Legends of the Rhine Part 2

The artist filed, sawed, regulated here and there, and then was led away, and in the same hour deprived of his sight.

The cruel deed was hardly accomplished, when it was found that the clock had stopped. The artist had destroyed his work with his own hands; his righteous determination that the chimes would never ring again, had become a melancholy truth. Up to the present no one has been able again to set the dead works going. An equally splendid clock now adorns the cathedral, but the remains of the first one have been preserved ever since.

The little Man at the Angel's Pillar

Close to the famous clock in the Cathedral of Stra.s.sburg, there is a little man in stone gazing up at the angel's pillar which supports the south wing of the cathedral. Long ago the little man who is now sculptured in stone, stood there in flesh and blood. He used to stare up at the pillar with a criticising eye from top to bottom and again from bottom to top. Then he would shake his head doubtfully each time.

It happened once that a sculptor pa.s.sed the cathedral and saw the little man looking up, evidently comparing the proportions of the pillar.

"It seems to me you are finding fault with the pillar, my good fellow," the stone-cutter remarked, and the little man nodded with a self-satisfied look.

"Well, what do you think of it? Speak out my man," said the master, tapping the fellow's shoulder encouragingly.

"The pillar is certainly splendid," began the latter slowly, "the Apostles, the angels, and the Saviour are most beautiful too. But there is one thing troubling me. That slender pillar cannot support that heavy vault much longer; it will soon totter and fall down, and all will go to pieces."

The sculptor looked alternately at the work of art and at its strange fault-finder. A contemptuous smile pa.s.sed over his features.

"You are quite convinced of the truth of your statement, aren't you?"

asked he enquiringly.

The bold critic repeated his doubts with an important air.

"Well," cried the stone-cutter, with comical earnestness, "then you will remain there always, gazing at the pillar until it sinks down, crushed by the vault."

He went straight off into his workshop, seized hammer and chisel, and formed the little man into stone just as he was, looking upwards with a knowing face and an important air.

This little figure is still there at the present day with both hands leaning on the bal.u.s.trade of St. Nicholas' chapel, awaiting the expected fall of the pillar, and most likely he will remain there for many a century to come.

WORMS

The Nibelungen Lied

[Ill.u.s.tration: Siegfried auf der Totenbahre--Nach dem Gemalde von Emil Lauffer]

To-day we are deeply touched, as our forefathers must have been, at the recital of the boundless suffering and the overwhelming concatenation of sin and expiation in the lives of the Recken and Frauen of the Nibelungen Legend. That naive singer has remained nameless and unknown, who about the end of the 12th century wrote down this legend in poetic form, thus preserving forever our most precious relic of Germanic Folksepic. A powerful story it is of sin and suffering: corresponding to the world itself and just as the primitive mind of a people loves to represent it. The story begins as a lovely idyll but ends in gloomy tragedy.

The ancient Rhenish town of Worms was during the great migrations the seat of authority of the Burgundian invaders, an east Germanic stock.

During the glorious reign of King Gunther there appears, attracted by the beauty of Chriemhild the king's sister, a young hero, Siegfried, by name. He is himself a king's son, his father Siegmund reigning in Xanten "nieden by dem Rine." King Gunther receives the fair Recken into his service as a va.s.sal.

Siegfried, exhibiting the fairest loyalty to his overlord, and rendered invisible by magic, conquers for him the redoubtable Brunhild, the proud queen of the island kingdom of Isenland (Iceland) and compels her to wed King Gunther. As a reward Siegfried receives the hand of Chriemhild. In the fulness of his heart the hero presents to Chriemhild as a marriage gift, the Nibelungen h.o.a.rd, which he had gained in his early years from the sons of the king of the Nibelungen and from Dwarf Alberich the guardian of the treasure.

Joy reigns in the king's court at Worms, but it was not shared by all.

Besides Chriemhild there was another secretly drawn towards the hero, and in Brunhild's heart the bridal happiness of Chriemhild awakens such envy that soon no friendly word pa.s.ses between the women. They become estranged and one day her bad feeling leads Brunhild to harsh words. Then alas, Chriemhild gave unbridled licence to her tongue. In her rash insolence she represents to Brunhild that it was not Gunther but Siegfried who formerly overcame her. As proof of this she produces the ring and girdle which Siegfried had taken on that night from the powerful Brunhild, and which he had presented to Chriemhild. With fierce haughtiness Chriemhild taunts her opponent with a hateful name no woman could endure, and forbids her to enter the cathedral.

Brunhild, weeping, informs King Gunther of the contumely heaped upon her. The king is filled with wrath, and his va.s.sal, the gloomy Hagen, considers how he may destroy Siegfried avowedly to avenge the Queen, but secretly for the possession of the Nibelungen h.o.a.rd. During a hunt in the Odenwald Siegfried was treacherously stabbed by Hagen whilst stopping to drink from a well. The intention was to spread the report that Siegfried had been slain by robbers whilst hunting alone. So, on the following day they crossed the Rhine back to Worms.

In the night Hagen caused the dead body of Siegfried to be laid in front of Chriemhild's chamber. In the early morning as Chriemhild accompanied by her attendants was preparing to go to ma.s.s in the cathedral she noticed the corpse of her hero. A wail of sorrow arose.

Chriemhild threw herself weeping on the body of her murdered husband.

"Alas!" she cried "thy s.h.i.+eld is not hewn by swords: thou hast been foully murdered. Did I but know who has done this, I would avenge thy death." Chriemhild ordered a magnificent bier for her royal hero, and demanded that an ordeal should be held over the corpse. "For it is a marvellous thing, and to this day it happens, that when the bloodstained murderer approaches wounds bleed anew."

So all the princes and n.o.bles of Burgundy walked past the dead body, above which was the figure of the crucified Redeemer of the world, and lo! when the grim Hagen came forward the wounds of the dead man began to flow. In the presence of the astounded men and horrified women Chriemhild accused Hagen of the a.s.sa.s.sination of her husband.

Much treachery and woe accompanied the expiation of this great crime.

The Nibelungen h.o.a.rd, the cause of the shameful deed, was sunk in the middle of the Rhine in order to prevent future strife arising from human greed. But Chriemhild's undying sorrow was not mitigated, nor her unconquerable thirst for revenge appeased.

After the burial of his son King Siegmund begged in vain that Chriemhild should come to the royal city of Xanten; she remained at Worms for thirteen years constantly near her beloved dead.

Then the sorrowing woman removed to the Abbey of Lorch which her mother, Frau Ute, had founded. Thither also, she transferred Siegfried's body.

When Etzel (Attila) the ruler of the Huns wooed her, Chriemhild urged not by love but by very different feelings gave him her hand and accompanied her heathen lord to the Ungarland. Then she treacherously invited Siegfried's murderers to visit her husband, and prepared for them a destruction which fills the mind with horror. The Burgundian king and his followers, who, since the h.o.a.rd had come into their possession, were called the Nibelungen, fell slaughtered in the Etzelburg under the swords of the Huns and their allies, thus atoning for their faithlessness to the hero Siegfried. And with this awful holocaust ends the Lied of the Nibelungen Not, the most renowned heroic legend in the German tongue.

SPEYER

The Bells of Speyer

The German Emperor, Henry IV., had much trouble to bear under his purple mantle. Through his own and through stranger's faults the crown which he wore was set with thorns, and even into the bosom of his family this unhappy spirit of dissension had crept. The excommunication of the Pope, his powerful enemy, was followed by the revolt of the princes, and lastly by the conspiracy of his own sons.

His eldest son, Conrad, openly rebelled against him, and treated his father most scornfully. When this prince died suddenly, the second son, Henry, attempted the deposition of his father and made intrigues against him. Thus forced to abdicate his throne the broken-down emperor fled to Liege, accompanied by one faithful servant, Kurt, and there lay down to his last rest.

His body was left for five years in unconsecrated ground in a foreign country. Kurt remained faithful, and prayed incessantly at the burial-place of his royal master.

At last the Pope at Henry's request consented to recall the ban. Henry ordered his father's remains to be brought to Speyer and solemnly interred with the royal family. Kurt was allowed to follow the procession to Speyer, but wearied out by this long watching the old man died a few days afterwards. Just at the moment of his death the bells in the cathedral at Speyer tolled without any human hand putting them in motion, as they always did when an imperial death took place.

Years pa.s.sed.

The German emperor Henry V. lay dying on his luxurious couch at Speyer. His bodily sufferings were intense, but the agony of his mind was even greater; he had obtained the crown which now pressed so heavily on his head, by shameful treacherous means. The apparition of his father dying in misery appeared to him, and no words of the flatterers at his bed-side could still the voice of his conscience. At last death freed him from all his torments, and at the same hour the bells which were always rung when a poor sinner was led to execution, tolled, set in motion by no human hand.

Thus were the bells the instrument of that Hand which wisely and warningly wrote ... "Honour thy father and thy mother...."

FRANKFORT

The Knave of Bergen

[Ill.u.s.tration: Der Scharfrichter von Bergen--Nach einer Zeichnung von Adolf Menzel--The Knave of Bergen--Le bourreau de Bergen]