These beings are called Zwerge (Dwarfs), Berg- and Erd-mänlein (Hill and Ground-mannikins), the Stille Volk (Still-people), and the Kleine Volk (Little-people).[260] The following account of the Still-people at Plesse will give the popular idea respecting them.[261]

At Plesse, a castle in the mountains in Hesse, are various springs, wells, clefts and holes in the rocks, in which, according to popular tradition, the Dwarfs, called the Still-people, dwell. They are silent and beneficent, and willingly serve those who have the good fortune to please them. If injured[Pg 217] they vent their anger, not on mankind, but on the cattle, which they plague and torment. This subterranean race has no proper communication with mankind, but pass their lives within the earth, where their apartments and chambers are filled with gold and precious stones. Should occasion require their visit to the surface of the earth, they accomplish the business in the night, and not by day.

This Hill-people are of flesh and bone, like mankind, they bear children and die, but in addition to the ordinary faculties of humanity, they have the power of making themselves invisible, and of passing through rocks and walls, with the same facility as through the air. They sometimes appear to men, lead them with them into clifts, and if the strangers prove agreeable to them, present them with valuable gifts.