LEGEND OF THE GREAT CANAL FROM TRÈVES TO COLOGNE.
For more than a hundred years the people of Cologne had been endeavouring to raise a Cathedral that should eclipse all others. The master-builder was busy making measurements for the arch of the great door, when one of his apprentices jeeringly said the building would never be finished, but ever remain in fragments. Thereupon the master waxed wroth and dismissed the apprentice, who departed, saying: “Woe to thee, O my master! never shall thy work be finished; sooner shall I complete a canal from here to Trier, than shalt thou place a tower upon thy cathedral.”
Years passed on, and the Cathedral was rapidly approaching to completion, when the master saw a huge worm creep from the ground. This was the fiend, by whose assistance the apprentice had made a canal from Trèves to Cologne: the apprentice appeared to the astonished master and said, “Lo, my canal is complete, while thy church is yet a fragment!” and water flowed from the canal, on which a duck came swimming from Trèves.
The water rose and encompassed the master, who thus perished, and his cathedral is still unfinished; but the wicked apprentice fared still worse, for the great worm strangled him, and he is doomed evermore to haunt the cathedral, measuring the uncompleted works.
The canal thus formed was used to send wine from Trèves to Cologne, without the trouble of putting it into casks.[1]
Not less wonderful is the following:—
LEGEND OF THE DOM[2] OF TRÈVES.
While meditating over his undertaking, the contractor for the building of the Dom was accosted by a gentlemanlike stranger in red, who said to him in a hearty tone, “Cheer up, for I can help you; but first tell me for what purpose you wish so large a house.”
The contractor, delighted, guessed who the stranger was, and replied in artful words that he wished to raise this house for a gambling and drinking palace.
“Hurrah!” said the man in red, “just what I am fond of!” and they agreed upon terms and went to work.
The building went bravely on, until the Red Man seeing altars and such-like things arising, with which he was then unacquainted, asked what it all meant; but being told that these were tables for dice, was satisfied.
One day, returning from the roof to which he had been carrying up large stones, the Red Man saw the Bishop consecrating the new church; then the bells tolled solemnly, and Satan found he had been outwitted. He rushed at an altar, and endeavoured to tear it down, but left a claw sticking into it, it having been consecrated; then with a yell he fled, and the contractor mocked him, shouting “Never build more churches without a written agreement.”
The conversion of the heathen Trevii to Christianity was, according to the legend, thus effected:—
The people of Trèves worshipped a statue of marble, from whose mouth oracles proceeded; troops of pilgrims came to Trèves to hear from this idol’s lips answers to their questions: but now a foreign priest appeared before the crowd, and with a crucifix in his hand he spoke to them of Christ the Son of God; the people, leaving their idol for the Truth, flocked to his feet, in spite of the threats of the heathen priests.
Thus Saint Eucharius converted the Trevii.
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The Moselle country was especially resorted to by hermits, who lived in recesses of the mountains; of these Saint Antony was the first.
Saint Nicolas was the patron of the bridge, and his statue stands beneath the stone crucifix which adorns it. On one occasion, a mariner, whose ship was in great danger of being cast away beneath the bridge, called on the Saint, and vowed an offering of a taper as big as his mast should he escape.
He landed in safety, but finding himself secure snapped his fingers at the Saint, saying, “Nicolas, thou wilt not have so much.” The Saint replied not.
Again this mariner’s vessel coming down the stream was in danger of the bridge; once more he cried on Nicolas, but the water checked his cry, and man and ship were lost.
There is another legend of the Moselle bridge, which we will call—