At midnight, when the moonlight rests on the rustling oaks, or the
winter snow glitters and winds howl, there rises a white form from
the ruins of this robber Schloss, a wreath of flowers around the
head, and in the girdle a bunch of keys.
Centuries ago a convent stood near, and a monk belonging to it,
longing to possess some of the treasures of the underworld, was once
bold enough, as the bells rang midnight, to climb to the spot where
the fairy dwelt.
He used the formula employed to open the gates of the spirit-world,
and instantly, white as a swan, rose the virgin beautiful to behold.
"What dost thou desire?" she asked.
The monk approached her too boldly, begging for the jewels of the
depths, and she gave him such a blow with her keys that he fled in
terror, and never dared to visit the place again.
Soon after, as a shepherd was feeding his sheep on a meadow near, a
blooming, quiet maiden came and gathered flowers, which she bound in
a garland; approaching him, and looking kindly at him, she let a
flower fall. He picked it up and put it in his hat-band.
The maiden departed smiling, but beckoned him to follow her.
Soon they reached the summit of the Güntersburg.
They entered a subterranean passage, a door opened, and the youth
beheld the wonders of the fairy-world. Gold and precious stones
glittered in the soft starlight that illuminated the vaulted chambers.
"Take what thou wilt," said the fairy; "but choose wisely."
He filled his pockets with gold and costly jewels, but in his rapid
movements the flower fell from his hat. He looked around seeking the
door and rushed out, hearing only the words, "Forget not the most
beautiful treasure," and never stopped till he had reached the meadow
and his sheep. He emptied his pockets of the precious treasures,
when lo! they were worthless stones.
Legend of the Devil's Mill.
The summit of the Ramberg, or Victor's Höhe, is strewed with gigantic
ruins of the primeval rocks, and is called the Brocken of the
Unterharz.
Two huge granite boulders, lying as if they had been placed there by
hands, are the remains of the Teufelsmühle.
At the base of the mountain, in the ages long ago, a miller possessed
a windmill.
But the mill, an inheritance from his great-great-grandfather, was in
a tumble-down condition, and when the wind blew from the north or
west the sweeps stood motionless, for mountain and forest intercepted
the "breath of God."
Often the miller had sat on the summit of the mountain, and thought
how nice it would be if the mill only stood there in the free, full
breeze, with a strong tower, built from the materials that lay
scattered around in superfluous abundance.
Once, as he thus sat and mused in the twilight, the bats and owls
just beginning their nocturnal rounds, a huge, swarthy labourer
suddenly appeared before him, greeted him with a _Gott-sei-bei-uns!_
and told him he would build him a mill, so soon as the miller signed
a promise with blood to be his in thirty years.
Want, avarice, and vanity won the day with their unholy counsel, and
the bond was signed.
Suddenly scores of little black figures issued forth from the
darkness of the night, and began to work among the rocks; trees were
cut down with a stroke, chisel and hammer rang on the granite, and
the work went forward with a rapidity of enchantment.
The fear of the miller rose to despair, and as he saw the roof and
the huge sweeps set up and finished, and the last millstone rolled to
its place, he seized it with the power of a deadly terror, threw it
from the rollers with such force, that it rolled down the mountain.
Then the black wings of the arch-fiend unfolded and spread
themselves, he soared high in the air, let fall the millstone on the
miller, who was buried beneath it and the ruins of the mill, broken
to atoms.
The Origin of the Rammelsberg Mine, near Goslar.
The rich treasures of the Rammelsberg were discovered in 970,
according to tradition, by accident.
Otto the Great hunted in the forest. His squire Ramm dismounted,
tied his horse to a tree, and went after some game that had been
shot. The impatient animal pawed and stamped, and his rider
returning, found a glittering piece of silver ore laid bare.
Another story is, that the discovery was made by a servant girl in
the mill at the base of the mountain.
She rose one morning before daybreak, and went out to gather wood,
when she saw a fire burning on the mountain. She hurried to the
spot, and found several men with white beards sitting around it.
Approaching them, she asked permission to take some of the burning
coals to kindle her fire.
They gave no answer, but sat motionless and gazed upon the ground.
At last she took some coals, saying to herself, "No answer means
yes," carried them home and laid them on the hearth, but they would
not burn. This she repeated several times, but the coals, once
thrown on the hearth refused to burn.
At last it became broad day, and a great heap of gold lay on the
hearth, and on the spot where she had seen the fire, lay only
pebbles. Search was made, and the wealth of the mountain discovered.
A similar tradition, with slight variations, is told of the
_Burgmühle_, or castle mill, near Aschersleben, on the Wolfsberg.
The tradition is quite as probable that Askanas, grandson of Noah,
died on the Wolfsberg in 1964 after the Creation, having left the
East a few centuries previously to escape idolatry.