Legends from River & Mountain

by Carmen Sylva; Alma Strettell

THE SUNDAY-CHILD

In the days before railroads were known or tourists ran to and fro over the face of the earth, the Black Forest was given up, one may say, to two races of men—the woodmen and the glass-blowers, who even yet hold their own among the remoter hills and valleys. They have always been fine fellows, tall and broad-shouldered, as though the strengthening breath of the mountain pines had given them, from their youth up, a healthier body, a clearer eye, and a braver spirit than the inhabitants of the valleys and plains below. The glass-blowers live on the Baden side of the hills, and theirs was of old the most picturesque dress—you may see it still in the more out-of-the-way parts of the forest. Their black jerkins, wide, closely pleated breeches, red stockings, and pointed hats give them a quaint, somewhat serious appearance, in keeping with the work which they carry on in the depths of the woods. There are watchmakers among them as well, who peddle their goods for sale, far and wide; but the glass-makers, as a rule, are stay-at-home folk. They are very different from their brethren the woodmen, who live on the other side of the forest, and spend their lives felling and hewing their great pine-trees, which they then float down the Nagold into the Neckar, and from the Neckar into the Rhine. Then down that mighty river they go, far away into Holland, where the men of the Black Forest and their long rafts are a familiar sight. They stop in every city along the banks of the Rhine, to see if any one will purchase their stout beams and planks; but the longest and stoutest they keep for the Mynheers, who buy them at a high price to build their ships with. Now these raftsmen are used to a rough and wandering life; it is joy to them to spin down the stream upon their tree-trunks, and sorrow to climb the bank homewards again. And their holiday dress, too, is quite different from that of the glass-makers. Their jerkins are of dark linen, with wide, green braces crossed over their broad chests; their breeches are of black leather, and from one pocket, as a sign of their calling, an inch-rule is always to be seen peeping forth. But their chief pride and joy are their boots, the highest, most likely, that are worn in any part of the world, for they can be drawn up two spans and more above the knee, and the raftsmen can wade through three or four feet of water without getting wet.

Not so very long ago, the people of the forest still believed in spirits that haunted the woods, and the superstition died hard. Strangely enough, the legends clothe these supernatural inhabitants of the woods in just the same garments, varying with the district, that the men of flesh and blood wear. So they tell that the little Glass-man, a kindly spirit, only about four feet high, was never to be seen save in a broad-brimmed, pointed hat, with little black jerkin, wide breeches, and red stockings. But Dutch Michael, who haunted the other side of the forest, seems to have been a huge, broad-shouldered fellow, in the dress of the raftsmen; and many who are supposed to have seen him, swear that they would have been sorry to pay out of their own pockets, the price of the calf-skins that made his boots,—“for they were so big that an ordinary man could have stood up to his neck in them,” they say, “and this is the sober truth.”

There is a wonderful story of the dealings of these wood-spirits with a young fellow of the Black Forest, which I will tell just as I heard it.

There lived then, in the forest, a widow, Dame Barbara Munk, whose husband had been a charcoal-burner, and supplied the glass-makers with the fuel they needed for their work. After his death, she kept her son, a boy of sixteen, to the same calling as his father; and young Peter Munk, though a well-grown lad, at first made no objection, for he had always seen his father looking black and ugly, as he crouched, the whole week long, over his smoky kiln, or went abroad to sell his coals, an object of disgust to every one; so that it never came into his head to mind such a thing. But a charcoal-burner has a great deal of time for thought, about himself and others; and as Peter Munk sat by his kiln, the dark trees, and the deep silence of the forest round about him, often inclined his heart to tears and nameless yearnings. There was something—he knew not what—that both saddened and angered him. After thinking it over for a long time, he at last came to the conclusion that it was his calling.

“A lonely, black-faced charcoal-burner!” he said to himself; “it is but a poor life. The glass-blowers, the watchmakers, even the musicians who play in the tavern on Sunday evenings, are all thought of some consequence. And yet if Peter Munk, washed and dressed in his best, with his father’s holiday jerkin and silver buttons, and a pair of new red stockings, were to make his appearance, and some one behind, seeing the new stockings and the upright gait, were to say: ‘Who is yon fine lad?’ I am sure that directly he passed me by and caught sight of my face, he would add: ‘Oh, it is but “Coal-Munk Peter”!’”

The raftsmen, too, from the other side of the forest, excited his envy. When these giants of the woods went by in their grand clothes, with half-a-hundredweight of silver buttons, clasps, and chains upon them; when they stood watching the dance, with widespread legs and important faces, and swore in Dutch, and smoked yard-long Cologne pipes, like the richest of the Mynheers, then he would think that the lot of such men must be the happiest on earth. But when these fortunate beings felt in their pockets and brought out handfuls of thaler-pieces, tossing up for sixpenny-bits, and staking five guldens here, and ten there, Peter would turn quite bewildered, and slink sadly away to his hut; for he saw many of these master wood-cutters play away more in one evening than poor father Munk had been wont to earn in a year. There were, in particular, three of these men whom he thought so wonderful; he did not know which of them to admire most. One was a big, stout, red-faced fellow, known as “fat Ezekiel,” and supposed to be the richest man in all the country round. He went twice a year to Amsterdam to sell wood for building, and was always lucky enough to sell it for a higher price than any one else, so that, whereas the others had to come home on foot, he always drove back in great style.

The other was the tallest, thinnest man in the whole forest, nick-named “long Shuffler,” and Peter envied him because of his extraordinary impudence. He contradicted the most important people, and always took up more room in the tavern, however crowded it was, than four of the stoutest among the other guests; for he must needs sit with both elbows on the table, or draw up one of his long legs before him on the bench; yet no one ever dared gainsay him, for he had endless sums of money.

But the third was a young, handsome fellow, and the best dancer for miles round, so that he was called the “king of the dancing-floor.” He had been quite poor, and had worked for one of the master wood-cutters, but all at once he became as rich as any of them. Some said he had found a pot of gold under an ancient pine-tree; others that he had been spearing fish, as the raftsmen often do, and that, not far from Bingen on the Rhine, he had fished up on his spear a great roll of gold pieces, and that the roll belonged to the famous Nibelung-treasure, which, as every one knows, lies buried there. Be this as it may, he certainly grew rich all of a sudden, and was looked up to by young and old, as though he were a prince.