Legend of St. Christopher.
In the Goslar Cathedral, of which now but a small remnant remains, once existed a colossal wooden statue of this renowned Saint with the Christ-Child on his back.
St. Christopher once walked from Goslar to Halberstadt and Harzburg, and on the way shook on the ground a pea which had got into his shoe.
The pea grew, and became the sandstone rock called the Clus.
The interior of the rock was hewn into a chapel to the Virgin, which was a shrine of great celebrity.
A Schloss once stood on the Clus, traces of which are still to be seen.
The Maiden's Cave in the Spatenberg, near
where once stook the Spatenburg.
A young citizen of Sondershausen had, although honest, industrious, and skilful, fallen into great embarrassment.
Merciless creditors threatened with seizure; entire ruin stared him in the face; he saw himself already in fancy with wife and children abandoned to bitter want.
He took a walk into the country in order to seek relief for his oppressed heart for a few short hours.
Soon he was alone with his sorrow in the wood solitude.
He climbed the Göldner, till he had reached the summit of the Spatenberg, where the green-grass carpet and the shade of the old beeches invited him to a short repose.
He might have perhaps given expression to his trouble in loud lamentations.
However that may be, he at last prepared to go further, when suddenly he observed a lovely maiden, who, clad in mourning garments and weeping, sat on a moss-grown stone at the entrance to the Jungfernloch, or Maiden's Cave.
His sympathy at this sight was awakened in proportion to his own melancholy. He could not restrain himself from approaching the graceful figure, and inquiring the cause of her grief.
She, however, was of opinion that her sorrow was much too great to permit of her troubling any one else with it, and declared she could only find a mitigation of her woe in drying up the tears of others.
She told him she had, unseen, perceived what troubled him, and it afforded her soul sweet comfort to know that she could help him.
After she had made this statement to the astonished man, she bade him follow her into the cave.
When they had gone through several dark, gloomy passages, they entered a wonderfully lighted chamber, in the centre of which stood a chest filled with gold and treasures, from which the maiden's companion, at her command, must take as many pieces of money as were sufficient for relief from his embarrassment.
At the same time he must solemnly promise that at the expiration of a year, at a certain hour, he will return the same sum to the same place, because, as a result of his failing to do so, she herself would suffer great injury.
He promised, and the maiden dismissed him.
Of course he was now freed from his anxiety and distress, and from this day everything he undertook prospered.
Not only was he able to satisfy all the demands of his creditors, but also at the stated time, agreeably with his promise, to return the received loan.
But he could not go in his every-day dress to his benefactress, and the untruthful tailor neglected to deliver the red Sunday coat as promised.
At last he determined, though he had failed to reach the spot at the fixed hour, not to fail in the day.
As he climbed the Burgweg—castle road—it seemed to him that the tops of the beeches sighed mournfully. He drew near to the cave with painful apprehensions.
No maiden was to be seen. He entered the cave, and found himself at last in the lighted chamber.
But what must he see? The benevolent maiden lay on the ground dying, her countenance distorted with sorrow and pain.
Dreadful gloom enveloped the frightened man. Only the treasure in the chest glittered dismally.
A long-drawn sigh trembled through the chamber. He threw the too-late-brought money, at the same time crossing himself, into the trunk, which immediately closed, and with the dead maiden disappeared.
An awful roaring arose. Benumbed with terror, he fled from the chamber, that fell in behind him, and through the passages, that seemed to him suddenly falling into ruins.
A tumbling stone struck him so violently on the heel that he was always obliged to wear slippers after, and from that day he never recovered his spirits.