He felt stronger than he had ever felt during his waking moments , and lifted two bars quite easily on to his back . He did this so often that at length his strength seemed exhausted , and he sank almost breathless on the ground . Then he heard the sound of cheerful voices , and the song of the blacksmiths as they blew their bellows -- he even felt as if he saw the sparks flashing before his eyes . Stretching himself , he awoke slowly , and here he was in the green forest , and instead of the glow of the fire in the underworld the sun was streaming on him , and he sat up wondering why he felt so strange . At length his memory came back to him , and as he called to mind all the wonderful things he had seen he tried in vain to make them agree with those that happen every day . After thinking it over till he was nearly mad , he tried at last to believe that one night between Christmas and the New Year he had met a stranger in the forest , and had slept all night in his company before a big fire ; the next day they had dined together , and had drunk a great deal more than was good for them -- in short , he had spent two whole days revelling with another man . But here , with the full tide of summer around him , he could hardly accept his own explanation , and felt that he must have been the plaything or sport of some magician . Near him , in the full sunlight , were the traces of a dead fire , and when he drew close to it he saw that what he had taken for ashes was really fine silver dust , and that the half burnt firewood was made of gold . Oh , how lucky Hans thought himself ; but where should he get a sack to carry his treasure home before anyone else found it ? But necessity is the mother of invention : Hans threw off his fur coat , gathered up the silver ashes so carefully in it that none remained behind , laid the gold sticks on top , and tied up the bag thus made with his girdle , so that nothing should fall out . The load was not , in point of fact , very heavy , although it seemed so to his imagination , and he moved slowly along till he found a safe hiding-place for it . In this way Hans suddenly became rich -- rich enough to buy a property of his own . But being a prudent man , he finally decided that it would be best for him to leave his old neighbourhood and look for a home in a distant part of the country , where nobody knew anything about him . It did not take him long to find what he wanted , and after he had paid for it there was plenty of money left over . When he was settled , he married a pretty girl who lived near by , and had some children , to whom on his death-bed he told the story of the lord of the underworld , and how he had made Hans rich . -LRB- Ehstnische Marchen . -RRB- THE HISTORY OF DWARF LONG NOSE It is a great mistake to think that fairies , witches , magicians , and such people lived only in Eastern countries and in such times as those of the Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid . Fairies and their like belong to every country and every age , and no doubt we should see plenty of them now -- if we only knew how . In a large town in Germany there lived , some couple of hundred years ago , a cobbler and his wife . They were poor and hard-working .
The man sat all XXXXX in a little stall at the street corner and mended any shoes that were brought him .
Al-Raschid blacksmiths cobbler day days fall fire firewood left night