On the Wildkirchlein.
And now, much beloved reader, we must bid thee to gird thy loins, take
thy staff in hand, and follow us up into the mountains. From the
lowlands of the Bodensee, our tale now takes us over to the Helvetian
Alps. There, the Saentis stretches out grandly into the blue air,--when
he does not prefer to don his cloud-cap,--smilingly looking down into
the depths below, where the towns of men, shrivel up to the size of
ant-hills. All around him, there is a company of fine, stalwart
fellows, made of the same metal, and there, they put their bold heads
together, and jestingly blow misty veils into each other's faces. Over
their glaciers and ravines, a mighty roaring and rustling is heard at
times; and that, which they whispered to each other, respecting the
ways and doings of mankind, had already a somewhat contemptuous tinge,
a thousand years ago,--and since then, it has not become much better I
fear.
About ten days after the monks of the Reichenau had found nothing but a
heap of ashes instead of their prisoner, in the castle-dungeon, and had
debated a good deal, whether the Devil had burnt him up at midnight, or
whether he had escaped,--a man was walking up the hills, along the
white foaming Sitter, over luxuriant meadow-lands, interspersed with
rocks.
He wore a mantle made of wolves' skins over his monkish garb; a
leathern pouch at his side, and he carried a spear in his right hand.
Often, he pushed the iron point into the ground, and leaned on the butt
end, using the weapon thus, as a mountain-stick.
Round about, there was perfect silence and solitude. Long stretches of
mist were hovering over the wild valley, where the Sitter comes out of
the Seealpsee; whilst at the side, a towering wall of rocks, fringed by
scanty green plants, rose up towards heaven.
The mountain glens, which in the present days, are inhabited by a merry
and numerous race of herdsmen, were then but scantily peopled. Only the
cell of the Abbot of St. Gall stood there in the valley; surrounded by
a few small, humble cottages.
After the bloody battle of Zulpich, a handful of liberty-loving
Allemannic men, who could not learn to bend their necks to the
Franconian yoke had settled down in that wilderness. Their descendants
were still living there, in scattered, shingle-covered houses, and in
summer they drove their herds up into the Alps. They were a race of
strong and healthy mountaineers, who, untouched by the goings on in the
world at large, enjoyed a simple free life, which they bequeathed to
the following generations.
The path which was followed by our traveller, became steeper and
rougher. He now stood before a steep overhanging wall of rocks. A heavy
drop of water had fallen on his head from above; upon which he cast up
a searching look, to see whether the grim canopy of stones, would yet
delay falling down, till he had passed by. Rocky walls, however,
luckily can remain longer in an oblique position, than any structure
made by human hands; so nothing fell down, but a second drop.
Leaning with his left hand on the stone wall, the man continued his
way, which, however, became narrower with every step he took. The dark
precipice at his side came nearer and nearer; a giddy depth yawning up
at him, ... and now all trace of a pathway ceased altogether. Two
mighty pine-trunks were laid over the abyss, serving as a bridge.
"It must be done," said the man, boldly stepping over it. Heaving a
deep sigh of relief, when his feet touched ground again on the other
side, he turned round to inspect the dangerous passage, somewhat more
at his leisure.
It was a narrow promontory, above and below which there was a steep,
yellowish grey wall of rocks. In the depth below, scarcely visible, was
the mountain-brook Sitter, like a silver band in the green valley,
whilst the seagreen mirror of the Seealpsee, seemed to hide itself
shyly between the dark fir-trees. Opposite, in their armour of ice and
snow, there rose the host of mountain-giants; and the pen feels a
shudder of delight pass through it, when called upon to write down
their names. The long stretched bewildering Kamor; the tremendous walls
of the Boghartenfirst; the Sigelsalp and Maarwiese, on whose
battlements grows a luxurious vegetation, like moss on the roofs of old
houses. Then, the mysterious keeper of the secret of the lake, the "old
man," with his deeply furrowed stone-forehead, and hoary head,--the
chancellor and bosom-friend of the mighty Saentis.
"Ye mountains and vales, praise the Lords!" exclaimed the wanderer,
overwhelmed by the grandeur of the spectacle before him. Many hundreds
of mountain-swallows fluttered out of the crevices between the rocks.
Their appearance was like a good omen for the lonely traveller.
He made some steps onwards. There, the wall of rocks had many a
fissure, and he saw a twofold cavern. A simple cross, made of rudely
carved wood, stood beside it. Stems of fir-trees, heaped up on one
side, and interlaced with branches of the same, in the manner of a
blockhouse, bore witness to its being a human habitation. Not a sound
interrupted the stillness around.
The stranger knelt down before the cross, and prayed there a long
while.
It was Ekkehard,--and the place where he knelt, was the
"Wildkirchlein."
He had reached the valley in safety on his stone horse, after Praxedis
had freed him. The next morning found him weary and exhausted at the
door of old Moengal, at Radolfszell.
"Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men;
that I might leave my people and go from them!" said he in the words of
the prophet, after he had told the parish-priest all that had happened
to him.
Then, the old man pointed over towards the Saentis. "Thou art right,"
said Moengal. "The holy Gallus did the same. 'Into the wilderness will
I go, and there shall I wait for Him, who will restore my soul's
health.' Perhaps he would never have become a saint, if he had thought
and acted differently. Try to conquer thy grief. When the eagle feels
sick, and his eyes grow dim, then he rises heavenwards, as far as his
wings will carry him. The nearness of the sun gives a new youth. Do
thou the same. I know a bonny nook for thee to recover thy health in."
He then described the road to Ekkehard.
"Thou wilt find a man up there," continued he, "who has not seen much of
the world for the last twenty years. His name is Gottshalk. Give him my
greeting, and let us hope that God has forgiven him his trespasses."
The parish-priest did not say for what sin his old friend was doing
penance up there. He had once been sent to Italy, when times were bad,
to buy corn. When he came to Verona, he was well received by the
quarrelsome bishop Ratherius, and he held his devotions in the
venerable cathedral, where the remains of St. Anastasia lay unlocked in
a golden shrine; and the church was deserted, and the Devil tempted
Gottshalk to take a keepsake to Germany. So, he took as much of the
saint's body as he could carry away under his habit; an arm, a foot and
some spine-bones, and secretly departed with his spoil. But from that
hour he had lost his inward peace. By day and night, the saint appeared
to him in her torn and mutilated condition; walking with crutches and
demanding back her arm and her foot. Over mountains and Alpine glens
she followed him, and threateningly approached him even on the
threshold of his own cloister. Then he threw away the stolen limbs, and
fled half maddened to the heights of the Saentis; there, to expiate his
heavy sin in the hermit's cell which he erected for himself.
For two days old Moengal secreted his young friend in his cell, and
then he rowed him across the lake during the night-time. "Don't go back
to thy convent," said he when they were about to part company, "lest
their tittle-tattle should be the ruin of thee. Jeers and derision are
worse than punishment. 'Tis true that thou deservest some lecturing;
but that must be done for thee, by the fresh mountain-breezes, which
are better entitled to set thee right again, than thy fellow-monks."
A spear and a wolf's skin were his parting gifts to Ekkehard.
Shyly and stealthily he continued his journey at night-time, and it was
with bitterness of heart that like a stranger he passed his monastery,
which still bore visible traces of the ravages of the Huns. Some
windows were lighted up, and seemed to beckon to him; but he only
hurried onwards the quicker. The Abbot's cell in the mountains, he also
passed by, without entering. He did not wish to be recognized by anyone
belonging to the monastery.
... His prayers were ended now. Wistfully he gazed at the entrance of
the cavern, waiting for Gottshalk the hermit's coming out to welcome
the visitor. But nobody appeared; the cavern was empty.
_Sancta Anastasia ignosce raptori!_ Holy Anastasia, pardon thy
ravisher! was written with juice from Alpine herbs on the
bright-coloured rock. A stone trough caught up the water which came
trickling through the crevices. It was so full that the water ran over.
Ekkehard entered the cell. Some earthen dishes stood beside an old
stone-flag, which probably had served as a hearth. In a corner there
lay a coarse fishing-net, as well as a hammer and spade; a rusty
hatchet and a quantity of cut pine-logs.
On some wooden boards was a sort of couch, consisting of straw and dry
leaves, which looked rotten and decayed. Two rats, frightened by
Ekkehard's entrance, ran to hide in a crevice.
"Gottshalk," cried Ekkehard, using his hand like a speaking-trumpet.
Then he uttered a sort of shout; such as is customary amongst the
mountaineers in those parts; but nobody answered. In a jug, the milk it
had once contained, had become a crusty substance. Mournfully Ekkehard
stepped out again on the narrow strip of ground, which separated the
cavern from the precipice.
Gazing over to the left, he could see a small bit of the blue Bodensee,
coming out behind the mountains. All the magnificence of the Alpine
world, however, could not banish a feeling of unutterable woe from his
heart. Alone and God-forsaken he stood there on the solitary height. He
strained his faculty of hearing to the utmost, in the hope of catching
the sound of a human voice, but the low and monotonous moaning of the
wind in the pine-wood below, was all that he heard.
His eyes became moist.
It was getting late. What now?... The cravings of hunger, drew off his
attention for the moment. He still had provisions for three days with
him. So he sat down before the cavern and took his evening meal;
moistening his bread with the tears he could not restrain.
His mountain threw long, purple shadows on the opposite rocks, whose
peaks only were still glowing in the sunshine.
"As long as the cross stands on yonder rock, I shall not be entirely
forsaken," said he. He then collected some grass that grew outside and
prepared himself a new couch, in the place of the old one. The cool
evening air began to be felt. So he wrapped himself up in Moengal's
mantle and lay down. Sleep is the best cure for the sufferings of
youth, and in spite of heartache and loneliness, it soon closed
Ekkehard's eyelids.
The first dawn of morning rose over the head of the Kamor, and only the
morning-star was still shining brightly, when Ekkehard started up from
his slumbers. It was as if he had heard the merry tones of a herdsman's
shout, and on looking up, he saw a light shining out from the darkest
recess of the cavern. He believed himself to be under the delusion
of a dream; that he was still in his dungeon and that Praxedis was
coming to free him. But the light came nearer and proved to be a torch
of pine-wood. A young girl, with high looped-up petticoats, was
carrying this primitive candle. He jumped up. Without showing either
fear or surprise, she stood before him, and said: "God's welcome to
you."
It was a bold, half wild looking maiden, with olive complexion and
fiery sparkling eyes. Her dark abundant tresses were fastened behind by
a massive silver pin, in the shape of a spoon. The braided basket on
her back, and the Alpine stick in her right hand, marked her as being
an inhabitant of the mountains.
"Holy Gallus, protect me from new temptation," thought Ekkehard; but
she called out cheerfully. "Again I say, be welcome! My father will be
very glad to hear that we have got a new mountain-brother. One can well
see by the little milk which the cows give, that the old Gottshalk is
dead,--he has said many a time."
It did not sound like the voice of a female demon.
Ekkehard was still sleepy and yawned.
"May God reward you!" ejaculated the maid.
"Why did you say, may God reward you?" asked he.
"Because you have not swallowed me up," laughed she, and before he
could put any more queries, she ran away with her torch-light, and
disappeared in the back of the cavern.
Presently she returned, however; followed by a grey-bearded herdsman,
wrapped in a mantle made of lambs' skins.
"Father will not believe it!" cried she.
The herdsman now took a deliberate survey of Ekkehard. He was a hale
and hardy man; who in the days of his youth, could threw a stone of a
hundred weight above twenty paces, without losing an inch of his
ground. His tanned face and his bare sinewy arms, were signs of his not
yet having lost much of his strength.
"So you are going to be our new mountain-brother?" said he,
good-naturedly extending his hand. "Well, that's right!"
"Ekkehard was a little embarrassed at the strangeness of the
apparition.
"I intended to pay a visit to Brother Gottshalk," said he.
"Zounds! there you are too late," said the herdsman. "He lost his life
last autumn. 'Twas a grievous affair. Look there!"--pointing to a wall
of rocks in the depth below--"on yonder slope he went to gather dry
leaves; I was there myself to help him. Suddenly, he started up, as if
he had been bitten by a snake, and pointing over at the Hohenkasten, he
cried: 'holy Anastasia, thou art made whole again, and standest on both
feet, and beckonest to me with both thy arms!' ... and down he jumped,
as if there had been no abyss between the rock he stood on and the
Hohenkasten. With a '_kyrie eleison!_' he went down into the frightful
depth.--May God be merciful to his soul! It was only this spring that
we found the body, wedged in between the rocks; and the vultures had
carried off one arm and one leg, nobody knows whereto."
"Don't frighten him!" said the maiden, giving her father a nudge.
"You can remain here notwithstanding that, all the same," continued he,
"You shall get all that we gave to Gottshalk; milk and cheese, and
three goats which may graze wherever they like. And if that won't
satisfy you, you can ask for more, for we are no niggards and misers up
here. In return, you will preach us a sermon each Sunday, and pronounce
a blessing over meadows and pasture-grounds, so that storms and
avalanches will cause no harm. Further, you have to ring the bell, to
announce the hours."
Ekkehard cast a doubtful look into the spacious cavern. It was a
delicious feeling for him, to know that there were human beings close
at hand: but he could not make out whence they came.
"Are your pasture-lands in the depths of the mountains?" asked he with
a smile.
"He does not know where the Ebenalp is!" exclaimed the young girl
compassionately. "I will show it you."
Her chip of pine-wood was still burning. She turned round to the back
part of the cavern; the men following on her heels. So they went
through a dark and narrow passage, into the interior of the mountain;
fragments of stones were lying across the path. Often they had to bend
down their heads, to be able to proceed. Faint, reddish gleams of light
played on the projecting edges of the walls, and soon the flaring
daylight appeared. The young girl struck her chip against the strangely
formed stalactites, which hung down from the roof, so that it went out.
A few steps more, and they stood on a wide and delicious Alpine tract.
Innumerable flowers were exhaling their sweet fragrance. Veronicas,
orchises and lovely blue gentians, grew there in great profusion; and
the Apollo, the magnificent butterfly of the Alps, with its shining red
eyes on its wings, was hovering over the luxuriant petals.
After the oppressive darkness and narrowness of the cavern, a
magnificent and extensive panorama, was doubly grateful to the eye.
The early morning mists were as yet lying in heavy and compact masses
over the valley, looking like some mighty sea, which in the very
moment, when its foam-crested billows were rising up, had been changed
into stone. With clear, sharp outlines the mountain-peaks stood out
against the blue sky,--like giant isles rising out of the sea of mists.
The Bodensee too, was covered up with vapoury clouds, and the rows of
the far off Rhetian mountains, with their craggy pinnacles were just
visible through the soft haze surrounding them. The melodious tinkling
of the cow-bells, was the only sound that broke the silence of that
early morning hour. In Ekkehard's soul there rose a proud and yet
humble prayer.
"You are going to stay with us," said the old herdsman. "I can tell so
by the expression of your eyes."
"I am a homeless wanderer, whom the Abbot has not sent out hither,"
said Ekkehard sadly.
"That's all the same to us," replied the other. "If but we, and the old
Saentis over there, are satisfied, then nobody else need be asked. The
Abbot's sovereignty does not extend here. We pay him our tithes, when
his stewards come here to look at our cottages, on the day when the
milk is examined, because it is an old custom; but except that, we have
an old proverb which says 'his fields and grounds I do not till, nor do
I bow before his will.'"
"Look there!" pointing out a grey mountain-peak, which in solitary
grandeur rose from far-stretching ice-fields,--"that is the high
Saentis, who is the Lord and master of the mountains. We take off our
hats to him, but to nobody else. There, to the right is the 'blue
snow,' where in times long ago, there were meadows and pasture-grounds
enough; but a proud and overbearing man lived there, who was a giant,
and whose pride increased with his flocks, so that he said: 'I will be
king over all, that my eyes survey.' But in the depths of the Saentis,
there arose a roaring and trembling; and the ground opened and emitted
floods of ice, which covered up the giant, his cottage, herds and
meadows; and from the eternal snow which lies there, cold chilling
winds blow down, to remind one, that besides the lord of the mountains,
nobody is meant to reign here!"
The herdsman inspired Ekkehard with confidence. Independant strength,
as well as a kindly heart could be perceived in his words. His
daughter, meanwhile, had gathered a nosegay of Alpine roses, which she
held out to Ekkehard.
"What is thy name?" asked he.
"Benedicta."
"That is a good name," said Ekkehard, fastening the Alpine roses to his
girdle. "Yes, I will remain with you."
Upon this the old man shook his right hand, so as to make him wince,
and then, seizing the Alpine horn which hung suspended on a strap at
his side, he blew a peculiar signal.
From all sides, answering notes were heard, and soon the neighbouring
herdsmen all came over; strong, wild-looking men, and assembled round
the old man; whom,--on account of his good qualities,--they had elected
master of the Alps, and inspector of the meadows on the Ebenalp.
"We have got a new mountain-brother," said he. "I suppose that none of
you will object?"
After this address they all lifted their hands, in sign of approval,
and then stepping up to Ekkehard, they bade him welcome; and his heart
was touched and he made the sign of the cross over them.
Thus Ekkehard became hermit of the Wildkirchlein, scarcely knowing how
it had all come about. The master of the Ebenalp kept his word, and did
his best to make him comfortable. The three goats were lodged in the
side-cavern. Then, he also showed him an intricate hidden path between
the rocks, which led down to the Seealpsee, which contained plenty of
fine trout. Further, he put some new shingles into the gaps of the
roof, that wind and weather had caused in Gottshalk's blockhouse. By
degrees, Ekkehard accustomed himself to the narrow confinement of his
new domicile, and on the following Sunday he carried the wooden cross
into the foreground of the cavern; adorned it with a wreath of newly
gathered flowers, and rang the bell which had hung at the entrance ever
since Gottshalk's time, and which bore the mark of Sancho, the wicked
bell-founder at St. Gall. When his herdsmen, with their families of
boys and girls were all assembled, he preached them a sermon on
the transfiguration, and told them how everyone who ascended the
mountain-heights with the right spirit, in a certain sense of the word,
became transfigured also.
"And though Moses and Elijah may not come down to us," he cried, "have
we not the Saentis and the Kamor standing beside us?--and they also are
men of an old covenant, and it is good for us to be with them!"
His words were great and bold; and he himself wondered at them, for
they were almost heretical, and he had never read such a simile in any
of the churchfathers before. But the herdsmen were satisfied, and the
mountains also; and there was nobody to contradict him.
At noon, Benedicta, the herdsman's daughter came up. A silver chain
adorned her Sunday bodice, which encircled her bosom like a coat of
mail. She brought a neat milking-pail; made of ashwood, on which, in
simple outlines, a cow was carved.
"This, my father sends you," said she, "because you have preached so
finely, and have spoken well of our mountains,--and if anybody should
try to harm you, you are to remember that the Ebenalp is near."
She threw some handsful of hazel-nuts into the pail. "These, I have
gathered for you," added she, "and if you like them, I know where to
find more."
Before Ekkehard could offer his thanks, she had disappeared in the
subterranean passage.
"Dark-brown are the hazel-nuts,
And brown like they, am I
And he who would my lover be,
Must be the same as I!"
she sang archly, whilst going away.
A melancholy smile rose to Ekkehard's lips.
The tempest in his heart had not yet been quite appeased. Faint murmurs
were yet reverberating within; like the thunderclaps of an Alpine
storm, which are repeated by innumerable echoes from the mountains.
A huge, flat piece of rock had fallen down beside his cavern. Melting
snow had undermined it in the spring. It resembled a grave-stone, and
he christened it inwardly, the grave of his love. There he often sat.
Sometimes, he fancied the Duchess and himself lying under it; sleeping
the calm sleep of the dead; and he sat down on it, and looked over the
pine-clad mountains far away towards the Bodensee,--dreaming. It was
not well that he could see the lake from his cell, as the sight called
up continual painful recollections. Often, his heart was brimful with
bitter, angry pain; often again he would strain his eyes in the
direction of the Untersee of an evening, and whisper soft messages to
the passing winds. For whom were they meant?
His dreams at night were generally wild and confused. He would find
himself in the castle-chapel, and the everlasting lamp was rocking over
the Duchess's head as it did then; but when he rushed towards her, she
had the face of the woman of the wood, and grinned at him scoffingly.
When he awoke from his uneasy slumbers in the early morning, his heart
would often beat wildly, and the words of Dame Hadwig, "oh,
schoolmaster, why didst thou not become a warrior?" persecuted him,
till the sun had risen high in the sky, or the appearance of Benedicta
would banish them.
Often again, he would throw himself down on the short, soft grass on
the slope, and ponder over the last months of his life. In the pure,
keen Alpine air, figures and events assumed clearer and more objective
outlines before his inward eye, and he was tormented by the thought
that he had behaved shyly and foolishly, and had not even succeeded in
fulfilling his task by telling a story like Praxedis and Master Spazzo.
"Ekkehard thou hast made thyself ridiculous," muttered he to himself;
and then he felt, as if he must break his head against the rocks.
A melancholy mind broods long over a wrong it has undergone; quite
forgetting that a blameworthy action is only blotted out in the memory
of others, by better ones following.
Therefore, Ekkehard was as yet not ripe for the healing delights of
solitude. The ever-present recollection of past suffering had a strange
effect on him. Whenever he sat all alone in his silent cavern, he
fancied he heard voices that mockingly talked to him of foolish hopes,
and the deceits of this world. The flight, and calls of the birds in
the air, seemed to him the shrieks of demons, and all his praying would
avail nothing against these fantastic delusions.
When the terrors of the wilderness have once taken hold of a mind, eye
and ear are easily deceived and apt to believe all the old legends and
tales, which assert that the air, as well as water and earth, is
inhabited by legions of immortal spirits.
It was a soft, fragrant midsummer night. Ekkehard was just about to lay
himself down on his simple couch, when the moon-beams fell right into
the cavern. Two white clouds were sailing along the sky, one behind the
other, and he overheard how they were talking together. One of them was
Dame Hadwig, and the other Praxedis.
"I should really like to see, what the asylum of a wandering fool looks
like," said the first white cloud, and swiftly hurrying down the steep
rocky walls, she stood still on the Kamor, right opposite the cavern,
and then floating down to the fir-trees which grew in great numbers in
the valley below, she cried out: "It is he! Go and seize the
blasphemer."
Then, the fir-trees sprang into life and became monks; thousands and
thousands, and chaunting psalms and swinging rods in their hands, they
began to climb up the rock towards the Wildkirchlein.
Trembling with terror, Ekkehard jumped up and seized his spear,--but
now it was as if a host of will-o'-the-wisps, started out from the
recesses of the cavern. "Away with you, out from the Alps!" cried they
threateningly. All his pulses throbbed in the heat of fever, and so he
ran away over the narrow path, along the frightful precipice, into the
dark night, like a madman.
The second cloud was still standing beside the moon: "I cannot help
thee," said she with Praxedis's voice, "I do not know the way."
Downhill he ran, as fast as his feet would carry him. Life had become a
mere torture to him, and yet he caught hold of projecting parts of the
rocks, and used his spear as a staff, not to fall down and thus get
into the hands of the approaching spectres.
The nightly descent from the Hohentwiel was mere child's play, compared
to this. Unconscious of all danger, he darted past precipices, and at
last came down to level ground, beside the lake. The goats often fell
down there, when they turned their eyes away from the grass, and gazed
into the neck-breaking depth below.
At last he stood still beside the mysteriously beckoning, green
Seealpsee, over which the silvery moon-beams danced and trembled. The
rotten trunks, lying about on the shores, gave forth a spectral light.
Ekkehard's eyes grew dim and filmy.
"Take me into thy arms," cried he, "for my heart is panting for rest."
He ran into the cool, silent flood, but his feet still touched ground,
and the cooling waters of the mountain-lake, sent a delicious freshness
through his feverish limbs. The water already reached to his breast,
when he stopped and looked up confusedly. The white clouds had
disappeared; the moon-beams having dissolved them into transparent
vapours. Magnificently, and yet sadly withal, the stars were glittering
high over his head.
In bold, fantastic lines the Moeglisalp stretched out its grass-covered
horns towards the moon. On its left, stood calm and serious, the
furrowed head of the "old man" and to the right, towering above its
double belt of glaciers, the stern, grey pyramid of the Saentis,
surrounded by innumerable crags and pinnacles; looking like dark
spectres of night.
Then, Ekkehard knelt down on the pebbly ground of the lake, so that the
waters closed over his head, and rising again after a while, he stood
there immovably with lifted arms, as if he were praying.
The moon now sank down behind the Saentis; a bluish light trembled over
the old snow of the glaciers. A rocking pain darted through Ekkehard's
brain. The mountains around him, began to rock and dance; a wailing
sound streamed through the pine-woods, and the lake rose and stirred,
and its waves were alive with thousands and thousands of black
tadpoles....
But in soft, dewy beauty, the figure of a woman rose from the waters,
and floated up to the top of the Moeglisalp. There, she sat on the soft
velvety grass, and shook the water from her long streaming tresses, and
made herself a wreath of Alpine flowers.
In the depths of the mountains there arose a growling and trembling.
The Saentis stretched himself out to his full height, and so did the old
man to his right. Like gigantic Titans of old, they stormed at each
other. The Saentis seized his rocks, and threw them over, and the old
man tore off his head and flung it at the pyramid of the Saentis. Now
the Saentis stood on the right side, and the old man was flying before
him to the left;--but the lady of the lake, looked on in smiling
composure, and from her mountain-peak, she mocked the stone combatants.
And she shook her yellow curls, out of which there fell down a pearly
waterfall; and it flowed down wilder and wilder, till it whirled the
maiden with the liquid eyes, back into the lake.
Upon this, the uproar and strife ceased suddenly. The old man took up
his head; put it on again, and singing a sad, mournful strain, he
returned to his old place. And the Saentis likewise had resumed his
post, and his glaciers were glittering calmly as before.
... When Ekkehard awoke the next morning, he lay in his cavern, shaken
with feverish cold. His knees felt as if they were broken.
The sun stood at his zenith, when Benedicta flitted past the cavern,
and saw him lying there trembling, and wrapped in his wolf's skin
mantle. His habit hung heavy and dripping over a piece of rock.
"When you again are going to fish for trout in the Seealpsee," said
she, "you had better let me know, so that I can lead you. The goat-boy
who met you before sunrise, told us that you had staggered up the hill
like a man walking in his sleep."
She went and rang the midday bell for him.