Northern mythology

206 NETHERLANDISH TRADITIONS.
lay undisturbed_, and he saw nothings though the rattUng
still
continued.
In the mean while it gradually became darker, and
thunder was heard at a distance, so the reapers resolved
to return home ; for they saw that it would be impossible
for them to work. They had but just put on their clothes
when the rattling suddenly and quickly came quite close
to them, and something passed between the legs
of one
of them which carried him off wdth it. He cried as
loud as he could :
" Lodder ! Lodder ! strike ! strike ! I
am sitting on him/^ But the others laughed at him, for
although they saw him riding away, they could not see
Lodder, for he had made himself invisible. So the more
they laughed, the more vexed was the man, and the more
lustily he cried out ; for he well knew on whose back he
was sitting. In short, he was carried on and on till he
came to a large pond, into which Lodder threw himself
and left the terrified reaper lying half dead on the grass.
When the others came up, they saw plainly that it was
earnest, and from that time have never laughed when anything
extraordinary happened to them in the night.
A wdld young fellow coming home late one night, heard,
while he was putting the key into the lock, something on
the ground that
continually went ticktack, ticktack, ticktack.
Stooping down he found it was a silver watch, which
he joyfully placed in his pocket. On entering his room
he drew it out, for the purpose of seeing at what hour it
stood. At that moment the church clock struck twelve,
and the watch became cold ajid icy in his hand, and on
looking at it, it was a large, fat toad. In his fright he
dashed it on the ground, when suddenly there stood a
huge dog before him, with eyes like lanterns, which after
having stared at him till he fell on his bed in a fright.