“Ha! ha!” laughed the gnome. “Nothing brings nothing. No hair, no money; our bargain is at a end!”
“Ask what you will!” cried the knight; “but hair I have no more to give. Take my soul; but give me only one bag of money. Only one bag of gold I am asking of you!”
But in vain Burkhart implored the gnome. Pypo was inexorable, and laughed at him. This exasperated Burkhart, and becoming enraged, he cried: “Hell-hound! you have completed your devilish work. With each hair that you took from my head you robbed me of a part of my manhood. Now I recognise you as the fiend that you are. Give me back my lost energy. Give me back the beautiful golden hair of which you have despoiled me by means of your accursed gold. Give it back to me, or look out for the revenge of the Tollensteins!”
But the gnome laughed. “Fool!” he said; “do you wish to frighten me? Would you now curse the one from whom you received all that you wanted? I laugh at you and your threats; but if you wish your hair returned, be it so!”
So saying the gnome drew forth a cord twisted from Burkhart’s hair, and threw it at the feet of the knight. He then disappeared within the depths of the Untersberg, while from all sides a mocking laughter shook the air, as if coming from a multitude of invisible spectators; but the knight went home and locked himself up in his bedroom.
At the castle of Tollenstein everything was in readiness for the beginning of the great tournament. Knights in glittering armour and ladies in costly dresses were thronging the halls; while in the courtyard below richly decked steeds, attended by grooms in bright colours, neighed and stamped the ground, impatient for the opening of the sham fight; for the beginning of which nothing was now needed but the presence of the host. The trumpets sounded, but nothing was seen of Burkhart. Repeatedly were messengers sent to his room, but they found the door locked and were not admitted. At last Julia, losing her patience, went up with clenched fists to inquire about the cause of this delay, but her knocks at the door elicited no reply. She therefore ordered the door to be forced open, and then a ghastly sight met her eyes. Burkhart von Tollenstein was lying dead on his bed, his features distorted as if he had died in great agony; around his neck was tied a cord of yellow human hair, with which he had been strangled; his eyes were protruding as if starting from their sockets; while his fingers were spasmodically closed around a bag containing one thousand florins in gold. This was the end of the Tollensteins.
And now the excuses for writing the following tale:
If this story of Burkhart of Tollenstein had never been exhumed from the archives containing the family histories of the ancient knights of the Duchy of Salzburg, the following chapters would never have been written; for it was the discovery of these reliable documents which recalled to my memory the history told to me by my now deceased friend, Mr Schneider, who was himself a participant in the adventure which I am about to describe.
It appears that, long after the death of Burkhart von Tollenstein, three very learned gentlemen, having heard of that story, arrived from some far-off country—presumably from the dark continent. Being of a very sceptical turn of mind, they did not believe in gnomes, and had undertaken their journey for the purpose of disproving the existence of the spirits of Nature. They belonged to a scientific Society, whose object was the abolition of the supernatural, and to sober up mankind by drawing away their attention from all sorts of ideals, and bring them back to the dry and hard facts of material life. That Society had already accomplished a great deal of important work. They had by a certain system of logic disproved the existence of God, spirit and soul, and shown that all that is called life or consciousness is nothing else but the result of friction brought on by the mechanical motion of molecules of dead matter accidentally coming into contact with each other. The three gentlemen with whom we shall directly become acquainted were appointed by the Society for the Abolition of the Supernatural as a committee, for the purpose of giving the last death-blow to the superstitious belief in spirits and gnomes, and arrived for that purpose. They were firmly determined that the belief in anything that could not be seen by means of corporeal eyes, or grasped with fingers of flesh, should be relegated into the garret, where antiquated superstitions are stowed away.
After due consultation, these gentlemen resolved to make a scientific expedition to one of the caves of the Untersberg, reported to be haunted; and Mr Schneider, being then a young and vigorous man, well acquainted with the topography of the mountain, was invited to accompany them. The excursion took place on the day preceding St John’s, it being the 23rd of June; but the date of the year escaped my memory. The adventures which Mr Schneider experienced are told by him in the following pages.