Behold how gay the wood to-day,
The little church how fair,
What banners wave, what tap'stry brave
Covers its carvings rare!
A goodly train--the parents twain,
And here the princess two,
Here with his pole, George, stout of soul,
And all his comrades true.
High swells the chant, all jubilant,
And each boy bending low,
Humbly lays down the wrapping gown
He wore the night of woe.
Beside them lay a smock of grey,
All grimed with blood and smoke;
A thankful sign to Heaven benign,
That spared the sapling oak.
'What prize would'st hold, thou 'Triller bold',
Who trilled well for my son?'
'Leave to cut wood, my Lord, so good,
Near where the fight was won.'
'Nay, Triller mine, the land be thine,
My trusty giant-killer,
A farm and house I and my spouse
Grant free to George the Triller!'
Years hundred four, and half a score,
Those robes have held their place;
The Triller's deed has grateful meed
From Albrecht's royal race.
The child rescued by George the Triller's Golden Deed was the ancestor
of the late Prince Consort, and thus of our future line of kings. He was
the son of the Elector Friedrich the mild of Saxony, and of Margarethe
of Austria, whose dream presaged her children's danger. The Elector had
incurred the vengeance of the robber baron, Sir Konrad of Kauffingen,
who, from his huge stature, was known as the Giant Ritter, by refusing
to make up to him the sum of 4000 gulden which he had had to pay for his
ransom after being made prisoner in the Elector's service. In reply
to his threats, all the answer that the robber knight received was the
proverbial one, 'Do not try to burn the fish in the ponds, Kunz.'
Stung by the irony, Kunz bribed the elector's scullion, by name Hans
Schwabe, to admit him and nine chosen comrades into the Castle of
Altenburg on the night of the 7th of July, 1455, when the Elector was
to be at Leipzig. Strange to say, this scullion was able to write, for
a letter is extant from him to Sir Konrad, engaging to open the window
immediately above the steep precipice, which on that side was deemed
a sufficient protection to the castle, and to fasten a rope ladder
by which to ascend the crags. This window can still be traced, though
thenceforth it was bricked up. It gave access to the children's
apartments, and on his way to them, the robber drew the bolt of their
mother's door, so that though, awakened by the noise, she rushed to her
window, she was a captive in her own apartment, and could not give the
alarm, nor do anything but join her vain entreaties to the cries of her
helpless children. It was the little son of the Count von Bardi whom
Wilhelm von Mosen brought down by mistake for young Albrecht, and Kunz,
while hurrying up to exchange the children, bade the rest of his
band hasten on to secure the elder prince without waiting for him. He
followed in a few seconds with Albrecht in his arms, and his servant
Schweinitz riding after him, but he never overtook the main body. Their
object was to reach Konrad's own Castle of Isenburg on the frontiers
of Bohemia, but they quickly heard the alarm bells ringing, and beheld
beacons lighted upon every hill. They were forced to betake themselves
to the forests, and about half-way, Prince Ernst's captors, not daring
to go any father, hid themselves and him in a cavern called the Devil's
Cleft on the right bank of the River Mulde.
Kunz himself rode on till the sun had risen, and he was within so few
miles of his castle that the terror of his name was likely to be a
sufficient protection. Himself and his horse were, however, spent by the
wild midnight ride, and on the border of the wood of Eterlein, near the
monastery of Grunheim, he halted, and finding the poor child grievously
exhausted and feverish, he lifted him down, gave him water, and went
himself in search of wood strawberries for his refreshment, leaving the
two horses in the charge of Schweinitz. The servant dozed in his saddle,
and meanwhile the charcoal-burner, George Schmidt, attracted by the
sounds, came out of the wood, where all night he had been attending
to the kiln, hollowed in the earth, and heaped with earth and roots of
trees, where a continual charring of wood was going on. Little Albrecht
no sooner saw this man than he sprang to him, and telling his name and
rank, entreated to be rescued from these cruel men. The servant awaking,
leapt down and struck a deadly blow at the boy's head with his pole-ax,
but it was parried by the charcoal-burner, who interposing with one hand
the strong wooden pole he used for stirring his kiln, dragged the little
prince aside with the other, and at the same time set his great dog upon
the servant. Sir Konrad at once hurried back, but the valiant charcoal-
burner still held his ground, dangerous as the fight was between the
peasant unarmed except for the long pole, and the fully accoutered
knight of gigantic size and strength. However, a whistle from George
soon brought a gang of his comrades to his aid, and Kunz, finding
himself surrounded, tried to leap into his saddle, and break through the
throng by weight of man and horse, but his spur became entangled, the
horse ran away, and he was dragged along with his head on the ground
till he was taken up by the peasants and carried to the convent of
Grunheim, whence he was sent to Zwickau, and was thence transported
heavily ironed to Freiburg, where he was beheaded on the 14th of July,
only a week after his act of violence. The Elector, in his joy at the
recovery of even one child, was generous enough to send a pardon, but
the messenger reached Freiburg too late, and a stone in the marketplace
still marks the place of doom, while the grim effigy of Sir Konrad's
head grins over the door of the Rathhaus. It was a pity Friedrich's
mildness did not extend to sparing torture as well as death to his
treacherous scullion, but perhaps a servant's power of injuring his
master was thought a reason for surrounding such instances of betrayal
with special horrors.
The party hidden in the Devil's Cleft overheard the peasants in the wood
talking of the fall of the giant of Kauffingen, and, becoming alarmed
for themselves, they sent to the Governor of the neighboring castle
of Hartenstein to offer to restore Prince Ernst, provided they were
promised a full pardon. The boy had been given up as dead, and intense
were the rejoicings of the parents at his restoration. The Devil's Cleft
changed its name to the Prince's Cleft, and the tree where Albrecht had
lain was called the Prince's Oak, and still remains as a witness to the
story, as do the moth-eaten garments of the princely children, and
the smock of the charcoal-burner, which they offered up in token of
thanksgiving at the little forest church of Ebendorff, near the scene of
the rescue.
'I trillirt the knaves right well,' was honest George's way of telling
the story of his exploit, not only a brave one, but amounting even
to self-devotion when we remember that the robber baron was his near
neighbour, and a terror to all around. The word Triller took the place
of his surname, and when the sole reward he asked was leave freely to
cut wood in the forest, the Elector gave him a piece of land of his own
in the parish of Eversbach. In 1855 there was a grand celebration of
the rescue of the Saxon princes on the 9th of July, the four hundredth
anniversary, with a great procession of foresters and charcoal-burners
to the 'Triller's Brewery', which stands where George's hut and
kiln were once placed. Three of his descendants then figured in the
procession, but since that time all have died, and the family of the
Trillers is now extinct.