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LEGEND OF SAGENFELD IN GERMANY* |
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ORE than a thousand years ago this small district was a kingdom — a little bit of a kingdom, a |
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sort of dainty little toy kingdom, as one might say. It was far removed from the jealousies, strifes, and turmoils of that old warlike day, and so its life was a simple life, its people a gentle and guileless race; it lay always in a deep dream of peace, a soft Sabbath tranquillity; there was no malice, there was no envy, there was no ambition, consequently there were no heart-burnings, there was no unhappiness in the land.
In the course of time the old king died and his little son Hubert came to the throne. The people's love for him grew daily; he was so good and so pure and so noble, that by and by this love became a passion, almost a worship. Now at his birth the soothsayers had diligently studied the stars and found something written in that shining book to this effect:
In Hubert's fourteenth year a pregnant event zvill happen ; the animal whose singing shall sound sweetest in Hubert's ear shall save Hubert's life. So long as the
* Left out of "A Tramp Abroad" because its authenticity seemed doubtful, and could not at that time be proved.— M. T.
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