Chapter VI: Introduction (6)

One told of the dwarf-king who lived in a cave under the neighbouring mountain, and was mightily fond of teasing people, but would also do them great kindnesses now and then. Thus a poor maiden was once picking up wood in the forest, at the mouth of the cave, on a cold winter’s day, when she met a tiny man with a crown upon his head, and he said to her: “Kind maiden, I pray thee, pick me up and put me in thy basket; it snows, and I am so cold and tired, and have no shelter. Have pity on me, and take me to thy cottage.” The maid had never seen the dwarf-king before; but as he begged so earnestly, she picked him up, put him in her basket, covered him over with her apron to keep the snow off, and turned homewards. But on the way the little man grew so heavy that she could hardly stagger along under the weight, and had much ado to get her basket home. She put it down by the fire, and whipped off the apron, crying: “Let us see what thou art made of, little man, to weigh so much!” But what were her surprise and joy to find the little man gone, and in his place a great lump of solid silver!

“That is an easy way enough to get rich,” said another miner, taking the pipe from his mouth. He was a native of the Hartz Mountains, and was looked upon with suspicion for having left his own province to seek for work so far away. “But every one does not come off so well as that. There is plenty of treasure hidden in our mountains too; and there is one spot I mind, near to where I was working, not so long ago, that I can tell a strange tale of. ’Twas hard by a copper-mine, and the owners of the works were very rich. But one night the works, the owners, their house and all, disappeared; all that was left was a great heap of slack. People said their money was buried beneath it; and not long after, we began to notice that a blue flame would flicker up from the slack every night between eleven and twelve. And there was a tall, black man’s figure, too,” he continued, lowering his voice, “that would stand over the flame, and try to keep it in till twelve o’clock. That should have been enough to keep folk from meddling with the place; but there was a man from Sonan, who declared he had lifted many a treasure, and was going to have a try for this. And he talked over my brother and some other men, poor fools, into giving him a helping hand. It was settled they were to meet at sunset--for that was the right time--by the slack-heap. ‘Only be sure,’ said the leader, ‘not to speak a single word while we are at the job, whatever chances, or all is lost.’ At the appointed hour the work began, and sure enough, after a short time, they came upon a great pot, brimming over with golden ducats. Now it had to be lifted. The levers were soon at hand, and up, up, it came. It was almost on a level with the ground, when a wild shouting and yelping of dogs were heard; and the workmen turned, resting for a moment upon their poles, to see what it was. Then behold! from the shadow of the woods, the Wild Huntsman and his train swept forth, flying through the air, and followed by their baying hounds. Every one has heard of the Wild Huntsman, but it is given to few to see him. He went by so fast, my brother said, that it was as the passing of a shadow across the sun; yet they could see he wore the dress of a forester, and his mantle fluttering in the breeze looked like the beating of a huge wing. Not one of the men spoke as he passed--’tis bad luck to do that; and besides, they remembered their leader’s words; but they swore he looked back at them as if angered at getting no answer to his loud hunting-cry: ‘Hoi-hoi!’ that he shouts as he goes. But no sooner had he passed than another sight was seen--a queer little man humped together in a common kneading-trough, who came sliding and pushing along in the track of the wild train, shouting as he went: ‘If I could but catch them up! if I could but catch them up!’ Now at this laughable sight the men forgot both fear and prudence; they shouted with merriment, and one cried: ‘He will have a hard job to do that!’ And there! as he spoke, the pot of gold was gone, and all their efforts to find it were in vain! The men went home with long faces, and well they might, for their hair presently turned grey with fretting over the lost treasure, and every one of them died not long after.”

“Well,” began one of the Schneeberg men after a short silence, “’tis true enough that the gift of holding his tongue is needful to him who has dealings with the mountain-spirits. See the case of poor Hans of Donat. He was always bemoaning his poverty, and on the look-out for treasure; and the mountain-dwarf gave him riches, too, but only on condition that he should hold his tongue about the business, and bring him a penny loaf and a penny dip, every time he went on duty in the mine; for Hans was a miner. All went well for a bit, and Hans had plenty of money and to spare; but one day, at the ale-house, drink unloosed his tongue, and he let the great secret out. And not many days after, when his comrades were waiting at the mouth of the shaft for him to give the signal to haul the bucket up, he kept them there a long time, and then there was a mighty pull on the rope, and a bright light flashed up the shaft. They hauled as fast as they might, but when the bucket got to the top, there lay poor Hans in it, dead, and all round the edge of the bucket penny dips were burning, and the last loaf he had taken to the dwarf lay untouched on his breast So it was easy to see who had given him his death-stroke. Poor Hans--to think he bought his own funeral tapers, too!”

“Come now,” another of the Schneeberg men rejoined: “all the stories of treasure-seekers aren’t as dismal as these. Look at the story of Jahnsbach. Jahn was a poverty-stricken fellow, tramping about after work; and one night, as he was wandering in the forest near the Greifenstein, having lost his way, he too met a dwarf, that stood beckoning to him. He followed, not without fears, and the dwarf led him into a dark, narrow-mouthed cavern; but no sooner were they within, than it broadened out into a stately hall, with walls of silver and chairs and tables of gold, all lit up as bright as day by thousands of wax-candles in crystal candlesticks. At one table sat twelve men of noble mien, each wearing the stately dress of a knight. The dwarf invited the astonished Jahn to sit down and eat with them, and he obeyed, for hunger gets the better of shyness. He had never before had such a meal, and he felt refreshed after it, and in excellent spirits. The twelve men seemed to enjoy his company, and bade the dwarf fill up his wallet. Jahn took leave of them with hearty thanks, and the dwarf led him out of the cavern, showed him the road he was in search of, and then disappeared. When Jahn unpacked the wallet, which was very heavy, he found that the kindly spirits had filled it with bars of gold and silver. In his joy and gratitude, he vowed that he would make a good use of it; and so he built, not far from Thum, a little group of houses, which he gave rent-free to the poor; and they say he did much good besides, to the sick and needy. And I never heard that any harm happened to him. Ye may prove the truth of the tale, for the village of _Jahnsbach_, which grew up round that knot of houses, is called after him.”

“It seems to me,” said a young man, who, sitting by the fire in deep study over a roll of paper, had not yet spoken, “that in these tales of yours, only those came to harm who themselves sought after money, greedily, and merely for their own use. But methinks, after all, the best and safest way of getting wealth is to work for it. I, too, hope to find a pot of gold in the earth, but not by your manner of seeking.”

The men turned and looked at him, with more dislike and suspicion in their faces than they had shown to the Hartz miner.

“Yea, by witchcraft,” muttered one of them under his breath, in response to the young fellow’s words. For Christopher Schürer, also, was no native of these mountains, and, besides, his doings were too strange, in the eyes of the rough mining-folk, to be regarded as anything but uncanny. He had fled from his native province of Westphalia to escape religious persecution; and his knowledge of chemistry, and general cleverness, had quickly won him a high position in the works. Here was already food for jealousy; but, besides this, he had lately taken to shutting himself up in a little workshop of his own, and busying himself with experiments, by which, if the truth were known, he one day hoped to turn the hateful ‘blind ore’ to good account, and build up the fortunes of Schneeberg and its people. But this was a deep secret; all his fellow-workmen knew was that he kept his “smelting-hut” carefully locked, and would tell no one what he was doing. “And what could that mean save one thing?” said they. Had they known as well, that he had raised his eyes to Master Ran’s lovely Gretchen, and that his love was returned, their feeling against him would have been yet more bitter.

“Well,” resumed the Hartzman, a bold fellow, who had been heard to declare that he would stake body and soul on winning beautiful Gretchen, “I say again, there is danger in ‘gold-lifting,’ but I am not the one to give up happiness and wealth for that. Danger or no, I am off to seek for gold, away from this poverty-stricken place; and it is back to my own mountains I shall go. That is the place for hidden treasure. But I think Mistress Gretchen’s suitors should play fair; one must not sneak in before another; so, if there be any here bent on the same quest, let them stand forth, and agree with me to fix a time when we shall all meet again, ready to go before Master Ran and show which has won the wager.”

“That is but right,” answered the men; and two of them stood up and announced that they meant to join in the contest One was a strapping young fellow, bold and careless, fond of the dice and the bottle, and well known to be one of Mistress Gretchen’s most desperate admirers. The other was a pale, red-haired man, with a shifty glance; it was plain he could never hope to get any girl except by tempting her with gold.

“What, only three of us!” cried the Hartzman; “only three to contend for the winning of so fair a flower?”

“The stakes are too high for common men to take a hand,” replied one of the Schneebergers, laughing awkwardly: “perhaps when ye have all failed, there will be a chance for humbler and less daring folk.”

“Well, so be it,” rejoined the Hartzman; “I have no fear of failure, and six months is enough for me, but that I must have, for my goal lies far off. Say, comrades, shall we meet here again this day six months, and report our success?”

“There is one more would join you,” spoke a quiet voice from the chimney-corner, and Christopher Schürer rose and came towards them. “I do not mean to dig for pots of gold, or to follow dwarfs into dark caverns, but if I get the needful wealth, I suppose I may contend with the rest?”

He spoke with a somewhat scornful smile, for he marked the look of dislike upon his comrades’ faces.

“We cannot gainsay thee,” said Fritz, the tall young Schneeberger, after some hesitation, “for there is nothing to keep any man from taking part in this contest--but methinks thy trouble will be in vain,” he added, with a self-satisfied air.

“Unless the devil help him!” growled the Hartzman, who looked more like a comrade of the devil’s himself, as he glared from under his heavy brows at his rival. “But let be--fair means or foul are alike to me,” he muttered low to himself, “so I do but keep your smug face out of this fight.”

So the four parted, and next day the tale was all over Schneeberg, and Mistress Gretchen was sorely teased by all the wives and maidens among her friends, on the subject of the event that was to decide her fate. Master Ran bit his lip and frowned angrily, when his old friends upbraided him with his indifference to his daughter’s happiness and said that such wealth as her suitors had been driven to seek for would never bring luck; but he stood firm, even against his daughter’s prayers--the richest man should have her, and no other. “Who knows,” people began to say, “what his own secret troubles may be, or what money he needs to cover his own ill doings?”

Gretchen had indeed implored her father to withdraw his rash promise to the gold-seekers, and had sworn she would be bought by no man to wife, for a pot of ill-gotten money; yet his obstinacy did not seem to cause her as much uneasiness as might have been expected. Perhaps she knew what was going on in Christopher’s little smelting-hut, or perhaps he found words wherewith to comfort her, during their stolen interviews and walks in the lonely pinewoods far up the mountain. He, at any rate, did not believe in the likelihood of the seekers finding hidden treasure.

Fritz had gone forth on his wanderings alone, and alone, too, the Hartzman had departed to his native mountains; but Master Red-hair had taken a friend with him on his journey, and Christopher, as has been said, remained quietly at home in his workshop. Time sped on, and as the six months drew to their close, Gretchen began to look more anxious, and Christopher more careworn and pale, and overworked.

At last the great day arrived, and all the men gathered eagerly together at the ale-house, where Master Ran, too, was to be seen looking out for his would-be sons-in-law. It was known that not one of the wanderers had as yet turned up in Schneeberg, and Christopher Schürer, too, seemed to have forgotten the day, for he had not left his hut since morning.

It was summer, and still quite light, for the men had assembled early. Now, as they sat at the tavern door, looking anxiously down all the roads, there appeared on the edge of the forest, to the left, the form of a man staggering along with a heavy burden upon his back. Expectation rose to the highest pitch; but what was the horror and dismay of the company, when it was seen that the man was that friend whom Red-hair had taken away with him on his quest, and that the burden he bore was the body of his unfortunate comrade! With awe-struck faces they carried the dead man into an inner room, and then supplied the weary bearer of this sad burden with food and refreshment. When he was able to speak, he told the story of Red-hair’s ill-omened journey:--

“We sought for many weeks,” he said, “far and near, following up any clue we could get about buried treasures; but we never found anything, nor could we even get enough information to make a trial, until a week or two ago, when we were returning homewards in despair, and learnt that in a cliff, about a day’s journey from here, there was a ‘treasure-chamber,’ where gold and silver lay in heaps. More than one of the villagers swore to having peeped in and seen it, but none had dared venture farther, because there was said to be a wild beast in the cave, whose growlings could be heard outside. Master Red-hair had much ado, methinks, to muster up courage for the venture, but one day, towards evening, after he had been drinking deep at the tavern, he armed himself with a stout stick and a knife, and called me to climb the cliff with him. The climb in the hot afternoon sun brought the blood to my cheeks, but he grew paler the higher we got, and when at last we stood at the mouth of the cave, he stammered: ‘See here, comrade, thou art a stronger man than I, and art not troubled with such a fluttering heart; what if thou shouldst first step in and see how the land lies? I will join thee at thy first call, and--thou shalt have half the treasure.’

“‘Nay, nay, comrade,’ I answered; ‘each man for himself. I agreed to come with thee for company, and to give thee a helping hand in case of need, but this is not my venture, and I never said I would risk _my_ skin to win thee a bride. As for treasure--I have wife and babes at home, ’tis true, yet I warrant we would all rather be there together, in poverty, but with whole skins, than risk life and limb for a pot of gold that had a curse upon it.’ This did not seem to cheer him much, and I saw I had gone the wrong way about to hearten him up. ‘Yet I see nothing greatly to fear in the look of the case,’ I continued, ‘and a step within is not much to venture, to win a bride that is so beloved’--for I had often heard him call on Gretchen’s name in his dreams--‘and for that matter, I will come _with_ thee fast enough; only mind, thou wilt have but half the treasure if I do!’ This seemed to decide him, and he said he would venture in if I promised to stand by the mouth of the cave and run to his help at his first cry. This I promised to do, and saw him disappear into the darkness. The mouth of the cave was wide, but it narrowed immediately within, and what was my horror when I saw, as I stood watching it, that it was beginning slowly to close--and yet Red-hair had given no sign! As I saw the opening grow smaller, I shouted to him to return, and would have gone in search of him but that I could not push my way along the narrow windings of the path. But at that moment I heard his voice answering with terrified cries to mine, and mingled with them, the sound of an angry growl. I thrust my hand through the opening and groped about, for I felt sure he was not far off. In another instant I had, indeed, grasped him by the arm, and with much ado, dragged him through the chinks of the rock to the outer air. He was torn, bleeding--and empty-handed.

“When he could speak, he told me that it had at first been light in the cavern, and that at the farther end of it he had found, sure enough, a great chest full of gold. He was busy filling a sack he had brought with him, when he heard my call, and turning, saw that the front of the cavern was growing quite dark, and closing up. In horror, he started towards it, dragging his half-filled sack; but before he could reach the cave’s mouth, a huge black form, like that of a monstrous dog, dashed upon him out of the shadow and struck the sack of gold from his hand. He fell fainting to the earth, and never knew, he said, how he reached the spot from which my hand dragged him forth. I carried him to the village; but when the folk who lived there heard where he had been, they would have nothing to say to him, and we were fain to take refuge in a lonely hut, where I cared for his wounds as best I could. But he never held up his head again, and died yesterday. There was nothing left for me to do, since none would help me, but to carry him home as ye have seen.”

The man stopped speaking, and an awe-struck silence fell on the company. The first to break it was a stranger, who had joined them, unheeded in the common excitement.

“I fear,” said he, “that ye miss yet another of your countrymen from among you to-night, and though I am no friend of his, yet I, too, felt it was all I could do to come hither and bring you tidings of him--sad ones though they be. One Fritz of Schneeberg took up his quarters in our village, many long miles from here, a few weeks back. He, too, told us he had been wandering in search of adventure, and asked if there were no hidden treasures in our land. Well, to be sure, we told him of the Güss, a deep lake that lies in one of our valleys. It is said that a rich and prosperous farm once stood there, of which the owners were as wicked as they were rich. So one night, thus the tale runs, this lake rose suddenly from the depths of the earth, and swallowed up the farmhouse and all it contained, yet the gold belonging to those wicked men is still lying down below there, for any bold diver who has a mind to go and try for it. No one in our village has ever tried, within the memory of man; but this Fritz declared he was at home in the water and did not fear to make the venture. He was a bold fellow. Many of us tried to dissuade him--yes, some of our maidens amongst the number,” he added with a half-smile; “but no one succeeded, and the tale went through the country-side that a stranger was going to dive to the bottom of the Güss for the treasure. Fritz spent some time every day swimming and diving in the lake, and soon got to know its deeps and shallows, and the exact spot where the house stands, for on clear days one can plainly see from a boat the shadow that it casts. At length the day came on which he had promised to make the trial; and a great crowd of people, among whom were some very wealthy noblemen from a neighbouring castle, assembled to see it. Fritz dived once, and it was a long time before he reappeared; ye could have heard a pin drop in the crowd while we waited. But he came up again, and told us he had seen the house, as plain as he saw the boat we were awaiting him in. The roof had fallen in, and in one of the top chambers he had seen the promised heap of gold. Every one gaped, except those grand gentlemen, for they, one could see, didn’t believe him.

“‘I am ready to go again,’ cried Fritz, standing up on the boat’s edge. ‘I will have that gold yet!’

“The noble gentlemen looked scornful, yet one seemed half convinced, and said--

“‘Thou’rt a bold lad. Do but bring me one of yon pieces of gold, and I will add a thousand golden crowns to it!’

“The unlucky lad needed no other spur; in he leapt, and we waited, hopefully at first, but all in vain. Fritz never came to the top again, and we tried without success even to drag the lake for his body.”

This second dismal tale was received with lamentations, for Fritz had been a popular lad, and had left a widowed mother behind him. Some one was heard to say that Mistress Gretchen stood a poor chance of getting any husband at all, since her father’s greed had been the means of bringing ill luck to so many poor fellows--for the Hartzman had not turned up either, and doubtless he too had come to a bad end. “Ah!” said another bystander, “Christopher Schürer was right, and it had been better to have worked for their wealth like other men.”

“Schürer, indeed!” echoed Master Ran, trying to put a bold face on it, despite the dismay which he, too, secretly felt: “And where, prithee, is he? Did he, too, not promise to show himself on this evening?”

“Thou wilt not see him, Master Ran,” replied the sheriff of the town, coming forward from among the crowd, where he had hitherto stood concealed, “till I give my men leave to open his door. I have had my eye on yon fellow for many months, for ye all know that he has long been suspected of witchcraft and sorcery; but what no one knows is, that the Hartzman, before he left this place, gave me further and more telling proofs of Schürer’s evil doings, which he had noticed unawares. Only he prayed me not to denounce him--except he should try to fly from the town--until this day arrived. I have kept my word, but Schürer has been a prisoner in his smelting-hut since this noon; and if ye will, we can now go there, and judge of his doings for ourselves.”

No sooner said than done. The sheriff, Master Ran, and the whole company turned their steps to the little hut on the hill, followed, I dare swear, at a short distance, by the trembling Gretchen. As the bolt which the sheriff had had fastened across the door was withdrawn, a joyful exclamation greeted the startled officers of justice, and Schürer came towards them with a glowing face, holding in his hand a trough full of a blue powder of beautiful colour.

“Welcome, my masters!” he cried, without noticing their black looks. “Are ye come that I may prove to you the sooner how I have kept my word?”

“Not so fast, Master Schürer,” interrupted the sheriff; “keep thy welcome till thou seest how far it is due. We have come to charge thee with witchcraft and sorcery. What hast thou to say against that?”

Christopher’s face darkened, but he showed no dejection. “I say,” he answered, “that ye should prove before you condemn; and here now I have the proof to give. A few days past it might have gone harder with me, for I could not have convinced you of the sincerity of my aim; but within the last few hours, thank Heaven, the work of long months has been successful, and I can bring the ‘pot of gold’--or what is as good--that I promised to produce to-night, as the price of Mistress Gretchen’s hand.” His eyes sought those of some one in the crowd, and seemingly found what they sought, for he continued with a joyful smile: “See this powder; it is prepared, by an invention of my own, from that ore which you think worthless, and cast away out of the mines; and if I mistake not, it will be of great use, and bring work and wealth back amongst our people.”

He then showed them how the powder was made, and what its use was, and soon convinced even those who would most willingly have continued to suspect him, that he was free from the charge they had made against him. Master Ran, too, presently saw that the discovery of the beautiful blue powder, which the people at first called the “blue wonder,” but which was afterwards named smalt, would be as good as many a pot of gold to Christopher, and so he ended by giving him his daughter with a good grace, all the more that he saw well enough the young people would never suffer to be parted. The wedding feast was clouded only by the memory of the unhappy suitors who had fallen victims to their own folly and Ran’s greed.

Many people, and Gretchen amongst them, often wondered what had become of the Hartzman, and whether he had been punished by some dreadful accident for his plot against Schürer. But no answer was forthcoming to this question, for many years. Mistress Gretchen was already the buxom mother of many fair children, when one day a man, worn and old before his time, came toiling up the village street, and stopped before the ale-house. Master Ran, now quite an old fellow, was sitting at the door, and seeing the man’s gaze fixed upon his face, noticing, too, something familiar in his look, he inquired: “Dost thou know me, friend, or can I do somewhat for thee?”

“I see,” answered the traveller, “that the Hartzman is forgotten. I suspected as much, and suppose, indeed, that the game is played out, but I wanted to come and see for myself!”

“The Hartzman!” cried Ran. “Why, we all thought you lost, man, long ago, with the others. For know that they were lost, all save my son-in-law, Christopher, who has made Schneeberg rich. But tell us where thou hast been these many years, and why thou didst give up the prize that once so tempted thee--yea, tempted thee to do a dirty trick, too. But let bygones be bygones!”

“So he got her after all,” mused the Hartzman. “Well, when I saw what had befallen me, I guessed that all was lost.”

By this time a crowd had collected round the stranger, and a whisper went round, explaining who he was.

“And what was it befell thee?” asked one of the Hartzman’s former comrades.

“When I reached home,” the latter answered, “I went to the Morgenbrots Valley, near the Brocken, for I knew many wonders happened there, and that it was the likeliest place for me to find the sort of treasure I was after. Many days and nights I wandered about the hills and woods of that district, hoping to overhear some word of counsel from the voices of the underworld. At last, one morning, as I sat near a spring that rises toward the head of the valley, I suddenly saw a man of strange appearance, and wearing a foreign dress, standing by the spring, where no one had stood the moment before; and he was holding a sieve under the waterfall, but as the stream rushed through it, the sieve caught and held a number of large pearls. When his sieve was full of them the man washed his hands in the spring and said:

‘In the Morgenbrots Valley I wash myself,
In Venice town[8] I dry myself.’

With that he disappeared, and I hurried to the water’s edge, but could only pick up one or two pearls that he had let drop; nor could I find any more. This was not enough, so I determined to follow him, and repeated the charm, making sure it would carry me into some hidden treasure-cave. But I had hardly finished the words before I found myself in a strange city, where I saw not a soul I knew, and could not understand a word any one said. I am a bold man, but I am bound to say this dismayed me, and I wandered about till nightfall, wondering how I should keep from starvation. I was beginning to despair, when, on one of the bridges of which the city was full, I met the same man whom I had seen that morning in my native mountains. He could understand me, I knew, and I spoke to him and implored him to help me.

“‘I know thee, and thy history,’ said the man, and his face was ill to look upon. ‘Thou art a fool, and wouldst have been a thief. Wherefore should I help thee?’

“‘Sir,’ I cried, ‘have pity on me this once, and know it was but love that made me covetous and reckless. I am a fool, in truth; but I am also, surely, a countryman of thine, and in a wretched case. I pray thee, send me back to my own land.’

“At last he was moved, and took me home with him to a splendid house, where the very bed I slept upon was hung with tassels of pure gold. And all this treasure he had got out of our Morgenbrots Valley. He told me to go to bed and sleep in peace, and that on rising in the morning I was to take water and wash my hands, saying:

‘In Venice town I wash myself,
In the Morgenbrots Valley I dry myself,’.

and I should at once find myself in our Hartz Mountains again. I did as he bade me, and all came to pass as he said. Only, when I looked at my face in the spring, and when I questioned the folk in the villages hard by, I found that not one night, as I supposed, but many years, had passed since I left the valley. Home, relations--and bride, I had lost all. I knew it was vain to return here, yet I have come all the same.”

“Upon my soul, ’tis a worse punishment than thou didst deserve!” cried Master Ran. “But come home now, at any rate, and greet my daughter.”

“Nay,” replied the wanderer, taking up his staff again, “there is no place there for me, and I had best go on my way. I shall never be anything but a homeless man now.”

XVII

THE MAIDEN’S ROCK

On the left bank of the Elbe, near Pirna, stands a lofty crag, called the “Maiden’s Rock.” One part of it, in fact, is shaped like a maiden’s figure--and this is the reason why:--

It seems that, a thousand years ago and more, there dwelt in the village of Pfaffendorf, close by, a terrible old witch, who went by the name of Mother Gundelheind. No one dared go near her or enter her house, but those who had ventured to peep through the window in her absence declared that a blue flame danced upon her hearthstone, above which some devilish brew hung boiling, and that a black fox crouched whining beside this uncanny fire. Many a belated passer-by had seen her at night, flashing through the air upon her broomstick; and sometimes she had a companion, a fiery dragon who flew by her side, and brought her great store of red, molten gold, that he dropped from his wings before her threshold. It is needless to say that she was never at home on Walpurgis-night, the great meeting time of all the witches and evil spirits; but, indeed, she was oftener abroad than within doors, for when she was not revelling with her own kind, she was busy working evil spells upon her neighbours, bewitching their wives, their children, and their cattle. Plenty of people had seen her at it, but there was nothing to be done; complaints and lamentations were of no avail against her stony heart, and punishment was not to be thought of, for her revenge would have been such as no one in the land dared brave; and besides, how can any one get the better of a witch so mighty, that neither fire nor water have power over her? Yet her punishment awaited her, and she feared it, and had, in her great wickedness, found a way out of it, as she thought.

For there was another person who dwelt in that ill-famed cottage, and was in all ways the opposite of the terrible Mother Gundelheind. This was her young daughter Truda, and how she came by such a daughter none can tell; for Truda was as sweet as a May morning, and her hazel eyes had the look that the angels wear, in the church pictures. Instead of the old woman’s horny, blackened hide, Truda had a skin as fair and soft as cream; instead of her mother’s harsh and grizzled locks, she had long, silky tresses, the colour of a newly ripened chestnut; and instead of the witch’s cruel, rasping speech, a voice as gentle and musical as the ringdove’s. And her mind and soul were as beautiful as her body, so that every one loved her, and looked after her with friendly smiles, while they turned their eyes from the wicked mother and her ill-omened glance. To be sure, this made it hard for Truda to have any of the friends or the pastimes befitting her age and sweet nature; for none would cross the threshold of her mother’s house, nor would she suffer her daughter to enter one of the neighbours’ dwellings. She kept Truda fast at home, sewing, washing, or spinning; for it can easily be believed that the old witch herself had no time or mind for such a wholesome work, and the housekeeping would have gone to ruin but for Truda.

Nor was this all: the capricious creature would have her child as pious as she herself was godless, and made her learn her Catechism, and go to church on Sundays, and fast, and do penance, with such zeal that the poor child was sometimes quite worn-out. Never a day’s merrymaking did she get; never might she join the dance upon the village-green, or wander by the river in the moonlight, like the other young folk; for even when her mother was from home, she could watch and spy upon her by means of a magic mirror, in which the old witch could see at her pleasure all that was happening at home, or, indeed, in any place she chose to think of.

Now, it may be thought that the old woman was not so graceless but that she still had some lingering care for her child’s well-being--but this, alas! was not the cause of her watchfulness, for which she had only too horrid a reason. It is needless to say that this wicked creature had long been given, body and soul, to the Evil One; she knew that the day would come when he would surely claim his prey, and, as has been said, she feared her punishment, and was ready to pay any price to escape, and to be allowed to go on freely in her wickedness. Now, upon one of those midnight wanderings, during which all dark secrets were unveiled to her, she had happened to find out that the Prince of the lower regions was not so particular as to the fashion in which his debtors paid their score, and that he would be willing to take her little daughter Truda in her place, so long as the girl was innocent of any sort of wrong-doing. And this was why Mother Gundelheind scolded and spied, and used every means in her power to bring up her daughter a model of pious perfection.

She had succeeded pretty well, to be sure, and her bad example, far from doing any harm, seemed rather to have driven the girl in an opposite direction; but there was one thing that had so far escaped the old hag’s notice. She could not choose but let Truda go into the village sometimes--to market, for instance--because no one would have any dealings with the witch herself, if they could help it, while to Truda they gave their freshest fruit and richest cream. And again, she must go to church, for that her mother dared not let her miss. So it came to pass that Truda made a few friends, and one especial admirer, Wippold the forester, who spent half his life in planning stolen meetings with her, or in waiting to catch a glance from those hazel eyes as she went demurely by, prayer-book in hand. Old Mother Gundelheind had by this time got into the habit of trusting Truda, perhaps over much; but even witches will be caught napping sometimes, and this was the time of the Walpurgis Feast, and her head was full of other matters. So it came to pass that she forgot, once or twice, to look into her magic mirror, and never knew that Truda held tryst with the forester upon the rock overhanging the Elbe, to which the country-folk sometimes climbed up on their Sunday rambles. For the witch’s harsh and unnatural behaviour had borne fruit at last, and had driven even the sweet, confiding Truda into underhand ways, because they were the only means of bringing a little relief into a life that would else have been nearly unbearable.

But it was hard work to keep anything from the old hag for long; and presently she began to notice that Truda was wont to sit dreaming by the hearth of an evening, while her spindle lay idle beside her, and her wheel stood silent in a corner. Then the witch grew suspicious, and observed her more closely again; nor was it long before she spied out Wippold escorting the girl home from market one morning. He left her before they turned the corner of the cottage, to be sure, but as soon as Truda’s hand touched the latch, the old woman flew at her like the fury she was.

“What is this?” she screamed. “What good-for-nothing acquaintances hast thou been picking up, idle baggage that thou art? Never think to deceive me! If thou dost so much as give yon fellow a ‘good-day’ again, I will rather starve here at home with thee than suffer thee to set foot in the market!” And she flung herself down, quite out of breath, in her dark ingle-nook, muttering something about “running no such risks.”

Truda betook herself to her wheel, silent and bewildered, and ventured no word of self-defence. But that evening, as she sat gazing into the flame that flickered up with blue tongues from the blackened hearth-stone, she plucked up courage and asked--

“Why must I never speak to a man, mother, or have any dealings with the village-folk, as other maidens do?”

“Because men, and all human folk, are evil. Thou shalt speak to the man I shall choose for thee, and to no other,” rejoined the hag, with a grim chuckle.

“Have men wrought thee harm, then, that thou dost shun them so?” continued the girl. “Methinks the folk at market fear thee more than thou dost them. And yet there be some folk whose company thou dost seek, I have heard thee say, when thou goest forth on these long journeys. Whither dost thou go so far, mother, and wherefore?”

“Fine doings!” sputtered the old woman viciously. “Listening to evil spoken of thine own mother, and spying upon her! Little white-faced fool! what knowest thou of that which is fitting to be done? But have a care, or thou wilt find out something of my power, and of how I can punish when I have a mind.”

Truda sank into terrified silence, and brooded in her own heart over the mysteries of the dark fate which she seemed unable to escape.

But she would escape it yet! She would not give up her love, and everything that made life happy, without a struggle! Only her weapons must be guile and secrecy, and she was but little skilled in the use of them, poor child. For days and weeks she worked and drudged at home, to quiet her mother’s suspicions; only now and then, as she hurried along to get some few things they could not do without, she managed to give Wippold a sign that kept him quiet. At last, one Sunday, the old witch, afraid to keep her from her pious duties any more, and feeling sure that she had frightened her into obedience, bade the girl get ready to go to Mass; she herself would see her to the church door, though she might go no farther. Truda could not quite keep out of her face the joy which this order gave her, and her mother did not fail to notice the radiant gleam which lit up her eyes. She hurried away to get ready; and before the bell had ceased ringing, her mother had watched her run lightly up the steps and disappear into the church. Could she at that moment have seen through stone walls, she would have beheld her daughter reply to a sign made her by the young fellow who stood waiting behind one of the pillars and follow him out at the small north door, which was nearly opposite to the one by which she had gone in. And now, keeping close in the thickets, so as to be seen of no one, the pair of lovers hastened towards the lonely rock, where they were sure of a quiet hour together, and where Truda could unburden her heart of all its fears and sorrows, and hear from her lover that he would never rest till he had carried her away from her unhappy home.

Meanwhile the old witch had returned to her cottage, thinking over her daughter’s behaviour that morning. “I wonder why she was so overjoyed to go to church,” she mused; “it was not always her wont.” She could not get the matter out of her mind, and after a time she was so tormented by suspicion that she fetched out her mirror, and sprinkling some drops of magic water upon it, desired it to show her the spot where her daughter was.

Immediately there arose before her the picture of the lofty rock--its surface sparkled in the sunshine; down below, the blue Elbe wound along amid the meadows, and on a narrow green space near the top of the crag, and overshadowed by it, she saw the forms of the two lovers. Her Truda, the virtuous maiden, on whom she had staked all her hopes, was folded in the arms of the forester, while he pressed burning kisses upon her lips, and prayer-book and rosary lay forgotten at their feet.

Every drop of blood in the old hag’s veins tingled with fury, a hellish light gleamed in her sunken eyes, and seizing her witch’s staff in her hand, she went raging forth, and in the twinkling of an eye had rushed like a storm up the rocky ascent, and fallen upon the luckless lovers.

“Accursed child! and hast thou lied to me, and is this the Mass thou wentest forth to hear? And thou, thrice accursed fellow, it was an evil day for thee when thou camest a-wooing of Gundelheind’s daughter!”

And before the ill-fated man could so much as attempt to defend himself, the witch, suddenly grown to an immense height, and towering grimly above him, seized him in her huge horny hands and cast him down the cliff into the river below.

Truda, white and cold with anguish, stood rooted to the spot, and now the raging fury sprang upon her also. “Now it is thy turn,” she hissed out. “Ah! hast thou lied, and blasphemed, and dallied here with thy lover? A pretty ransom thou art, and much that creditor of mine will care to get thee now! Hence go all my chances of safety! But at least thou, accursed creature, shalt never be a witness of my defeat!” And lifting the staff with which she wrought her wicked spells, she struck her daughter across the face with it. But Truda never felt the blow. Beneath her fiendish mother’s curse she had turned to stone; the rock folded her, as it were, in its inflexible arms, and to this day bears, as a witness of the terrible deed, the form of a maiden.

But where, as she fled through the night from his vengeance, the Arch-Enemy’s stroke fell upon Mother Gundelheind, that the legend forbears to say.

XVIII

THE WATER-SNAKE

Old Lisbeth sat by the fire and spun, but on the opposite side of the hearth her son Dietrich crouched idle, his cheek upon his hand, gazing into the embers. For many weeks he had been growing more and more silent and listless, and no one could tell what ailed him. Was it that Johanna, the maiden he was courting, had been cruel to him, or was something wrong with his work? His old mother looked across at him and wondered. Outside the wind was blowing, and brought plainly to their ears the sound of the river as it rushed through the valley towards the lake of Pöhlde, that the Hartz-folk call the Tumpensee. Now and then the blast rose to so shrill a pitch that you might have thought a voice was calling from afar; and when this happened, Dietrich would start from his seat and make as though he would rush from the house, but each time he checked himself, and sank with a shiver upon the bench again. At last Lisbeth could bear it no longer.

“What ails thee, son?” she cried. “Art thou bewitched, that a mere gust of wind can set thee all a-tremble?”

Dietrich was silent for a while, casting furtive glances toward door and window, as though he were afraid that his reply might call up some unwelcome sight. At last he answered in a whisper--

“I doubt I am, indeed, mother! Hast thou ever heard tell of voices rising from the river and the lake yonder? Or was any one drowned there these days, that one should see a gleam of red-gold hair beneath the water?”

Lisbeth turned pale.

“Heaven help us!” she exclaimed in a low voice, as though she, too, were afraid of being overheard, “do thou have nothing to do with the river-side or the banks of the lake, Dietrich. That is how men come by their death.”

“But knowest thou anything of it, mother? What is there to fear, if fear there be?” persisted the young man.

“What care I for such tales! Tales there are of spell-bound maidens who call for some one to deliver them, and of water-snakes, and such nonsense; the country is full of them, thou knowest as well as I. But there is no need to believe them,” continued Lisbeth hastily, as if fearing she had said too much. “Do thou take thy Johanna to wife, and bring her home; that will drive all such fancies from thy head.”

A look of pain crossed Dietrich’s face.

“Ah, Johanna!” he exclaimed, “if I could but turn my mind to thoughts of her! Yet I fear she has fancied me cold and neglectful of late.”

“Nay, nay, son,” his mother answered, “Johanna has eyes but for thee; trust my word for it. See, the storm is passing; do thou go over and bid her good-evening, and tell her that the old mother needs some more of that yarn she can spin so stoutly, and thinks she might even bring it over herself, and gladden this house with a sight of her face. There is a gloom hangs about it when she is away, and the sooner she lives with us for good, the better it will be.”

Dietrich took his cap from the peg and opened the door, but as he stood on the threshold, he turned to his mother once more.

“What if I should bring _her_ to harm too?” he said, and was gone.

The old woman mused on by the hearth; her thoughts were not cheerful, for in her secret heart she firmly believed that some water-sprite had indeed bewitched her unlucky boy, but she put a bold face on it, and stuck to the idea that his marriage with Johanna would be the saving of him. Her thoughts would have been sadder still could she have seen how Dietrich swerved from the path that led to Johanna’s cottage, and, almost as though unaware of what he did, wandered down toward the banks of the river. Here, where it joined the lake, the swirling torrent became calmer, and patches of sedge and water-willow grew far out into the stream. It was now growing dusk, and the wind had dropped. As Dietrich paused, standing in the long, dank grass, he heard a sound, scarcely more than a whisper, borne to him on the dying breeze: “Dietrich!” and in a moment again, a little louder: “Dietrich!” A dread, irresistible fascination drew him nearer to the rush-grown banks, and as he went, he heard again and again that voice, calling his name with sweet insistence. And now, far down, almost hidden amid the tangle of willow-boughs and waving blue forget-me-nots that swept the surface of the dark lake, a face appeared--a lovely face, with a bloom as delicate as a rose-leaf or the heart of a shell, and all around it long tresses of red-gold hair floated upon the water.

“Dietrich,” the sweet voice continued, “I have called thee unto seven times. Hast thou not heard? Wilt thou not come and save me?”

Dietrich sprang forward, parting the overhanging boughs, and trying to get a clearer sight of the vision. “How shall I save thee?” he cried, almost in spite of himself, while fear and longing struggled together at his heart, “and who art thou?”