the marsh. "Fairy tales and poetry — well, they are like two yards of the same piece of stuff; they may go and bury themselves where they like! All their ideas and talk can be brewed over again and be had much better and cheaper. You shall have them from me for nothing. I have a whole cupboard full of poetry in bottles. It is the essence, the best part of it; both the sweet and the bitter herb. I keep everything that people want of poetry in bottles, so that I can put a little on my handkerchief on Sundays to smell."
"You speak of very wonderful things," said the man. "Have you poetry in bottles?"
"More than you can stand," said the woman. "You know, I suppose, the story of 'The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf so that She Might not Dirty Her New Shoes'? It is both written and printed."
"I have told it myself," said the man.
"Well, then you must know it," said the woman; "and you must know that the little girl sank straight into the ground to the woman from the marsh, just as the devil's great-grandmother came on a visit to see the brewery. She saw the girl as she was sinking, and asked if she might have her to put on a pedestal, in remembrance of the visit. She got her, and I got a present which is of no use to me — a medicine-chest, a whole cupboard filled with poetry in bottles. Great-grandmother told me where the cupboard should stand, and there it is still standing. Just look! You have your seven four-leaved clovers in your pocket, of which one is a six-leaved one, so you will be sure to see it."
And sure enough, in the middle of the marsh was lying something like the stump of a big alder-tree; it was great-grandmother's cupboard. It was open to the woman from the marsh and to everybody from all countries, and at all times, she said, if they only knew where the cupboard was standing. It could be opened at the front and at the back, and at every side and all the corners, — a most ingenious piece of work, — and yet it only looked like the stump of an old alder-tree. The poets of all countries, especially of our own country, were re-manufactured here. Their minds were elaborated, criticized, renovated, concentrated, and then put into bottles. With great instinct, as it is called when you do not want to say genius, great-grandmother had seized upon that in nature which seemed to partake of the flavor of this or of that poet, had put a little devilry to it, and then she had his poetry in bottles for all time to come.
"Let me have a look," said the man.
"Yes, but there are more important things to listen to," said the woman from the marsh.
"But now we are at the cupboard," said the man, and looked into it. "Here are bottles of all sizes. What is there in this one? And in this?"
"This is what they call May-dew," said the woman. "I have not
