STOLZENFELS.
We have proceeded but a little way above Coblentz, when we find ourselves between two remarkable ruins—one on the banks of the Lahn, (Lahenec), and one on our right—Stolzenfels. This last has a short legend attached to it, which may be glanced at, en passant.
The robber chief of this strong-hold was remarkable, even among the Rhine-robbers, for cruelty and ferocity. This was not all. He contemned the gods, and laughed at religion as the superstition of the ignorant. In the intervals of robbery and murder, he amused himself with tormenting his vassals, whose lives hung upon the mere caprice of their tyrant lord. One evening, while carousing and scoffing, the light of the moon was suddenly obscured—flocks of ravens flew screaming through the air—darkness overspread the Rhine—and distant thunder was heard growling among the mountains. The Stolzenburger turned pale, and, for the first time in his life, fell on his knees to pray. Before he could utter a word, a dreadful crash was heard—a thunderbolt had struck the castle—and the tyrant was buried in the ruins!
MORAL.
A death-bed repentance may be better than none; but that piety which is extorted by terror, hardly deserves the name.
The long and straight reach of the river, from the entrance of the Lahn to the chateau of Liebneck, presents no striking feature, except the frowning castle (now an hospital) of Marksburg, crowning an apparently inaccessible mountain, which modern art might render impregnable. In another reach or two, we pass Boppart, and come to the scene of a legendary tale.
THE BROTHERS; OR, LIEBENSTEIN AND STERNFELS.
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
(Legend the Fifth.)
A little above Boppart, but on the opposite side of the river, two mouldering ruins, on two craggy rocks, close to each other, arrest the attention of even the most indifferent passenger. The legend attached to them is of a very melancholy character. A nobleman had two sons and an amiable ward, of whom both of the brothers were enamoured. The elder resigned his pretensions, and retired to Rheuse, a part of the family estate. The younger was affianced to, and beloved by, the beautiful ward, Eloise, whose name deserves to be transmitted to posterity. The Holy, but insane Crusades, however, induced the intended bridegroom to join the military bigots of that day, in a war of extermination against the Musselmen. The result of his religious zeal was the conquest—not of the Holy City, but of a Grecian mistress, with whom he returned to his castle on the Rhine. The elder brother (Liebenstein), incensed at this double crime (profanation of the crusade and breach of his vows to the lady), challenged him to mortal conflict. The amiable ward (Louisa) rushed between the combatants—prevented fratricide—and immediately took the veil. The guilty pair led, at first, a riotous, but soon a wretched life. The Grecian lady proved faithless, and eloped! The brothers became reconciled—lived in the contiguous castles, whose ruins are still seen—and died without issue!—The property of the ward was dedicated to the purpose of founding a convent (Bornhoffen) at the foot of the mountain on which the castles were built. As to the brothers—
They never enter’d court or town,
Nor looked on woman’s face,
But childless to the grave went down,
The last of all their race.
And still upon the mountain fair,
Are seen two castles gray,
That, like their lords, together there
Sink slowly to decay.[10]
MORAL.
The darker features of this drama are every day seen on the stage of life. Lovers’ vows plighted, soon to be broken—man’s promises of eternal love cancelled—women’s hopes and happiness blighted—but perfidy sooner or later punished.
It was enough for Sternfels to bring home a mistress from Palestine, without parading his guilty partner before the eyes of his betrothed and insulted Louisa. Yet this, and worse, we every day witness! Sternfels’ punishment was not light. The ingratitude of his mistress, and a life of solitude and remorse, were severe chastisements!
Winding along from the ruins last-mentioned, we come to a very striking object, a little short of St. Goar, which attracts the attention of all passengers. It is a dismantled fortification, still black with the powder by which it was blown up in the French revolution. The Rheinfels was long a robber-fortress of the first water, and its tyrant chiefs carried their depredations and extortions to such a height as to league all the adjacent provinces against them. The chiefs held out and defied the country; but at length the strong-hold fell—and, with it, the whole of the brigand castles on both sides of the Rhine.
LURLEY, OR THE ECHO.
(Legend the Sixth.)
Almost immediately after passing the ruins of the Rheinfels, we enter a narrow and sombre river gorge, where the stream is impetuous, turbulent, and tortuous; the cliffs of dark basalt rising almost perpendicular, but in rugged strata or layers, inclining in all directions from the horizontal to nearly the vertical. Here the Rhine like its sister the Rhone—
——“Cleaves its way between
Rocks that appear like lovers who have parted
In haste; whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted.”
And here is still heard that prattling nymph, Miss Echo, who, like many a descriptive tourist, repeats her parrot-note for the tenth time—with no other variation than that of diminished force and distinctness. This lady, who, when young, was dismissed from the skies for allowing her tongue to wag too freely, has since endured the severe punishment of keeping silent, except when spoken to! She is not permitted to ask, but only to iterate questions—having the privilege, on some rare occasions, and in some peculiar places, of repeating the said question, or rather the last word or syllable of it twice or even many times. The present spot is one of these favourite localities—and the voices which she loves to hear and to imitate are those of the cannon, the bugle, and the horn. The clanking and plashing of the steamers are unfavourable to the delicate iterations of Echo, and often drown her voice entirely. Though not so witty as her sister of Killarney, who answers, instead of repeating the questions put to her, yet she occasionally cracks a joke on the mayor of the neighbouring town, when some stentorian German bawls out from the opposite rock, “Who is the mayor of Oberwesel?” The damsel, with a faint but clear titter, replies, “esel”—or ass! so that lord mayors on the banks of the Rhine, as well as of the Thames, are sometimes treated with ridicule.
There can be little doubt that boat-wrecks, raft-wrecks, and loss of life were of frequent occurrence in a locality like this, where the rapid stream is twisted into whirlpools, between rugged banks, the very proximity of which increases the difficulty of the passage, and the danger of drowning, where the vessel or flotilla is stranded. The eddying surge, the sunken rock, and the serrated perpendicular shore, in a dark and tempestuous night, must render the navigation of this dreary ravine most hazardous—and escape, in case of an overturn, all but hopeless.
That a place so singular and so perilous, coupled with a remarkable and musical echo, should become the scene of some popular or superstitious legend, is not at all wonderful. Accordingly a fourth Siren was added to the classical list, and located on the banks of the Rhine, instead of the coast of Sicily, to lure (lurlei) the enchanted mariner from his helm or oar, by her melodious song, and wreck himself and bark on the treacherous rocks. Lurley carried on the trade of her elder sisters for some time, with considerable success, but not without some redeeming qualities; for she often pointed out the best places for the poor fishermen to cast their nets. At length a young Palatine Count determined to emulate the hero of Ithaca, and break the spell of the enchantress. For that purpose he embarked on the Rhine, and steered towards the dangerous pass, but without taking the precaution of the wily Greek, to stop the ears of the crew with wax, and cause himself to be bound to the mast. As the count’s barge approached the rocks, Lurley poured forth one of her most melodious lays over the face of the river. The men dropped their oars, and the count’s senses were all absorbed in listening to the divine strains. A sudden eddy of the stream whirled the boat’s head towards the shore—another dashed her against the rocks—and, in another instant, all were engulphed in the boiling whirlpool!
This catastrophe caused a great sensation, and the count’s father sent a veteran warrior, with a select party of soldiers, to surround the rock, and seize the sorceress. On approaching the summit, Lurley was seen for the first time by human eyes, with arms, ankles, and neck encircled with corals, and even her flowing tresses braided with the same emblems of the deep. She demanded their purpose. The veteran announced his determination to force her into the Rhine, there to expiate the death of the young count. Lurley replied, by throwing her corals into the river, singing at the same time—
Entends ma voix, puissant Pere des eaux,
Fais parter, sans delai, tes rapides chevaux.
Instantly a great storm arose—the river boiled with foam—and two towering waves, bearing some resemblance to milk-white steeds, surged along the rock, and bore Undine (for such was the nymph) to her paternal grottoes under the waters. From that time the song of Lurley was never heard; but her spirit still hovers about her favourite rocks, and mimicks the voices of the boatmen as they pass the place.
The veteran warrior returned to the count’s father, and was agreeably surprised to find the son safely returned to his paternal mansion by the kind Undine.
A contemplation of this locality irresistibly leads me to the conclusion that, here existed in some remote period, a cataract, similar to that now existing, but rapidly crumbling down, as at Schaffhausen. The alluvial plains between Heidelberg and the present bed of the Rhine, were unquestionably a large lake, which would be drained by the wearing down of a cataract at some lower part of the river. When the falls of the Rhine at Schaffhouse are reduced to mere rapids, it is probable that the lake of Constance will become an alluvial valley. The valley of the Rhone was once a lake, till the flood-gate at St. Maurice gave way, and converted the lake into a plain. The huge walls of basaltic rock piled up in strata on each side of the Rhine at Lurley, torn by fire and worn by water, draw the mind to contemplate the myriads of years which must have rolled along, since first they upsprung from the bowels of the earth in liquid lava—and the countless ages required to form this sombre gorge by the mere attrition of the unceasing current!