ding-dong"
  Thus it sounds complainingly out of the bell-deep in theOdense-Au. That is what grandmother told us.
  But the schoolmaster says that there was not any bell that rungdown there, for that it could not do so; and that no Au-mann dweltyonder, for there was no Au-mann at all! And when all the other churchbells are sounding sweetly, he says that it is not really the bellsthat are sounding, but that it is the air itself which sends forth thenotes; and grandmother said to us that the Bell itself said it was theair who told it to him, consequently they are agreed on that point,and this much is sure.
  "Be cautious, cautious, and take good heed to thyself," theyboth say.
  The air knows everything. It is around us, it is in us, it talksof our thoughts and of our deeds, and it speaks longer of them thandoes the Bell down in the depths of the Odense-Au where the Au-manndwells. It rings it out in the vault of heaven, far, far out,forever and ever, till the heaven bells sound "Ding-dong! ding-dong!"
  THE END.
  1872
  FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
  THE BIRD OF POPULAR SONG
  by Hans Christian Andersen
  IT is winter-time. The earth wears a snowy garment, and looks likemarble hewn out of the rock; the air is bright and clear; the windis sharp as a well-tempered sword, and the trees stand like branchesof white coral or blooming almond twigs, and here it is keen as on thelofty Alps.
  The night is splendid in the gleam of the Northern Lights, andin the glitter of innumerable twinkling stars.
  But we sit in the warm room, by the hot stove, and talk aboutthe old times. And we listen to this story:
  By the open sea was a giant's grave; and on the grave-mound sat atmidnight the spirit of the buried hero, who had been a king. Thegolden circlet gleamed on his brow, his hair fluttered in the wind,and he was clad in steel and iron. He bent his head mournfully, andsighed in deep sorrow, as an unquiet spirit might sigh.
  And a ship came sailing by. Presently the sailors lowered theanchor and landed. Among them was a singer, and he approached theroyal spirit, and said,
  "Why mournest thou, and wherefore dost thou suffer thus?"
  And the dead man answered,
  "No one has sung the deeds of my life; they are dead andforgotten. Song doth not carry them forth over the lands, nor into thehearts of men; therefore I have no rest and no peace."
  And he spoke of his works, and of his warlike deeds, which hiscontemporaries had known, but which had not been sung, because therewas no singer among his companions.
  Then the old bard struck the strings of his harp, and sang ofthe youthful courage of the hero, of the strength of the man, and ofthe greatness of his good deeds. Then the face of the dead one gleamedlike the margin of the cloud in the moonlight. Gladly and of goodcourage, the form arose in splendor and in majesty, and vanishedlike the glancing of the northern light. Nought was to be seen but thegreen turfy mound, with the stones on which no Runic record has beengraven; but at the last sound of the harp there soared over thehill, as though he had fluttered from the harp, a little bird, acharming singing-bird, with ringing voice of the thrush, with themoving voice pathos of the human heart, with a voice that told ofhome, like the voice that is heard by the bird of passage. Thesinging-bird soared away, over mountain and valley, over field andwood- he was the Bird of Popular Song, who never dies.
  We hear his song- we hear it now in the room while the whitebees are swarming without, and the storm clutches the windows. Thebird sings not alone the requiem of heroes; he sings also sweet gentlesongs of love, so many and so warm, of Northern fidelity and truth. Hehas stories in words and in tones; he has proverbs and snatches ofproverbs; songs which, like Runes laid under a dead man's tongue,force him to speak; and thus Popular Song tells of the land of hisbirth.
  In the old heathen days, in the times of the Vikings, thepopular speech was enshrined in the harp of the bard.
  In the days of knightly castles, when the strongest fist heldthe scales of justice, when only might was right, and a peasant anda dog were of equal importance, where did the Bird of Song findshelter and protection?