and secures him a progeny of brave sons and
lovely daughters. Assuredly the root does not
enjoy a sinecure.

Having thus settled what a Wili is, let us
look out for a Servian tale or two, in which she
plays a part. It will be observed that she is
never a principal figure, but always remains
somewhat in the background.

There was a certain king who had two sons,
one just, the other unjust. When he died, the
unjust son said to his brother, " We cannot agree,
so take the horse and these three hundred pieces
of gold, making together your share in our
paternal inheritance, and likewise take yourself
off." Whether this particular act was unjust
or not we cannot say, as we have not had an
opportunity of looking over the deceased
monarch's accounts; but we suspect all was not
quite fair and aboveboard, inasmuch as the
unjust brother avowedly chose "Honesty is the
worst policy" as the ruling maxim of his life.
Knaves in general strive to conceal their
idiosyncrasies, but there was no hypocrisy in our unjust
man of Servia. He coolly and even ostentatiously
said, "I am a rogue, not from any
natural weakness, but because it is my
deliberate conviction that roguery is superior to
its opposite."

The righteous brother, whom, for brevity's
sake, we will call " Justus," had not proceeded
far, when he accidentally encountered the
unrighteous one, whom we will call "Injustus,"
and who saluted him with one of his usual
panegyrics of dishonesty. " Well," said Justus,
"I'll bet you a hundred gold pieces that, in
spite of your oft-repeated and somewhat
wearisome assertions, honesty is the best policy
after all." " Done," said the other; and they
then agreed to abide by the decision of the first
person they met. As it turned out, a more
partial arbiter could not have been selected, for
the first person they met was the Evil One
himself, disguised as a monk, and he, of course,
was strongly of opinion that wrong is far better
than right. Two other similar wagers, similarly
decided, consumed the rest of poor Justus's
little fortune, and his horse went with it; but
so firm was his conviction of the superiority of
virtue, that he now offered to stake his eyes on
the soundness of his views. Emboldened by his
previous successes, Injustus, without further
ado, or seeking any further arbiter, cut out both
Justus's eyes, and then appealed to Justus
himself, whether the very fact of his blindness
did not of itself prove the worthlessness of
right. The martyr to justice still affirmed, without
intending a pun, that " he did not see it,"
and instructed his victorious brother to give
him a vessel of water wherewith to moisten his
lips and wash his wounds, and to place him under
a fir-tree that grew by a certain spring.
Injustus, who, after all, was not without his good
points, granted this very modest request, and
poor Justus, as in the night-time he sat alone
by the spring, heard the Wilis come to bathe in
the waters, and then heard one of them say:

   She's very ill, is the king's poor daughter,
   To such a pass has her malady brought her;
   But if she could only bathe in this water,
       She'd get very well,
       As I can tell,
   And all who are deaf, or dumb, or blind,
   In these same waters a cure may find.

The cock crew, the Wilis vanished, and
Justus, creeping on all fours to the spring and
washing his eyes with the waters, found that
the last of the Wili's assertions was, at least,
correct, for he saw as well as ever. Nor did he
fail to make good use of his sight; he replenished
his vessel from the magic stream, and, taking it
to the daughter of the king referred to by the
Wili, restored her to a condition of robust
health. That the princess was given to him for
a wife, with half the kingdom for her dowry,
followed as a matter of course.

Though news did not travel fast in those days,
the great prosperity of Justus became known,
in course of time, to his iniquitous brother, who
at once shrewdly inferred that it must be a very
fine thing to lose one's sight and sit under the
fir-tree. So he cut out his own eyes, took the
station formerly occupied by his brother, and
presently, like him, heard the Wilis come to
bathe:

          There's no doubt
           At all about
       This fact, that some one overheard
           What I of these fine waters said,
           How they would heal the royal maid—
        Yes, ev'ry word.
             We'll look around us, for I vow
             I think there's some one list'ning now,

cried the Wili, whose information had proved
so useful to Justus. And the search, which
immediately began, terminated in the capture of
the hapless listener, who was no sooner caught
than he was torn into four pieces.

Once upon a time a certain man had a dream.
He thought that a child, white as snow and
with wings on its shoulders, stood before him
and said: " Climb up the highest mountain on
which thou hast knowledge, and thou wilt find
on the summit thereof a lofty fir-tree. Beneath
this thou wilt perceive a jagged rock, out of
which water is running like tears. Dig beneath
the rock as many feet as it is high, and thou
wilt come to a round vessel with a golden
cover, filled with coins. When thou hast
removed the cover, cast it down and leave it, but
the coins thou may'st bear away. Still, mind
that thou tellest no one of what thou hast done,
or evil may befal thee."

This was pleasant, and apparently profitable
information, and the man had no sooner
received it, than he proceeded to a spot that
answered to the child's description, and began
to dig with all his might and main. When,
however, he had struck the third blow with his
pickaxe, he heard a voice as of a child, which
seemed to proceed from beneath the ground, and
imperatively commanded him to desist. So
much was he touched, that he at once fell