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THE FRIENDLY DWARFS'
CLOSE to the little town of Dardesheim, between Halberstadt and Brunswick, is a spring of the finest water called the Smansborn, and which flows out of a hill in which in old. times the dwarfs dwelt. When the former inhabitants of the country were in want of a holiday-dress, or, at a family festival, of any rare utensils, they went and stood before this Dwarf-hill, knocked three times, and pronounced their petition in a distinct and. audible tone, adding,
Before the sun is up to-morrow.
At the hill shall be the things we borrow.
The Dwarfs thought themselves sufficiently compensated if there was only some of the festive victuals set down before the hill.