Part 6 (2/2)
And looking back thus, and pondering on these legendary and anonymous writings, a poem which soon drifts into recollection is one whose scene is laid near the little town of Lorch, or Lordch. Hard by this town is a mountain, known to geographers as Kedrich, but hailed popularly as ?the Devil?s Ladder.? Nor is the name altogether misplaced or undeserved, the mountain being exceeding precipitous, and its beetling, rocky sides seeming well-nigh inaccessible. This steepness, however, did not daunt the hero of the poem in question, a certain Sir Hilchen von Lorch. A saddle, said to have belonged to him, is still preserved in the town; but on what manner of steed he was wont to ride is not told explicitly, and truly it must have been a veritable Bucephalus. For the nameless poet relates that Sir Hilchen, being enamoured of a lady whom angry gnomes had carried to the top of Kedrich and imprisoned there, rode at full gallop right up the side of the mountain, and rescued the fair one!
?Though my lady-love to a tower be ta?en, Whose top the eagle might fail to gain, Nor portal of iron nor battlement?s height Shall bar me out from her presence bright: Why has Love wings but that he may fly Over the walls, be they never so high??
So the tale begins, while at the end the knight is represented exulting in his doughty action:
?Hurrah, hurrah! ?Tis gallantly done!
The spell is broken, the bride is won!
From the magic hold of the mountain-sprite Down she comes with her dauntless knight!
Holy St. Bernard, s.h.i.+eld us all From the wrath of the elves of the Whisper-Thal.?
Andernach
There are several different versions of this legend, each of them just as extraordinary as the foregoing. It is evident, moreover, that matter of this sort appealed very keenly to the medieval dwellers by the Rhine, much of the further legendary lore encircling the river being concerned with deeds no less amazing than this of Sir Hilchen?s; and among things which recount such events a notable instance is a poem consecrated to the castle of Andernach. Here, once upon a time, dwelt a count bearing the now famous name of Siegfried, and being of a religious disposition, he threw in his lot with a band of crusaders. For a long while, in consequence, he was absent from his ancestral domain; and at length, returning thither, he was told by various lying tongues that his beautiful wife, Genofeva, had been unfaithful to him in his absence, the chief bearer of the fell news being one Golo. This slanderer induced Siegfried to banish Genofeva straightway, and so the lady fled from the castle to the neighbouring forest of Laach, where a little later she gave birth to a boy. Thenceforth mother and son lived together in the wilds, and though these were infested by wild robbers, and full of wolves and other ravening beasts, the pair of exiles contrived to go unscathed year after year, while, more wonderful still, they managed to find daily sustenance. And now romance reached a happy moment; for behold, Count Siegfried went hunting one day in the remoter parts of the forest, and fortuitously he pa.s.sed by the very place where the two wanderers were living?his wife and the child whom he had never seen.
?Tis in the woody vales of Laach the hunter?s horn is wound, And fairly flies the falcon, and deeply bays the hound; But little recks Count Siegfried for hawk or quarry now: A weight is on his n.o.ble heart, a gloom is on his brow.
Oh! he hath driven from his home?he cannot from his mind?
A lady, ah! the loveliest of all her lovely kind; His wife, his Genofeva!?and at the word of one, The blackest traitor ever looked upon the blessed sun.
He hath let the hunters hurry by, and turned his steed aside, And ridden where the blue lake spreads its waters calm and wide, And lo! beneath a linden-tree, there sits a lady fair, But like some savage maiden clad in sylvan pageant rare.
Her kirtle?s of the dappled skin of the rapid mountain roe; A quiver at her back she bears, beside her lies a bow; Her feet are bare, her golden hair adown her shoulders streams, And in her lap a rosy child is smiling in its dreams.
The count had never thought to see his wife again. He imagined that she had long since starved to death or been devoured; and now, finding her alive, his pulses quicken. He knows well that only a miracle could have preserved her during all this period of estrangement, and reflects that on behalf of the virtuous alone are miracles worked. Seeing herein ample proof of Genofeva?s innocence, he welcomes her back to his arms and with beating heart bears her to the castle:
Oh! there was joy in Andernach upon that happy night: The palace rang with revelry, the city blazed with light: And when the moon her paler beams upon the turrets shed, Above the Roman gate was seen the traitor Golo?s head.
The Brothers
Doubtless it was the thaumaturgic element in this pretty romance which chiefly made it popular among its pristine audiences, yet it was probably the pathos with which it is coloured that granted it longevity, causing it to be handed down from generation to generation long before the advent of the printing-press.
Pathos, of course, figures largely in all folk-literature, and the story of Count Siegfried is by no means the only tale of a touching nature embodied in the early poetry of the Rhine, another similar work which belongs to this category being a poem a.s.sociated with Liebenstein and Sterrenberg, two castles not far from each other. These places, so goes the tale, once belonged to a n.o.bleman who chanced to have as his ward a young lady of singular loveliness. He had also two sons, of whom the elder was heir to Liebenstein, while the younger was destined to inherit Sterrenberg. These brothers were fast friends, and this part.i.tioning of the paternal estates never begot so much as an angry word between them; but, alas! in an evil day they both fell in love with the same woman?their father?s ward. Such events have happened often, and usually they have ended in bitter strife; but the elder of the young men was of magnanimous temperament, and, convinced that the lady favoured the other?s advances more than his, he left him to woo and win her, and so in due course it was announced that the younger brother and she were affianced. Anon the date fixed for their nuptials drew near, but it happened that, in the interim, the young knight of Sterrenberg had become infected with a desire to join a crusade; and now, despite the entreaties of his fiancee and his father, he mustered a troop of men-at-arms, led them to join the Emperor Conrad at Frankfort, and set off for the Holy Land. Year after year went by; still the warrior was absent, and betimes his friends and relations began to lose all hope of ever seeing him again, imagining that he must have fallen at the hands of the infidel. Yet this suspicion was never actually confirmed, and the elder brother, far from taking the advantage which the strange situation offered, continued to eschew paying any addresses to his brother?s intended bride, and invariably treated her simply as a beloved sister.
Sometimes, no doubt, it occurred to him that he might win her yet; but of a sudden his horizon was changed totally, and changed in a most unexpected fas.h.i.+on. The rover came back! And lo! it was not merely a tale of war that he brought with him, for it transpired that while abroad he had proved false to his vows and taken to himself a wife, a damsel of Grecian birth who was even now in his train. The knight of Liebenstein was bitterly incensed on hearing the news, and sent his brother a fierce challenge to meet him in single combat; but scarcely had they met and drawn swords ere the injured lady intervened. She reminded the young men of their sacred bond of fraternity; she implored them to desist from the crime of bloodshed. Then, having averted this, she experienced a great longing to renounce all earthly things, and took the veil in a neighbouring convent, thus shattering for ever the rekindled hopes of her elder suitor. But he, the hero of the drama, was not the only sufferer, for his brother was not to go unpunished for his perfidy. A strange tale went forth, a scandalous tale to the effect that the Grecian damsel was unfaithful to her spouse. Sterrenberg began to rue his ill-timed marriage, and ultimately was forced to banish his wife altogether. And so, each in his wind-swept castle?for their father was now dead?the two knights lived on, brooding often on the curious events of which their lives had been composed. The elder never married, and the younger had no inclination to take that step a second time.
They never entered court or town, Nor looked on woman?s face; But childless to the grave went down, The last of all their race.
And still upon the mountain fair Are seen two castles grey, That, like their lords, together there Sink slowly to decay.
The gust that shakes the tottering stone On one burg?s battlement, Upon the other?s rampart lone Hath equal fury spent.
And when through Sternberg?s shattered wall The misty moonbeams s.h.i.+ne, Upon the crumbling walls they fall Of dreary Liebenstein.
This legend is recounted here to ill.u.s.trate the poetry of the Rhine. A variant of it is given on p. 171.
Argenfels
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