Legends from River & Mountain

by Carmen Sylva; Alma Strettell

On the left bank of the Elbe, near Pirna, stands a lofty crag, called the “Maiden’s Rock.” One part of it, in fact, is shaped like a maiden’s figure—and this is the reason why:—

It seems that, a thousand years ago and more, there dwelt in the village of Pfaffendorf, close by, a terrible old witch, who went by the name of Mother Gundelheind. No one dared go near her or enter her house, but those who had ventured to peep through the window in her absence declared that a blue flame danced upon her hearthstone, above which some devilish brew hung boiling, and that a black fox crouched whining beside this uncanny fire. Many a belated passer-by had seen her at night, flashing through the air upon her broomstick; and sometimes she had a companion, a fiery dragon who flew by her side, and brought her great store of red, molten gold, that he dropped from his wings before her threshold. It is needless to say that she was never at home on Walpurgis-night, the great meeting time of all the witches and evil spirits; but, indeed, she was oftener abroad than within doors, for when she was not revelling with her own kind, she was busy working evil spells upon her neighbours, bewitching their wives, their children, and their cattle. Plenty of people had seen her at it, but there was nothing to be done; complaints and lamentations were of no avail against her stony heart, and punishment was not to be thought of, for her revenge would have been such as no one in the land dared brave; and besides, how can any one get the better of a witch so mighty, that neither fire nor water have power over her? Yet her punishment awaited her, and she feared it, and had, in her great wickedness, found a way out of it, as she thought.

For there was another person who dwelt in that ill-famed cottage, and was in all ways the opposite of the terrible Mother Gundelheind. This was her young daughter Truda, and how she came by such a daughter none can tell; for Truda was as sweet as a May morning, and her hazel eyes had the look that the angels wear, in the church pictures. Instead of the old woman’s horny, blackened hide, Truda had a skin as fair and soft as cream; instead of her mother’s harsh and grizzled locks, she had long, silky tresses, the colour of a newly ripened chestnut; and instead of the witch’s cruel, rasping speech, a voice as gentle and musical as the ringdove’s. And her mind and soul were as beautiful as her body, so that every one loved her, and looked after her with friendly smiles, while they turned their eyes from the wicked mother and her ill-omened glance. To be sure, this made it hard for Truda to have any of the friends or the pastimes befitting her age and sweet nature; for none would cross the threshold of her mother’s house, nor would she suffer her daughter to enter one of the neighbours’ dwellings. She kept Truda fast at home, sewing, washing, or spinning; for it can easily be believed that the old witch herself had no time or mind for such a wholesome work, and the housekeeping would have gone to ruin but for Truda.

Nor was this all: the capricious creature would have her child as pious as she herself was godless, and made her learn her Catechism, and go to church on Sundays, and fast, and do penance, with such zeal that the poor child was sometimes quite worn-out. Never a day’s merrymaking did she get; never might she join the dance upon the village-green, or wander by the river in the moonlight, like the other young folk; for even when her mother was from home, she could watch and spy upon her by means of a magic mirror, in which the old witch could see at her pleasure all that was happening at home, or, indeed, in any place she chose to think of.

Now, it may be thought that the old woman was not so graceless but that she still had some lingering care for her child’s well-being—but this, alas! was not the cause of her watchfulness, for which she had only too horrid a reason. It is needless to say that this wicked creature had long been given, body and soul, to the Evil One; she knew that the day would come when he would surely claim his prey, and, as has been said, she feared her punishment, and was ready to pay any price to escape, and to be allowed to go on freely in her wickedness. Now, upon one of those midnight wanderings, during which all dark secrets were unveiled to her, she had happened to find out that the Prince of the lower regions was not so particular as to the fashion in which his debtors paid their score, and that he would be willing to take her little daughter Truda in her place, so long as the girl was innocent of any sort of wrong-doing. And this was why Mother Gundelheind scolded and spied, and used every means in her power to bring up her daughter a model of pious perfection.

She had succeeded pretty well, to be sure, and her bad example, far from doing any harm, seemed rather to have driven the girl in an opposite direction; but there was one thing that had so far escaped the old hag’s notice. She could not choose but let Truda go into the village sometimes—to market, for instance—because no one would have any dealings with the witch herself, if they could help it, while to Truda they gave their freshest fruit and richest cream. And again, she must go to church, for that her mother dared not let her miss. So it came to pass that Truda made a few friends, and one especial admirer, Wippold the forester, who spent half his life in planning stolen meetings with her, or in waiting to catch a glance from those hazel eyes as she went demurely by, prayer-book in hand. Old Mother Gundelheind had by this time got into the habit of trusting Truda, perhaps over much; but even witches will be caught napping sometimes, and this was the time of the Walpurgis Feast, and her head was full of other matters. So it came to pass that she forgot, once or twice, to look into her magic mirror, and never knew that Truda held tryst with the forester upon the rock overhanging the Elbe, to which the country-folk sometimes climbed up on their Sunday rambles. For the witch’s harsh and unnatural behaviour had borne fruit at last, and had driven even the sweet, confiding Truda into underhand ways, because they were the only means of bringing a little relief into a life that would else have been nearly unbearable.

But it was hard work to keep anything from the old hag for long; and presently she began to notice that Truda was wont to sit dreaming by the hearth of an evening, while her spindle lay idle beside her, and her wheel stood silent in a corner. Then the witch grew suspicious, and observed her more closely again; nor was it long before she spied out Wippold escorting the girl home from market one morning. He left her before they turned the corner of the cottage, to be sure, but as soon as Truda’s hand touched the latch, the old woman flew at her like the fury she was.

“What is this?” she screamed. “What good-for-nothing acquaintances hast thou been picking up, idle baggage that thou art? Never think to deceive me! If thou dost so much as give yon fellow a ‘good-day’ again, I will rather starve here at home with thee than suffer thee to set foot in the market!” And she flung herself down, quite out of breath, in her dark ingle-nook, muttering something about “running no such risks.”

Truda betook herself to her wheel, silent and bewildered, and ventured no word of self-defence. But that evening, as she sat gazing into the flame that flickered up with blue tongues from the blackened hearth-stone, she plucked up courage and asked—

“Why must I never speak to a man, mother, or have any dealings with the village-folk, as other maidens do?”