THE WACHAU
“’Mid castled crags and swirling stream,
’Mid green-clad vineyard hills,
Where History and Legend dream,
My heart with beauty thrills.”
_From the German_
The Wachau has come to be regarded as one of the show places of the
Danube, and very beautiful it is, with its narrow gorge through which
the great river finds its way, its wooded mountains, its crag-perched
ruins, its quaint old towns and villages, and its numerous vineyards
lining the rocky mountain sides. It was “discovered” not many years
since by one Augustin Weigl, and its accessibility from Vienna has
served to make it the most popular portion of the beautiful river.
Many as are its attractions, there are stretches further up the
river--notably that from Grein to Persenbeug--that can vie with it
in attractiveness, and there are moods in which the last portion of
the river in Hungary may be far more impressive. Such comparisons
are, however, invidious, and those who explore the “schöne, herrliche
Wachau” can easily extend their explorings, either afoot or by the new
railway, to the Grein district.
The ruins that show boldly on a cliff indicate how well the builders
of these old strongholds selected their sites. For Weitenegg was built
on a point of the rocky hills where the broad Danube runs along one
side, and the Weitenbach runs parallel with it before joining it at
the end of the narrow strip on the highest point of which the castle
is situated. Thus the old-time owners of the place, in the days when
every noble was liable at any time to find himself at enmity with
his neighbours, were more or less secure from attack except from the
narrow neck joining their narrow hill on to the high one on the west.
Now there is little to suggest those days of old-time struggle, and
climbing about the ruins we look down on the village, little more than
a single row of houses at the foot of the cliff, with wooded “rolling”
ground on the further side of the river backed by distant mountains.
Behind us are the beautiful hills from which the Weitenbach comes down;
hills about which we may find, even in the autumn, many of the flowers
of our gardens growing wild--sweet-williams, Michaelmas daisies, and
campanulas, while the cyclamen and Virgin Mary’s cowslip plants suggest
that earlier in the year this must also be a delightful district for
the lover of flowers.
From the road up the hill immediately behind the ruins is to be had
a beautiful glimpse across the valley opening and over the Danube to
the handsome buildings of the magnificent monastery of Mölk, a little
further down the river. The Castle of Weitenegg must have been a
fairly extensive place at one time, having presumably been added to
considerably since it was originally erected, as it is supposed, by
that Rüdeger of whom we hear so much in the story of Pöchlarn. Judging
by the extent of the remains that are left, the size of the rooms
and halls, now weed-grown skeletons, it must have been very large;
and despite the tradition as to its age, there appear to have been
considerable additions in more modern times. Many of the window spaces
form a modern “note,” suggesting that they were added no earlier than
the late seventeenth century. The lower portions are largely of
stone, the native rock largely worked into it, though there is also a
goodly proportion of seemingly more or less modern red brick.
[Illustration: MÖLK]
But for its ruins and its lovely inland walks, the little village of
Weitenegg has nothing to attract the visitor. A short distance further
down-stream a cable ferry connects this left bank with the right, and
so takes us to Mölk, largely hidden by a tree-grown island. The small
town of Mölk is at the foot of the abrupt rock on which the grand
monastery buildings have been erected with a fine eye to effect. The
steamer landing place is a little below the monastery which, seen from
the river, might be a magnificent palace. This splendid “Kloster” has
been described by Dibdin as “one of the noblest edifices in the world.”
The Bibliographical Tourist went on, indeed, to declare that, “Christ
Church College at Oxford, and Trinity College at Cambridge shall hardly
together eclipse it; while no single portion of either can bear the
least comparison with its cupola-crowned church, and the sweeping range
of chambers which runs parallel with the town.”
Though on the site of an older establishment, the place, which arouses
every visitor to enthusiasm--“the Escurial of Germany” it has been
named--was designed and erected in the eighteenth century--that
period so often decried for its architectural achievements. It was
built during the first third of that century by an architect named
Prandauer. Not much of the early history of the place is known, though
tradition tells of the burial at Mölk of a Scottish saint who, bound
on a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1012 was mistaken for a spy when
passing through this neighbourhood and promptly hanged. Presumably his
saintliness was revealed (as in so many instances) posthumously.
In the seventeenth century Mölk was twice besieged, once by the Turks
when they swept through a large part of Austria. It was, however, an
earlier building that was thus put to warlike uses; possibly it was
in consequence of damage done by the besieging Turks in 1684 that the
monastery was rebuilt in the early part of the following century. Here
in 1805 Napoleon made a short stay in his victorious advance on Vienna
and here he stayed also in 1809. In one of the apartments a mark on the
floor used to be shown as having been made by the Emperor in a moment
of passion.
The two centres of greatest interest in this most magnificent of
the Benedictine foundations along the Danube are the church and the
library. The former is a lofty and richly decorated building “the very
perfection of ecclesiastical Roman architecture,” with a wonderful
wealth of gold in its decoration. The library, which is noted for
containing a large number of biblical and manuscript rarities, is a
grand lofty room about a hundred feet in length, with a handsomely
painted ceiling, and also no small measure of gilding in its scheme
of decoration. Of the great wine “caves” or cellars, which apparently
formed one of the features on which the old-time monks prided
themselves, it is said that in some of them a carriage might be turned
with ease. A French writer a few years after the campaign of 1805 said
“in order to have an idea of the abundance which reigns here, it may
be sufficient merely to observe, that for four successive days, during
the march of the French troops through Mölk towards Vienna, there were
delivered to them not less than from fifty to sixty thousand pints of
wine per day--and yet scarcely one-half of the stock was exhausted.
The French generals were lodged here on that momentous occasion and no
doubt found it “snug lying in the abbey.”
Splendid as the monastery appears when seen from the water and from
the left bank, its situation was well chosen for the views it affords
of the wooded heights across the river and for the beautiful prospect
to be had from its gallery over the tree-grown islets up the river to
where Weitenegg stands on its rocky promontory backed by the green
woodlands of the higher hills, with the mountains in the distance.
A little below Mölk on the left bank is the small town of Emmersdorf,
another one-time robber stronghold, and on the opposite side where the
river Bielach comes in is, I believe, technically the beginning of the
Wachau--the gorge through which the Danube finds its way to the plain
on which Vienna stands. The whole of this tract is said to have been
given by Charlemagne to the Bishop of Passau. There is much to delight
the visitor who has time to linger about this vineyard district of the
river, much variety in the way of mountain and rocky scenery, many
fascinating old villages, towns and ruins.
For the most part the places of chief importance, the places most
promising as centres in which to stay, are on the left bank--though,
as will be seen, there are exceptions. Indeed, the very first object
that arrests attention is on the right, where the rocky hills are once
more close to the water-side. This is the castle of Schönbühel--a
white-towered building standing on a massy rock at the very point where
the valley narrows between the hills. Schönbühel, unlike so many of
the Danubian castles, is still inhabited. The slender tower gives a
singular appearance to the rock-perched group of buildings, and it is
without surprise that we learn that this romantically placed château
has its ghost, and even--according to one story--a more sinister
visitant in the person of Lucifer himself.
The ghost--I am not quite clear whether of the murderer or of the
murdered--haunts the place in consequence of a horrid crime said to
have been perpetrated by an old-time owner of the place who, believing
his wife to be guilty of some offence, killed her, apparently without
any inquiry into the matter of her supposed crime. The story has been
rendered into ballad form, and the following stanzas indicate the
nature of the tragedy:
“The blood still reddens the mouldering oak,
Where, clasping the blessèd rood,
And bowing her neck to the headsman’s stroke,
Fair Cunigonda stood.
‘I know not the crime for which I die,
My cruel lord,’ said she,
‘But my cause I leave to God on high--
My untimely death to thee!’
Down fell the axe--the life-blood streamed:
But long ere morning prime,
Through the baron’s hall a maniac screamed--
‘She was guiltless of the crime!’”
Beyond the chapel--with its model of Bethlehem--are the mountain
sides, close-grown with maple, oak and other trees. All through the
Wachau, roads may be followed close neighbouring the river along either
bank--that on the left offering the greatest variety of places to be
visited, that on the right passing for the most part through wilder
scenery, but both affording ever-changing picturesque views.
Entering the narrowed valley, we soon see ahead of us, high on the
rocky cliff and backed by dark trees, another of those common objects
of this great river--a ruined castle. Shortly before reaching it,
however, we have on the left the small market town of Aggsbach. A
little place, more picturesque from the river than when entered in
the dusk after long walking on a day of heavy rain, when its narrow
ways are deep in mud and an eligible gasthaus seems difficult to find.
Though a market town by description, it is to appearance but a
small, quiet village. A river-side inn with external steps and deep
stone balcony has quite an Oriental appearance. Klein Aggsbach, on the
right bank shows that, comparatively, this town is not to be regarded
as small. A place of call for the steamers, Aggsbach is the port of
debarkation for those who would visit the dominating ruins ahead, which
may be reached by ferry from a point somewhat further down-stream.
[Illustration: AGGSTEIN]
The dominating ruins are those of Aggstein--once a dreaded name on the
Danube, for the lordly owners of this castle were famous, even among
the many robber knights of the river, for their pertinacity in preying
upon travellers. Approached from either down or up-stream, Aggstein,
perched on the summit of a thickly wooded hill about six hundred feet
above the water, and backed by higher hills, also densely timbered, is
strikingly impressive, while from its extensive ruins is to be obtained
a view that for beauty will vie with any of those we have seen.
The ruins, which are attained by paths up through the wood, form--and
justly--one of the most celebrated bits on the river; and it is only
fitting that to such a place should be attached romantic and grim
stories. The place must have been veritably impregnable in the days
when its owners lorded it over this stretch of the Danube and took
their toll of all passing boats. If all the strongholds of robber
knights were “flourishing” contemporaneously, it is wonderful how any
boat ever completed its journey.
Two at least of the lords of Aggstein seem to have come to a
well-deserved end. One of these, Schreckenwald, who flourished in
the fifteenth century is proverbially immortalized in an Austrian
saying which describes those who are in a hopeless plight as being “in
Schreckenwald’s rose-garden.”
The worthy whose name is thus remembered is said to have been not
only the most expert but also the most unscrupulous robber-knight of
his day, and to have been the terror of the surrounding country. When
he had despoiled his prisoners of all that they possessed he would
have them brought into his presence and dropped through a trap-door
into what he playfully termed his “rose garden.” This was a dungeon,
or enclosed ravine in the rock on which the castle was built, and
those who were not killed by the fall were left to die of starvation
or cold. How many victims he thus murdered is not recorded, but they
are said to have been many--and of the number dropped into the “rose
garden” but one escaped. A youthful knight of the neighbourhood, having
been dismounted in a skirmish with some of Schreckenwald’s henchmen,
was borne to the castle before the robber tyrant. It is said that to
Schreckenwald’s enmity towards any captive was, in this case, added
jealousy, for the knight had won favour in the eyes of a lady who had
rejected the baron’s advances; the young man was therefore promptly
sentenced to the “rose garden,” and the sentence as promptly carried
out.
Conscious of a good deed accomplished in the removal of a rival, and
grateful to his retainers, the baron gave up that day and the next to
an orgy. At the close of the second day the inhabitants of the castle,
deeming themselves in their usual state of security, retired to rest
that they might be ready to start on some fresh foray in the morning.
They little knew that retribution was nigh. Suddenly the blaring of
bugles and the clashing of arms sounded, and the astonished baron found
himself confronted in the torchlight by what he imagined must be the
apparition of his latest victim. For a moment he was dumbfounded, but
only for a moment; rushing forward sword in hand he shouted. “Wert
thou the Archfiend himself, Schreckenwald shall still be lord of
Aggstein.” The ferocity of despair availed him not; he was disarmed
and promptly hanged in his own entrance hall, while his robber band of
retainers was destroyed, some of the men being killed in the fighting
and others driven over the battlements to destruction on the rocks
below.
Another baron, seemingly a worthy predecessor of Schreckenwald,
was Hadmar the “Hound of Kuenring,” who in the early part of the
thirteenth century was lord of Aggstein (and of Durrenstein also).
This robber-chief, in alliance with his brother, made Aggstein
terrible, ravaging the country round, and being in all ways a law unto
themselves. They became known as “The Hounds,” and long successfully
defied all efforts to subdue them. At length, in 1231, a merchant who
had already suffered much at the hands of the robbers, proposed to
the Emperor that he should be permitted to employ a trick. “I will
freight,” said he, “a vessel at Ratisbon, laden with the most costly
merchandise: the tidings will soon reach the robbers at Aggstein.
Thirty stout knights shall lie concealed in the vessel, and when Hadmar
rushes down from his castle, and boards us with a few of his vassals,
thinking to plunder some peaceable merchants, the knights shall rush
out upon, and overpower him, while I push off from the shore.” Force
having failed, the Emperor was quite willing that the stratagem should
be tried, and the merchant duly set out as arranged. “Long before he
had passed the Strudel, however, the welcome news of a very rich prize
being on the water was told in the castle of Aggstein; and no sooner
was the barge in sight, than the tower-bell, as usual, proclaimed the
approach of booty. The baron, attended by a few choice vassals, pounced
at once upon the expected prey, and was received on board with tokens
of the most abject submission. ‘What is thy cargo, knave?’ said he to
the merchant. ‘Silk, brocade, and wine,’ answered the merchant--‘with,’
but here he hesitated. ‘With what?’ interposed the baron sternly;
‘speak on thy life!’ ‘With a cask or two of specie for the Duke’s
treasury,’ said the merchant in a half whisper. ‘_Specie!_ the very
thing we want,’ roared the baron. ‘Hand up the metal, instantly.’ ‘The
_metal_ for the baron--instantly!’ cried the merchant, and suddenly
throwing back the canvas, thirty glittering lances were levelled at the
baron’s breast. ‘There is thy metal, Herr Baron,’ said the skipper,
pointing to the thirty mailed warriors who instantly surrounded him
and his suite. The surprise and consternation of the tyrant may be
imagined, but cannot be described. He was immediately secured and
committed to the hold; and never did barge anchor under the walls of
Vienna with more welcome news than when it was noised abroad that the
Robber-Chief, Hadmar of Aggstein, was a prisoner on board.”
From the lofty ruins with their sinister memories we pass on through
the continuously beautiful Wachau with its steep, wooded mountains on
the right, its lower hills on the left, on the sides of which many
vineyards soon become familiar. Several small villages are passed, and
beyond Schwallenbach on the left we see an extraordinary piece of rocky
formation running in wall-like fashion down the face of a hillside
to the river. Softer rock has been worn away until the ridge remains
very much like a roughly made wall built of irregular-sized blocks of
stone--like one of our west-country stone field-walls exaggerated to
a gigantic extent. It is little wonder that local lore has ascribed
to this ridge a demoniac origin. It is known as the Teufelsmauer, or
Devil’s Wall, but why the Devil concerned himself in erecting it I have
not been able to ascertain further than the suggestion that he had
taken it into his head to block up the Danube at this spot, but by some
special intervention of Providence was stopped before the undertaking
had got beyond the building of this wall. Where, for the new railway,
a path has been blasted along the rock here, the lower end of the wall
has been left intact by tunnelling through it. The first stopping place
for the steamer after leaving Aggsbach is Spitz, a small town lying
about the foot of a conical hill, scored to the top with vineyard
lines, with vineyards extending also up the neighbouring hills, while
on the mountain-side above it are the picturesque ruins of an old
castle.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL’S WALL]
Spitz is regarded as the most important centre of the Wachau wine
district, and so closely is every available piece of ground utilized,
that a local saying has it that the town is one in which the wine grows
in the market place. The grape is not the only fruit grown here, for
there are also many peach orchards, and quantities of this fruit are
taken aboard before the boat continues its journey Vienna-wards. All
along here the vineyards offer many pleasant pictures to the pedestrian
who loiters about in October when the grape harvest is being gathered.
From the narrow terraces on which the vines are grown along the steep
hillsides barefooted men and women, boys and girls, are to be seen
descending with long pottle-shaped wooden baskets on their backs, piled
high with fruit. Many times, too, great vats stand by the road-side at
the foot of the vineyard, into which the grapes are turned, and where
they are pounded and squashed with great wooden clubs. Then a couple of
oxen will come slowly along drawing a large barrel on a cart frame, and
into this barrel a man “spoons” the juice from the great tub, much as
our farm hands in country districts fill their water-carts from a pond.
Spitz is a beautifully situated little town, with a pleasant market
place dominated by a square church tower with steep wedge-shaped roof
of many-coloured tiles. On the opposite side of the river is one of
the Arnsdorfs--a cluster of houses about a steep-roofed church--half a
dozen striking poplars and the wooded hills beyond. The Spitz castle
ruins upon the bare dark rock are among the most picturesque of those
we see, and represent an ancient place that belonged at one time to
those great territorial magnates the bishops of Passau and at another
time to some of those robber knights whose fastnesses were dotted with
what must have been disquieting frequency along the course of the
Danube.
Beyond Spitz--about which it has opened out somewhat--the valley again
contracts, and the road on the left is cut through rugged rock, which
in places almost overhangs the way. Looking back we have a beautiful
view of Spitz, the light green of its surrounding vineyards contrasting
strikingly with the rock, the mountains and forests and the broad
sweep of the green Danube, as seen under a cloudy sky with brilliant
sunshine following on a heavy shower. A little beyond and we reach the
small village of St. Michael with its old church, along the roof ridge
of which are placed seven hares, to commemorate--so the local story
runs--a time when the snowfall in the neighbourhood had been so heavy
that the hares were seen playing on the church roof! The animal figures
are as like deer, cows or horses as they are to hares! The open-topped
square tower of this old Gothic church is notable as being quite unlike
any other that we see in the neighbourhood.
Another story of this district, and of only little more than a hundred
years ago, seems rather an incident of the Middle Ages than of the
closing years of the eighteenth century. It is said that a poor lonely
old woman had got the reputation among her neighbours of being a
witch and, therefore, when she was feeding her goat upon a hillside she
was shot with a glass bullet; a severe thunderstorm which had arisen
having been caused by her, according to the belief of her superstitious
murderers.
[Illustration: SPITZ VINEYARDS]
The next point of special interest along this lovely bit of the river
is Weissenkirchen, the villages of Wösendorf and Joching, with their
orchards and vineyards, being pleasant little places without any
special feature to call for a halt. Weissenkirchen, however, is a place
that certainly does call for a halt owing to that which it has to show
in itself and as being situated where the valley has widened somewhat
at one of the most beautiful points in the Wachau.
Here, too, the vineyards penetrate close to the town, even further into
it than they do at Spitz, for a low-sunk patch lies between the street
by which the town is entered from the east and the railway station, the
narrow paths or flights of steps that lead up from between the houses
here and there lead us, too, inevitably into vineyards. On one side
of the town the steep shingle-covered roofs of the houses are close
to the vineyard terraces above. The large church which stands on the
rock above the houses--its entrance on a level with their roofs--is
approached by a long covered-in flight of steps from the corner of the
market place. Near the foot of this stairway is a quaint figure of St.
John, with a red painted metal canopy like a great umbrella close over
the figure’s head.
The characteristic wedge-roofed tower with its clock-faces near the
south-west angle forms a strikingly picturesque object as seen from
many points, especially from some of the narrow by-ways. Then, too,
there are glimpses to be had into cellars, with their great wine
presses with oak beams that, it is said, have done duty for three or
four hundred years, and some wonderful old court-yards--the finest
being the old tilting-yard at the north-western corner of the market
place--entering which we are at once taken to a past of centuries ago.
It is a quadrangle of old buildings with deep, arched embrasures on the
ground floor, and above, with smaller arches, a balcony, from which
presumably “in days of old when knights were bold and barons held the
sway” fair ladies looked down and encouraged the contestants below.
Now more or less used as a store-yard for fuel and other things the
“Turnierhof” or Tilting-yard is yet a place to be visited; and if it be
as a German writer has it, that Weissenkirchen is a Mecca for artists,
then we may well believe that this yard is for many of them the central
shrine.
There are many delightful places within easy reach of the little town,
and from the vineyards above a bird’s-eye view of the whole is to be
had that is likely to be unforgettable if seen as I first saw it when,
looking across it to the great river, the white mists of morning were
clearing off and stretching like a silver girdle about the mountains on
the further side.
Beyond Weissenkirchen, the Danube takes a southerly turn round abrupt,
bare and sometimes precipitous rocks. On the right is soon seen a flat
valley with the roofs of Rossatz; and directly ahead stands, from the
sheer escarpment of the rock as it were, one of the places which most
nearly in its traditions touches our English history, though even
its name may not be known to any large proportion of those familiar
with some details of the story it has to tell. This is Dürnstein
or Dürrenstein, a small town between the face of the rocky cliffs
and the river, with above it, striking from any point of view, the
time-battered ruins of the castle in which it is said Richard Cœur
de Lion passed fifteen months of weary imprisonment during the years
1192-4.
[Illustration: WEISSENKIRCHEN]
Seen as we approach Dürrenstein down the river, the view is singularly
fine. To the left of the town is a sheer mass of precipitous rock of
all tones of yellow, where the cliff has been split away to cut the
railroad. The crows wheeling about its jagged edge “show scarce so
gross as beetles.” From the group of old red-and-white buildings other
jagged lines of rock and wall slant upwards, leading the eye to the
ruined castle where they meet. At the back of the town, even within
these “walls” are seen the narrow vineyard terraces, sometimes on
scraps of ground that seem scarcely accessible to the cultivator.
A traveller of many years ago said: “Of all the strongholds yet
noticed in our passage from Ulm, it takes undisputed precedence; and
he who can pass with indifference the many feudal and monastic ruins
which overlook the course of the Danube, will pause with uplifted eye
and awakened imagination, as the rock-built towers of Dürrenstein
flash upon his view. Its massive walls, embattled precipices and iron
towers that survive the lapse of centuries, were of themselves amply
sufficient to arrest attention and engage the stranger to pass a day
within their gates; but when he recollects that yonder donjon tower was
the prison of Cœur de Lion, a new chord is touched in his heart--more
especially in that of an Englishman--and as he passes under its
ponderous gateway and muses in its grass-grown and deserted courts, he
feels as if acted upon by some mysterious influence--as if an invisible
conductor beckoned him forward--as if the old kingly crusader himself
accosted him with ‘Quhat tydings from England?’”
If I cannot claim to have felt the spirit of the place in that fashion,
it may be because seventy years have reduced the ruins to a yet more
ruinous state, and so the illusion that the king might still be here
anxious for “tydings” is little likely to arise. Though the little
town itself is attractive, it is of course the ruined fortress that
makes the strongest appeal, historically and sentimentally, to the
British visitor. Whether approached by way of the scattered rocks on
the eastern side, or by the pathway which leads from near within the
“ponderous gateway” (to the town, not to the castle) up to the ruins,
we find ourselves on the conical summit of rugged rock standing out at
the end of a mountain spur among the sadly battered remains of the old
castle. Here and there are great pieces of wall still standing, but
the whole is in a time-battered, broken state which makes it difficult
to recall the plan of the place. One tall piece of wall looks afar
off curiously like a gigantic figure, and near at hand but little
imagination is necessary to see in it the figure of the great crusader
himself!
The view from the castle ruins up the river towards Weissenkirchen
across to the mountain-surrounded level on which Rossatz stands and
down-stream across a hemmed-in vine-grown battlefield towards Vienna,
with the great monastery of Gottweih on a conical hill in the distance,
is a most attractive one; while between the ruins and the mountains is
a narrow gorge, with beyond it the jagged edge of the extraordinary
rock mass where a large part of it was blasted to make the railway
which now runs though the hill on which Dürrenstein Castle stands. In
the centre of the ruins is a gigantic, more or less roughly cubic, mass
of granite out of which a windowless chamber has been roughly hewn,
and here, says tradition, is the veritable prison in which Richard was
confined by his implacable enemy, Duke Leopold of Austria.
It was when returning from crusading in the east that Richard,
travelling disguised through Austria--the Duke of which he had offended
at Ascalon--was recognized and so fell into the hands of his enemy
and came to be imprisoned in this powerful castle, under the charge
of Hadmar, the father of that Hadmar the Hound of Kuenring, of whom
we learned at Aggstein. The romantic story runs, that the place of
Richard’s imprisonment being unknown, his faithful minstrel Blondel
de Nesle set out, wandering all over Europe to learn if he could the
fate or whereabouts of the King of England. Accidentally he learned
that in Dürrenstein Castle some distinguished person was confined and
guarded with unusual vigilance. Not unnaturally he thought that this
mysterious prisoner must be the royal master whom he sought. He reached
Dürrenstein, but could get no news as to who the prisoner was, and the
gates of the castle were shut against him. Blondel then bethought him
of a _chanson_ which he and King Richard had composed together, and
getting as near within hearing of the prisoner’s place of concealment
as he could, he sang his own part of the song:
“Your beauty, lady fair,
None view without delight,
But still as cold as air,
No passion you excite;
Yet this I patient see,
While all are shunned by me.”
The minstrel paused, and at once came the second part of the _chanson_
sung from within and proving beyond doubt the identity of the prisoner
with the king of whom the minstrel was in search:
“No nymph my heart can wound,
If favours she divide,
And smile on all around,
Unwilling to decide;
I’d rather hatred bear,
Than love with others share.”
The wonderful metrical romance dealing with the life of Richard Cœur
de Lion does not--judging by so much of it as was given by Sir Henry
Ellis--refer to the place of the king’s incarceration by name;
therefore we may place here the wonderful incident of his wooing by
Margery the daughter of the King of Almain--who should presumably be
Duke of Austria--and of the way in which he won his nickname. Richard
the prisoner and the King of Almain’s son had had a buffeting duel.
Richard received the first blow which made him stagger, but when he
gave his blow in return the prince’s “cheek bone was crushed ... he
sank to the ground and instantly expired.”
“The offended monarch now sent in haste for his great council--
“Earls, barons and wise clerks,
To tell of these woeful werks--
and explained to them his reasons for desiring the death of Richard,
requesting them, if possible, to set aside the general law of Europe by
which the persons of Kings were declared inviolable, and to order the
immediate punishment of the traitor. The council took the matter into
their serious consideration, debating during three days, and concluded
by declaring themselves incompetent to pass judgment: but one of them
complaisantly recommended to the king a certain judge named Sir Eldrys,
whose ingenuity in condemning prisoners was thought to be unparalleled,
and who would probably suggest to his majesty the means of vengeance.
“Sir Eldrys, recollecting that he had seen in the royal menagerie
a lion of prodigious size and fierceness, advised that the animal
should be kept during some days without food, and then introduced to
the prisoner, whom he would be very likely to devour; so that his
majesty, who could not be suspected of a secret intelligence with the
lion, would obtain the gratification of his just revenge, without
having infringed the law by passing sentence on a free and independent
sovereign. This equitable project was of course adopted by the King;
and immediate orders were issued for carrying it into execution.
“Margery, who had her spies in the council, being apprised of what
had passed, instantly sent for her lover; warned him of his danger;
proposed to him the means of escape from her father’s territories; and
offered to accompany him in his flight,
“With gold and silver, and great tresore,
Enough to have for evermore.
Richard said, ‘I understand
That were again the law of the land,
Away to wend withouten leave:
The King ne will I nought so grieve.
Of the lion ne give I nought;
Him to slay now have I thought.
By prime, on the third day,
I give thee his heart to prey.’
“He then directed her to repair to the prison, with forty handkerchiefs
of white silk, on the evening before the combat; to order her
supper in his cell; to invite his two friends and the jailor to
the entertainment, and afterwards to pass the night with him: and
the princess, without staying to enquire how far this conduct was
compatible with that scrupulous regard for her father’s peace of mind
by which Richard professed to be actuated, punctually obeyed all his
directions.
“In the morning, the tender Margery, ever trembling for her lover’s
safety and always fearless for her own, was with great difficulty
persuaded to tear herself from the prison; but having at length
returned to her apartment, Richard bound round his arm the silken
handkerchiefs, and recommending himself to God, calmly awaited the
arrival of the lion.
“The animal, attended by two keepers, and followed by the jailor, was
then led in; and, as soon as he was loosed, sprang forwards to seize
his prey. Richard, starting aside, evaded the attack, and at the
same time gave the monster such a blow on the breast with his fist as
nearly felled him to the ground. The lion, lashing himself with his
tail, and extending his dreadful paws, now uttered a most hideous roar,
and prepared for a more violent assault; but the hero, seizing his
opportunity when the monster’s jaws were extended, suddenly darted on
him, drove his arm down the throat, and, grasping the heart, forcibly
tore it out through the mouth together with a part of the entrails.
Then, after piously returning thanks to Heaven for his miraculous
victory, he snatched up the bleeding heart, and without meeting with
any obstacle, marched with his trophy into the great hall of the palace.
“The king at meat sat on des,
With dukes and earls proud in press.
The saler on the table stood:
Richard pressed out all the blood,
And wet the heart in the salt;
(The king and all his men behalt)
Withouten bread the heart he ate.
The king wonder’d, and said skeet:
‘Y-wis, as I understand can,
This is a devil and no man,
That has my strong lion y-slawe,
The heart out of his body drawe,
And has it eaten with good will!
He may be callèd, by right skill
King y-christened of most renown
Strong Richard Cœur de Lion!’”
[Illustration: DÜRRENSTEIN]
If Richard was incarcerated in the chamber hollowed out of the great
mass of granite, and that was at the time, as it was later, enclosed
within walls, it is a little difficult to realize how the minstrel’s
voice ever penetrated the monarch’s prison; but the legend is so
pleasant a one that it would perhaps be a more gracious task to find
out how it might have been true, rather than to show how it is probably
a fiction. The theme is one that has inspired poets, painters, and
musicians. When Gretry’s opera on the subject of “Richard Cœur de
Lion,” was produced in Paris early in the nineteenth century, an artist
was sent to Dürnstein to sketch the castle that the scenery might be
true. Mrs. Hemans wrote a narrative poem on the subject of Blondel’s
search for his captive master, and described the position of the king’s
prison as though she had visited it:
“He hath reached a mountain hung with vine....
The feudal towers that crest its height
Frown in unconquerable might;
Dark is their aspect of sullen state,
No helmet hangs o’er the massy gate,
To bid the wearied pilgrim rest,
At the chieftain’s board a welcome guest;
Vainly rich evening’s parting smile
Would chase the gloom of the haughty pile,
That midst bright sunshine lowers on high,
Like a thunder cloud in a summer sky....
Lingering he gazed--the rocks around
Sublime in savage grandeur frowned;
Proud guardians of the regal flood,
In giant strength the mountains stood;
By torrents cleft, by tempests riven,
Yet mingling still with the calm blue heaven.”
The story of Blondel is merely legendary, and it was probably only a
sordid matter of ransom by which Richard Cœur de Lion won to freedom,
and not owing to the devotion of his faithful minstrel. When Planché
visited Dürrenstein he described the castle keep as being “not unlike
the fine ruin at Rochester.” Either his memory did scant justice to
Rochester, or else the ruins of Dürrenstein have become greatly damaged
during the past seventy years, for to-day there is nothing to suggest
a comparison between the great grim Norman keep on low ground near the
Medway at Rochester, and the battered ruin which seems, as it were, to
grow out of the jagged pinnacled rocks high above the Danube.
From the neighbourhood of the castle run broken cliff edges
south-easterly and south-westerly towards the Danube; these have at
some period been built up into actual walls for defence, and in olden
pre-artillery times must have rendered the town which they enclose on
two sides--the third being formed by the Danube--a very formidable
place. So formidable indeed that, even after the introduction of
artillery, it is said that the citizens were able to give a good
account of themselves. For, in 1741, a party of French and Bavarian
cavalry having got across the Danube, thought to surprise Dürrenstein
and make it an easy prey, believing it to be undefended. The citizens
of the place were equal to the occasion, having prepared themselves
for such an emergency. They barred up their gates as well as they
could, laid bored logs of timber with their edges blackened, on the
walls, in imitation of cannon, chalked the rims of their hats, to give
them the appearance of being bound with white lace, according to the
uniform of their troops at that time, and parading up and down the
ramparts--taking care that their hats only should be seen above the
walls--with much blowing of trumpets and beating of drums, absolutely
induced the enemy to believe that the place was strongly garrisoned;
and they accordingly wheeled to the right-about without firing a shot,
to the infinite joy and amusement of the cunning inhabitants, who
certainly well deserved their escape.
The small town, with its irregular white houses, its glimpses into
great wine-pressing cellars, its thick-walled, low-arched, crypt-like
inns, its men with long pipes ever pendant from their mouths, its
generous archways--wide as the street itself--giving on to yards in
which are seen great barrels, and the carts on which such barrels are
carried, is quite an old-world place. Of the extent to which it is
given over to wine I had an illustration during my stay, when I saw
boys busy digging a large circular hole close to the footway at a point
where the main street is widened by one house being set some distance
back. The following morning I saw a great wine-pressing tub half sunk
in the hole and presumably already filled with grapes, as its great
cover was pressed down by a variety of heavy articles. Sometimes these
wayside vats are not covered in at all, for I have seen them when
heavy rain was adding its share of liquid to the juice of the grape.
Possibly the fact that it was a very bad grape harvest may excuse the
wine-growers’ winking at Nature’s attempt to make up the deficit!
Above the tunnel-like gateway on the east side of the town is a tiny
cemetery with the remains of the old parish church, and a charnel-house
with thousands of human skulls piled up in orderly array--a grim
memento mori like that of the church at Hythe and some other places.
The old abbey ruins, the ornate church near the river-side, and the
modern château now apparently degenerated into tenements--are the most
conspicuous buildings in this little town, the narrow main street of
which has quite a mediæval appearance. On the front of one of the
gasthauses is painted up the inscription:--
“So lang im glas noch blinkt der Wein
Brüder lasst uns fröhlich sein.”
(“So long as in the glass a drop of wine
Brothers let us happy be.”)
Frequently within a gasthaus we may see humorous wall paintings, or
convivial and other inscriptions. In one that I recall there was
on one wall a representation of an attenuated traveller (very like
a distinguished English dramatist, paradox-monger, and Socialist),
being welcomed by a portly Boniface; on another a couple, “with
most expressive eyes,” in national costume dancing to the music of
a remarkable quartet; while in the corner was a wife with a broom
dragging home a drunken husband. Among the inscriptions I noted some to
the following effect:--
“Hail, pretty fellows!”
“A German can drink
An ocean I think.”
“Waidmanns Heil!”[10]
A little to the south-east of Dürrenstein, on a rugged base at the foot
of which the railway now runs, is a large stone pillar erected to the
memory of all the brave soldiers, French, Austrian, and Russian, who
fell here during a stern battle on 11 November, 1805. When Napoleon
had reached Linz on his march to Vienna he sent Marshal Mortier with
a force to take possession of Krems, but in this little plain the
French came in touch with the Austrians and Russians under Kutusof and
Schmidt. And here, as on another occasion sung by Byron--
“Kutusof, he who afterwards beat back
(With some assistance from the frost and snow)
Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,
It happened was himself beat back just now.”
The French drove the allies back to the gates of Stein, but the tables
were turned on them, even, as it seemed, in the moment of victory. A
hunter, familiar with the passes among the neighbouring heights, had
guided a large body of Russian troops and enabled them to fall upon the
French rear, and a murderous battle took place in this little plain.
“Mortier had no remedy but to cut his way, if possible, through the
column in his rear, and so effect a junction with Dupont, to whom he
had, fortunately for himself, sent orders to quicken his march.
Major Henriod, at the head of the 100th Regiment, charged the Russians,
and a horrible carnage ensued in the narrow defiles, crowded with
infuriated soldiery. Two pieces of artillery, which Mortier had with
him, decided the issue of the combat in his favour, his adversaries
being destitute of cannon. The brave Austrian, Schmidt, fell at the
first discharge, and Doctorof, endeavouring to withdraw his troops
from the ravine, was suddenly attacked in the rear by the division
of Dupont, and thus found himself, in his turn, between two fires.
With much difficulty he effected his retreat over the mountain he had
just descended; and the desperate troops of Mortier, rushing into the
defile, as they imagined, on the bayonets of their enemies, found
themselves, before they were aware, in the arms of their friends and
countrymen. From twelve to fifteen hundred men were lost on each
side, and the allies received a terrible blow in the death of General
Schmidt, the friend and companion-in-arms of the Archduke Charles.”
Mortier, himself wounded in the desperate fight, succeeded in getting
the remnant of his troops across the Danube by a bridge of boats at
Spitz.
[Illustration: DÜRRENSTEIN CASTLE]
The monument commemorating the inconsequent contest is simply
inscribed:--
“To You
Valiant Warriors
French, Austrian, Russian,
11 Nov.
MDCCCV”
Now the battlefield is largely covered with vineyards, in which
the little villages of Ober Loiben and Unter Loiben seem to drowse
peacefully without any memory of the struggle of which on that terrible
day they formed the storm centre.
As we go on down the river, ahead of us on a hill-top is seen a massive
building--long, indeed, a feature of any wide view taken from this
part of the country. This is another great monastery lying some miles
from the right bank of the Danube. An easterly turn of the river
again brings us to a widened part of the valley, with a bridge ahead
connecting Mautern on the right bank with Stein on the left.
Mautern is a small old town with little to show of its antiquity,
thanks to the frequency with which it has been the scene of battle. To
mention but the chief occasions: it was here that Matthias Corvinus,
King of Hungary, defeated the Austrians in 1484. Here, in 1805, the
Russian General Kutusof was forced to retreat before the French under
Murat, and having crossed the Danube, promptly burnt the bridge. Four
years later when Napoleon was making his second advance on Vienna the
Austrians themselves destroyed the bridge.
About three miles inland from Mautern, its bulk showing, as has been
said, clearly against the sky from the summit of an isolated hill, is
the great Benedictine monastery of Gottweih. Less splendid than Mölk,
it is yet more strikingly situated. Though founded in the eleventh
century the present edifice dates from the eighteenth. It is notable
for its grand library of old books and manuscripts, and thus drew
the attention of the Rev. Thomas Dibdin when making his celebrated
“Bibliographical, Picturesque and Antiquarian Tour in France and
Germany” about ninety years ago. The abbot of Gottweih, whom Dibdin
interviewed, had been there during the Napoleonic wars, and his words
seem to make more real for us the time when this stretch of the Danube
was again and again the scene of fierce fighting. It was probably
at the windows of the great library that the abbot stood with his
bibliographical visitor when he said: “Look at the prospect around
you--it is unbounded. On yonder wooded heights, on the opposite shore
of the Danube, we all saw, from these very windows, the fire and
smoke of the advanced guard of the French army, in contest with the
Austrians in their first advance to Vienna. The Emperor Buonaparte
himself took possession of this monastery. He slept here, and the next
day we entertained him with the best _déjeuner à la fourchette_ which
we could afford. He seemed well satisfied with his reception--but I own
that I was glad when he left us. Strangers to arms in this tranquil
retreat, and visited only as you may now visit us, for the purpose of
peaceful hospitality, it agitated us extremely to come in contact with
warriors and chieftains. Observe yonder, that castle, so tradition
reports, once held your Richard the First, when detained prisoner by
the Duke of Austria.”
[Illustration: STEIN]
Though some distance from the river, the monastery forms so striking
an object in the scenery that there are few visitors with the time at
their command but will wish to journey out to it, and see the grand
buildings, the fine church, the library, and the magnificent prospect
afforded from the splendidly situated place.
Returning to the Danube, and crossing the bridge of iron laid upon
stone piers we come to Stein. The most notable features that first
take the eye are the two churches, the one red cupola spired, with
steep red-tiled roof, the other with a massive white tower showing
clearly against the vineyard terraces which lie closely at the back
of the narrow town, and a curious old tower with crooked tiled roof
near the water-side. The ancient towered, Dutch-like church stands on
the Frauenberg immediately above the newer one, and is reached by a
long flight of steps. Near it are scraps of old ruins--stone walls and
arches, worked largely into cottages and garden walls, while further
west, with modern cottages built among them, are the ruins of an old
castle destroyed by Matthias Corvinus in 1486--for Stein, too, has seen
its share of fighting. From the neighbourhood of the ruins we get a
good view of Gottweih on its rounded hill to the south.
Stein is practically linked with Krems, though each retains its
gateway. The buildings--military and other--between the two towns,
really form a third place named Und which has occasioned the pleasantry
that “Krems Und Stein are three places.” Possibly Krems and Stein
being such close neighbours that they were frequently referred to as
Krems und Stein led to the name Und being fastened upon the connecting
link which consisted at one time of nothing but the Capuchin monastery
of Und. As we leave Stein there is to be noticed, painted up at the
gateway, the words:--
“An Gottes Segen ist alles gelegen.”
(“By God’s blessing all have their opportunity.”)
It seemed rather a suggestive motto to be blazoned in the eyes of the
convicts who were engaged in building close by at the time that I was
there. By a short promenade under trees we reach the tall picturesque
gateway of Krems, the eastern-most end of the wonderful Wachau.
Krems is a delightful old town--the largest on the Danube between
Linz and Vienna. It is particularly attractive when seen in a state
of animation consequent upon the arrival of a force of new recruits,
welcomed by all the townspeople, and by the cheering bands of their
more experienced comrades, or when the Pfarr Platz is crowded with
a motley throng of people on market day, when the Platz is filled
with stalls, largely extemporized from a couple of the quaint, bowed,
legless barrows on which the peasants trundle their wares to market.
Bread and meat, vegetables, fowls and dairy produce, and quantities of
beautiful white wood utensils are the chief things for sale; and among
them moves an ever-changing crowd of kerchiefed women. Above the throng
rises the great grey church with massive tower.
[Illustration: THE MARKET PLACE, KREMS]
To the north of this fifteenth century parish church, is another
church, on the Frauenberg, and leaving the busy market by the beautiful
corner of the Sängerhof, up a long flight of roofed-in steps (the
Piarristen Stiege), we reach this old edifice, the most remarkable
feature of which is the extraordinary series of sculptured figures with
painted backgrounds, representing scenes in the life of Christ, between
the external piers.
There are many old-world bits about the town, which appears to combine
picturesque age with modern prosperity, while tragedy and romance
are both revealed when we inquire into the story of Krems. One of
the earliest mentions made of it is in connexion with one of those
fanatical outbursts which ever and again stain the page of history.
We saw at Deggendorf how a wild story of sacrilege led to a horrible
slaughter of the Jews in that place, and in 1347 there was a similar
outbreak here, when it is said the streets ran with blood. It may be
surmised that the wealth the Jews had acquired moved the cupidity of
their fellow-townsfolk. The pretext chosen was, however, that the Jews
had poisoned the town wells, but that the other motive was regarded as
the real one by the persecuted, may be gathered from the fact that many
of the Hebrews “made their despair minister to their vengeance, and
barring up themselves, their family and their riches together, set fire
to the building and perished exultingly in the flames that anticipated
the spoiler.”
In the following century the town was twice besieged by the Hungarian
king, Matthias Corvinus, and that brave prince only succeeded in
the second attempt. The people of Krems seem to have become inured
to warfare, for when the town was attacked in 1619, on the Bohemian
Protestants invading Austria, even the women won martial glory. It is
recorded that the garrison having sallied forth to give battle to the
foe, they were cut off, and the Bohemians, who had got in their rear,
at once sought to scale the seemingly undefended walls, “but the women,
with one consent, seizing the first weapons they could find, rushed to
the ramparts, and fought with such steady bravery that the enemy were
at length obliged to abandon the attempt.”
Krems is the easterly termination of the Wachau--the beautiful extent
of the scenic Danube most readily reached by rail or boat from Vienna.
Though when I was there in September and October there were not many
holiday-making folk about the villages or the quiet river-side roads,
it is evidently much frequented in the summer time, judging by the
advertisements of “trips” to be seen in Vienna. The “discoverer” of
the attractions of this lovely bit of country was, during my stay in
Dürrenstein, honoured by the unveiling (9 October, 1910) of a memorial
in that village. The memorial takes the form of a large, square, brass
medallion portrait let into the river-side face of the rock on which
the church stands. The simple inscription runs:--
“AUGUSTIN WEIGL
Die Dankbare Wachau
1910”
FOOTNOTES:
[10] This presumably as a salutation to the workmen employed at a
large ultramarine factory in the neighbourhood.