It sounds like an episode from the version of _The Mysterious Stranger
Manuscripts_
published as _The Mysterious Stranger_ in 1916 but now generally called _The
Chronicle of Young Satan_, in which Philip Traum (the Stranger) gives
Theodor and
Nikiolaus the power to create creatures (birds, small people) from mud and
then to
destroy the people when they begin behaving like full-scale human beings.

John H. Davis, Ph.D.
English Division
Chowan University
Murfreesboro, NC