his arms. And thus entwined, a dance
began, an eddying dance like that of leaves in a whirlwind; and in
that vortex everything was swinging together, both trees and plants,
and insects, the butterflies, heaven and earth itself, the King and
his Queen, the girl-flowers and the lords of the mines, spirits
of the water, hunchbacked dwarfs, lords of the rocks, men of the
woods, will-o'-the-wisps, guardian spirits of the stars, and the
thousand 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 and
moon took part, and the stars and planets, the clouds, and the winds.
And in that whirlwind the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were
clinging 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 seeing
that they were mortals:
"Men!" he cried. "Men, here?"
And he dragged them from the tree to which they clung, and cast them
into the very midst of the crowd. But they fell softly on the backs of
the spirits, who passed them on one to another, bidding them welcome
in such terms as these:
"All hail to man! All hail, worms of the earth! Who is there now would
like to see a young mortal, a boy or a little girl? Poor wights that
are come to pay us a visit!"
Nele and Ulenspiegel flew from one to the other, crying "Mercy!" But
the spirits payed no attention to them, and they were suffered to go
on flying about, legs in air, heads downwards, whirling about like
feathers in a winter wind. And all the time the spirits were saying:
"Hail to the little men and little women! Come dance like us!" Now
the girl-flowers desired to separate Nele from Ulenspiegel, and they
would have beaten her to death had not the King of the Spring stopped
the dance suddenly with a single gesture.
"Bring them to me," he cried; "bring before me these two lice!" So
they were separated the one from the other, each girl-flower doing
all 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 her
also: "Why are you not a spirit like us that we might take you?"