"You cowardly brute, do you still think to oppose me 

 who can destroy you by a thought!" 



The foolish giant replied: "Destroy me if you can," and 

 attempted to raise his right arm to crush his master, when 

 he felt a numbness creeping throughout his limbs that 

 deprived him of strength as well as of vain confidence. 

 "What is it?" he cried. 



"Your punishment and annihilation," said the Rabbi, 

 who then rose from the table and with a stroke of his finger 

 erased from the swelling forehead of the giant the kabbalistic 

 letters 



GOLEM, 



and at the same instant the automaton, deprived of vital 

 energy, fell to the ground and broke into a thousand pieces. 



"Er war gewesen," quietly remarked the Rabbi, who 

 gave thanks to Jehovah for his mercies and proceeded un- 

 moved to finish his evening meal. 



The innocent subject of these wild and uncontro verted 

 legends sat in an easy chair one stormy winter night, before 

 a blazing wood fire that lighted the room more brilliantly 

 than the highly ornamental lamp on the table at his side. 

 On his knees lay a recently published book entitled "Symbola 

 divina et humana," -written by his friend Jacques Typot, a 

 Fleming who held the post of librarian to the Emperor ; the 

 book was a collection of mottoes and emblems of Popes, 

 Emperors and Kings, and was sumptuously illustrated with 

 copper plates engraved by Gilles Sadeler. Low, however, 

 was not thinking of the volume but of the singular history 

 of the author. 



Jacques Typot, after studying jurisprudence in the most 

 celebrated schools of the Netherlands, as well as at Padua 

 and Bologna, was invited to Stockholm by Sigismund III., 



159 



