Germany manners, customs, and creeds, matters of prejudice as well as
matters of art, and even of science, may have a beginning, {264}but
never have an end. In that ancient home of mysticism and of philosophy,
everything is permanently rooted, everything is made for eternity, like
those old oak trees of the Hercynia of antiquity: when the parent tree
is cut down, and has no longer a trunk to bear boughs and branches,
it sends forth new shoots from the roots. Druidism also has become
permanent there. We have seen it fight against the gods of the Romans;
it fought in like manner against Christianity under Witikind; it was
kept alive, though in concealment, by the first iconoclasts or image
breakers, and when that whole vast country was at last conquered and
became wholly devoted to Catholicism, it broke forth once more quite
unexpectedly in the first days of the Reformation. Luther was a Druid
still.
Thanks to this tenacity of life which characterizes creeds, and thanks
to the prolific nature of that soil, whatever seems to have disappeared,
rises again, under new forms, and whatever has perished is recalled to
life in some way or other. Let us prove this.
Among all those gods which we have mentioned before, none surely would
seem to have been more readily forgotten, swept away by the wind, which
they claimed to render useless, or buried in the dust with which they
seemed to compete, than those tiny, microscopic deities, called Monads.
{265}And yet this was by no means the case. Did they not, in fact,
represent the elementary spirits? And the worship of the elements
continued in spite of all other creeds which tried to suppress it
forever.
Only these atomic deities, still quite small, exceedingly small, had
increased in the most astonishing manner, when compared with their
original diminutiveness. They had even assumed a form and a body, a
visible body and a shape by no means void of grace.
They had become Alps or Alfs, better known afterwards under their
Eastern designation of Sylphs.
It happened occasionally that a belated traveller, a peasant or a
charcoal burner, returning homeward from a wedding towards the beginning
of night, would be fortunate enough to meet at a clearing in the woods
or on the banks of a brook with a band of little goblins, who were
making merry in the dim twilight.
These were Sylphs, a little people flying in swarms through the air,
making their nest in a flower or building one with a few bits of grass
at the foot of a broom-sedge, and going out only in the evening to pay
visits and as good neighbors to perform their social duties.
If the traveller, the peasant, or the charcoal burner {266}had walked
softly on the fine sand of the brook or on a grass-grown path on which
his steps could not be heard, and if he had then stopped in time so as
to be able to see without being seen, he might witness their gambols and
ascertain the secrets of their private life, without running any risk.
[Illustration: 286]
Have you, dear reader, have you heard Mercutio, in Shakespeare’s “Romeo
and Juliet,” relate how Queen Mab came, and say:--{267}
“Oh, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.....
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider’s web,
The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner, a small, gray-coated gnat!”
Well, the peasant, the traveller, or the charcoal burner, enjoyed a
sight which was by no means less curious.
Some of his Sylphs, suspending a thread of gossamer from one blade of
grass to another, made a delightful swing for their amusement, or took a
spiders web to supply them with a hammock. Others danced wildly about
in the air, beating their tiny wings with harmonious accuracy and
furnishing thus an orchestra for the aerial ball.
Not far from them some little sylph ladies, no doubt excellent
housekeepers, were washing their linen in the beams of the moon, or
preparing a feast.
The provisions consisted of a mixture of honey with the nectar of
flowers, a few drops of milk which the hanging udders of young heifers
had left on the high grass, and a few pearls of that precious dew which
aromatic plants secrete; this mixture was used as a seasoning for some
butterfly-eggs beaten up white as snow.
If during the repast darkness fell upon them and {268}suddenly
covered the guests with its sombre cloak, other hobgoblins, the
Will-o’-the-Wisps, with wings of fire, came and took seats at the
hospitable table, paying for their entertainment by diffusing a pleasant
light all over the place.
The principal occupation of these elves consisted in walking before
the wanderer who had lost his way so as to lead him back again into the
right path.
Such were some of the harmless spirits of Air and Fire. Everything
has, however, been changed in these two elements. The Will-o’-the-Wisps
especially, angry at the reports of wicked people, that they are nothing
more than the products of burning hydrogen, or at best phosphorus in
a volatile form floating above damp places, have conceived a veritable
hatred against men and now only appear when they wish to tempt
travellers into marshes and deep ravines.
As to the Sylphs, they also seem to have heard similar stories which
have been told about them, or they may have been irritated by the
chemist Liebig, who in his “Treatise on the Composition of the Air,”
absolutely denies their existence, having found in his apparatus neither
Sylphs nor Sylphides.
They have changed into faithless Elves, hostile to men, like the other
Gnomes.{269}
[Illustration: 289]
{271}The Fairies of our day are divided into two formidable classes.
The White Fairies are damsels who wander about on meadows and in woods,
like the Willis of the Slaves, and lie in wait for inexperienced young
men, whom they persuade to join in their dances and keep dancing, till
they lose their breath and generally fall to the ground never to rise
again. German stories are full of such wicked tricks. The place where
they perform their diabolic dances, becomes quite silvery under their
feet. The shepherds can thus at once recognize the place where they have
been, and are sure to hasten away at once with their flocks.
[Illustration: 291]
The Black Fairies personify Nightmare and Somnambulism, but only Natural
Somnambulism, it must be borne in mind. {272}When men fall into this
state, the Black Elf directs all the motions of the sleeper; he lives in
him, thinks and acts for him, makes him get upon the furniture and climb
upon roofs, and keeps him from falling, unless... Poor sleeper, he allowed
them breath enough to swell the sails of a vessel or to chase the clouds
from one end of the heavens to another.
Among the Celts all magicians had been able to command the winds and
the tempests at will; even now certain men in Norway and in Lapland will
sell you, for a small price, the wind you desire to carry you home.
Careful! The Black Fairies are treacherous and cruel; the Fairy who
controls you for the moment may at any moment take a fancy to throw you
from your height.
[Illustration: 292]
The Alfs, who have thus become Elves or Fairies, are of course not the
only Spirits of the Air; their fragile and delicate structure would
never have al{272}In Germany, on the contrary, the wind was looked upon
as an elementary power. It was not deified, as in Rome, where there was
a whole windy family of gods, like Eurus, Æolus, Boreas, and Favonius,
but it was an important personage, with a will of his own and
independent action. The poets did their part to give importance to
_Master Wind._
I have in my hand a ballad, which will enable the reader to judge for
himself:--
“Gretchen, the pretty miller’s daughter, was courted by the son of the
king. Her father, the miller, knowing that kings’ sons are not apt to
marry, had chosen her a husband, a young flour merchant from Rotterdam.
“The Dutchman was on his way up the Rhine; that very evening he was
expected to arrive, to make his proposals.
“Gretchen called upon Master Wind to help her; he came in by the window,
but not without breaking a number of panes.
“‘What do you wish me to do?’
“‘A man wants to marry me, against my will; he is coming in a sail boat;
contrive it so that he cannot land at Bingen.’
“The wind blew, and blew so well that the boat, instead of coming up to
Bingen, was driven back again as far as Rotterdam. {274} “At Rotterdam
also it could not make land; it was driven into the North Sea, and there
the Dutchman is perhaps still sailing about at this day.
“But Master Wind had made his conditions before he went to work blowing
so well; and the pretty miller’s daughter had agreed to them without
hearing them, for all around her the furniture, the doors, and the
blinds were shaking and rattling furiously, thanks to her visitor. Thus
it came about that poor Gretchen found herself betrothed to Master Wind,
which made her very sad, for now she had less hope than ever of marrying
the king’s son.
“However, Master Wind was as gallant towards his fair betrothed as he
could be. Every morning, when she opened her window, he would throw
her in beautiful bouquets of flowers which he had torn off in the
neighboring gardens.
“If any young man of the village, whom she had rejected, passed without
saluting her, Master Wind was promptly at hand to carry off his hat
and send it up in the air so high, that soon it looked no bigger than a
lark. It was well for him that Master Wind did not, with the hat, take
his head off at the same time.
“One day (when Master Wind must have been asleep), the king’s son came
to the mill, made his {275}way without difficulty to Gretchen’s chamber,
and forthwith desired to kiss her. Gretchen did not object. But at once,
and although out of doors all was quiet, the tables and chairs performed
a wild dance, and the doors and windows began to slam as if they had
been mad.
“Gretchen herself began to twirl around and around in the most
unaccountable manner; her hair was loosened by an invisible hand and
whisked about her head with strange rustling and dismal whistling.
“Terrified by the sight of a tempest in a close room, the prince
cried:--
“‘Ah! accursed one, you are the betrothed of Master Wind!’
“And at the same moment a terrible gust of wind carried off the king’s
son, the miller’s daughter, and the mill, and no one ever saw or heard
anything more of them.
“Perhaps they went to join the Dutchman, who was all the time sailing
about in the North Sea, or the hat, which was still on its way in the
clouds.”
The legend does not tell us whether it was before or after this
occurrence that Master Wind married Mistress Rain.
So much for the Spirits of the Air.
As for the Spirits of the Fire, it must be remembered {276}that the
Will-o’-the-Wisps were by no means their only representatives. There
were also Salamanders, too well known to be described here; and St.
Elmo Fires, near relations of the Will-o’-the-Wisps. But we must pause
a moment to speak of the formidable Fire-damp, the miner’s terror. The
remarkable feature about it is that it plays so insignificant a part in
the popular German myths, although it has destroyed so many victims in
all mountainous countries, and above all in the Hartz mountains.
This subterranean lightning, far more fatal than that of the upper
regions, is known to the people of the Rhine simply as a tall monk, whom
they call Master Haemmerling.
Master Haemmerling visits the mines from time to time in the guise of a
harmless amateur, or of an inspector, who is not fond of being hurried.
However, on Fridays especially, he is subject to violent attacks of
anger. If a laborer handles his pickaxe awkwardly, or if he is insolent
to his master, or the master harsh to him and requiring too much, he is,
quick as a flash of lightning, between them when they are as yet half
way under ground. Then he suddenly draws his long legs together, and
between his two knees crushes their heads with as little hesitation and
ceremony as a mother would show in destroying between her two thumbs the
{277}little hateful insect that has troubled her darling child.
Nothing more need be said of the elementary spirits of Air and Fire;
but as we have followed Master Haemmerling into the lower depths of
the mountains, we might just as well remain there a while and make the
acquaintance of the Gnomes, the Spirits of the Earth.
Can you see, through the dense air which fills these immense caverns,
the long, gigantic stalactites, reaching from the ceiling to the
floor and strongly impregnated with iron? They are the columns of this
subterranean palace, and around these stalactites, peaceful, slumbering
waters form a kind of little lakes, the shores of which look as if they
were covered with rust.
Here and there, in the damp low grounds, half choked with ore and slag
of various kinds, dark reeds are growing in the shape of lizards; like
lizards they bend backwards, moving their heads from side to side and
showing thus the diamond eye which shines brilliantly at the extreme
end.
These dark depths seem to teem with fantastic creatures; close by a
heap of grains of gold, stands immovable a watchful, silent guardian,
a griffin; a pack of black dogs, also guardians of the treasures hid in
this world of precious metals and {278}stones, are roaming incessantly
along the ceiling. On the sloping sides, dwarfs not larger than
grasshoppers, and jumping about like peas in the sieve of the winnower,
are gathering right and left the tiny gold and silver spangles which
are left at their disposal, while enormous toads are posted about as
watchmen.
Finally, far back in the remotest part of these abysses the kings of
this empire are moving about; these thick-set men, with stout limbs and
monstrous heads, are the Gnomes.
But people hardly believe in Gnomes any longer; the hard-working miners
who ought to come every day in contact with them, deny their existence,
and they have gradually passed into the class of fabulous beings.
Still, I am told that as recently as last year, a pretty peasant girl
from the neighborhood of Hamburg appeared on a certain evening at a
ball, with a large ruby on her finger. She professed to have received
this gem from an Earth Spirit, who had appeared to her at the entrance
to the Faunus mines.
The gossips of the village were not satisfied, however, with the
account, and suspected the Gnome to have been an English Gnome, who
was travelling abroad for his health and courting pretty girls for his
amusement. This conviction {279}was so strong that the poor girl had to
leave the country in disgrace.
This is the last Gnome that has been mentioned in that part of Germany.
[Illustration: 299]
[Illustration: 303]
XII.
{283}Elementary Spirits of the Water.--_Petrarch at Cologne.--Divine
Judgment by Water.--Nixen and Undines.--A Furlough till Ten
o’clock.--The White-footed Undine.--Mysteries on the Rhine.--The Court
of the Great Nichus.--Nix-COBT, the Messenger of the Dead.--His Funny
Tricks.--I go in Search of an Undine._
“After leaving Aix-la-Chapelle, I had stopped at Cologne, on the left
bank of the Rhine, which I then found completely covered with several
rows of women, a countless and charming multitude....
“Adorned with flowers or aromatic herbs, the sleeves {284}pushed up above
the elbow, they dipped their soft white hands and arms into the river,
murmuring certain mysterious words which I could not understand.
“I questioned some people. They told me it was an ancient custom of the
country. Thanks to these ablutions and certain prayers which accompanied
them, the river carried down with it all the diseases, which would
otherwise have attacked them during the coming year. I answered,
smilingly: ‘How happy the people of the Rhine must be if the kind river
thus takes all their sufferings to distant countries! The Po or the
Tiber have never been able to do as much for us.’”
These are the words which Petrarch wrote in one of his familiar letters,
written on St. John’s Eve.
This letter, as precious by its date as by its contents, proves beyond
all question, that in the fourteenth century the Rhine was popularly
worshipped and adored on the very days on which the summer solstice is
celebrated by bonfires after the manner of the old fire worshippers.
Unfortunately the Christians ended by appealing to the elements, to Fire
or Water, as to a judicial authority.
The popular notion that the elements were perfectly pure and would hence
instinctively reject every impure substance, led naturally to ordeals
{285}by water. The accused was undressed; his hands and feet were tied
crosswise, the right hand to the left foot and the right foot to the
left hand, and thus bound he was thrown into a river or any watercourse
that was deep enough. If he floated, he was guilty and instantly burnt;
if he sank and remained for some time at the bottom of the water, he was
considered innocent--but he was drowned.
Heinrich Heine, at least, tells us that this was the infallible result
of justice in the Middle Ages, and the Middle Ages ended in Germany but
yesterday.
There was also a trial by bread and cheese (_exorcismus panis hordeacei,
vel casei, ad probationem veri_), but bread and cheese are not elements.
Let us return to the elementary spirits of Water.
During the great religious reaction which took place after the days
of Charlemagne, all the mythological gods of rivers and streams
had gradually returned, more or less successfully, to their former
occupations. The great Nix or Nichus, upon whom devolved the rule over
all the rivers of Germany, was no other than the ancient Niord, a
very important deity and a kind of Northern Neptune. This very weighty
discovery is due to the learned Mallet.
No doubt this god Niord was one of those who, on their disastrous flight
from Argentoratum, had {286}fallen into the Rhine. They thought that he
was drowned, but he had only taken refuge in one of the lowest, almost
unfathomable depths of the river. From this safe retreat the great
Nichus had defied the decrees of Councils and the anathemas of the
Christians hurled against all elementary spirits alike; there he had
summoned the subaltern deities of sources, ponds, lakes, and smaller
streams, the nymphs of the banks, and the hideous, scaly monsters which
swarmed at the bottom of the river. Organizing all these into a people,
an escort, and an army, he had come forth and invaded at the head of his
host the banks of the Neckar and the Main, the Moselle and the Meuse,
the great tributaries of the Rhine, and governed the inhabitants of the
banks by terror. More than once he had extended his ravages far beyond
the plains, overthrowing churches that had but just been completed, and
drowning in his waters all the deserters from the altars of Odin.
Niord was a wicked god, who had a fearful temper. He held his subjects,
to whatever class they might belong, completely under his yoke, treating
them capriciously and cruelly, and making of the Rhine a hell of waters.
It is to this dark and damp kingdom of the great Nichus that we have to
go in order to make the acquaintance, not of his great dignitaries, but
{287}of the very humblest and lowest of his subjects, the Nixen and the
male and female Undines, a race of anathematized demons, who make up, by
themselves, almost the whole population of this realm beneath the waters
of the Rhine.
What! Must we really count our beautiful Lore, the charming fairy
Lorelei, you who preferred death to the punishment of making all men
fall in love with you, much as you loved men in general, must we count
you among the demons, evildoing and accursed sprites? No! How public
opinion has stoutly held its own in defiance of all the decrees of the
Church. Nixen, like the Fairies, are by common consent divided into two
classes: Nixen proper, who are former pagan deities and not too much to
be dreaded, and female Nixen, almost always harmless and at times even
useful.
It is these latter only of whom we shall hereafter speak as Undines.
The Nixen of the first class are ever ready to assume any disguise that
may aid them in attaining their purpose. Some of them roam about in
deserted places near the banks of rivers; others have at times
appeared in the neighboring towns, pretending to be foreign ladies of
distinction, or artists, generally great performers on the harp. Here
they have begun intrigues with credulous lovers or unlucky admirers.
Others appear at village {288}celebrations, mingling in the dance with
such energy, that their partners are intoxicated, carried away, and,
losing their heads, think they continue to hear the sound of harps and
violins, while they are already far away, led on by imaginary music, and
only return to consciousness on the banks of the river, at the moment
when they are about to sink helpless into the waters of the Rhine.
[Illustration: 308]
One important point, however, must not be overlooked. To protect
one’s self against the allurements of these accursed fairies, a bit of
horehound or marjoram is sufficient. We hope all who propose visiting
the Rhine will be careful always to keep such an herb on their person.
Before they take out their passports they ought always to pay a visit to
an herbalist.
The second class of Nixen, the only one in which we are interested, the
Undines, are, as far as I have been able to learn, the restless souls of
{289}poor girls who, driven to despair by love, have thrown themselves
into the Rhine. Unfortunately German lovers, not very courageous at
best, are but too apt to seek relief in suicide.
[Illustration: 309]
According to the somewhat uncertain information for which I am indebted
to my authorities or to my intercourse with the Rosahl family, the
Undines {290}are born as human beings and very inferior in power to
the genuine Nixen. They live under the water exactly the same time they
would have lived on earth, if they had not voluntarily put an end
to their existence. They are thus granted a kind of exceptional
resurrection and have here a preliminary purgatory, in which they but
too frequently expiate, if not the sin of their love, at least that of
their death.
In the lowest depths of the river, at the bottom of vast, submerged
grottoes, a secret tribunal, presided over by the great Nichus, holds
its solemn meetings. Here they are disciplined with the utmost severity,
as is abundantly proven by a great number of terrible stories, such as
the account of the three Undines of Sinzheim, which the two brothers
Grimm report in their great work.
Three young girls of marvelous beauty, three sisters, appeared every
evening at the social meetings of Epfenbach, near Sinzheim and took
their seats among the linen-spinners. They brought new songs and merry
stories which no one had heard before. Where did they come from? No one
knew, and no one dared to ask for fear of appearing suspicious. They
were the delight of these meetings, but as soon as the clock struck ten
they rose, and neither prayers nor supplications could induce them to
stay a moment longer. {291}One evening the schoolmaster’s son, who had
fallen in love with one of them, undertook to prevent their departure
at the usual hour; he put back the wooden clock, which usually gave them
warning.
[Illustration: 311]
The next day some people from Sinzheim, who were walking by the side
of the lake, heard groans rising from the depths of the lake, while the
surface was stained by three large spots of blood. From that time the
three sisters were never seen again at the evening assemblies, and
the school{292}master’s son faded away gradually. He died very soon
afterwards.
These three sisters, so gentle, so lovely and laborious, had in nothing
betrayed a connection with the spirits of the lower world. The only
thing was, that people remembered how the hems of their garments had
frequently been wet, a sure sign by which Undines can be recognized.
Otherwise they seem to have been very much like other girls, and the
severity of the great Nichus appears hardly reasonable.
As to this hour of ten o’clock, however, military rules cannot be more
rigorous than his.