The bride, having a fortune of her own, soon built a castle near the boundary of her father’s land, carefully providing it with strong walls so that he could not molest her or her beloved spouse. For some time after the two families lived on a war footing, but in course of time a complete reconciliation took place.
In memory of this feud and of its happy termination, the town which rose around the new castle received the name of Frauenfeld, and the coat of arms of that city still bears the effigy of the faithful woman. She is represented controlling a lion, which fierce animal is intended to represent the race from which she sprang, and whose wrath she successfully defied and subdued.
ST. GALL AND APPENZELL
St. Gall, capital of the canton of the same name, which entirely surrounds that of Appenzell, is noted for the famous abbey founded in 614 by St. Gallus, an Irish monk. He had come into this unsettled region to preach the gospel, and when his disciple Hiltiboldus urged that they would be exposed to the attacks of the bears, wolves, and boars, quietly answered, “If God is with us, who can be against us?”
The snakes which had infested that region departed for good and all at the saint’s command, and his disciple soon discovered that even the wild beasts of the forest stood in awe of so holy a man. One evening, while Gallus was praying at the foot of a rustic cross, a bear came down the mountain to devour his provisions. St. Gallus, perceiving the theft, quietly bade the bear earn the food he had eaten, by bringing wood to keep up his fire. The crestfallen Bruin humbly fulfilled this penance, and when the saint told him henceforth to remain on the heights, never ventured down into the valley again.
One day Gallus’s disciple discovered an apple-tree far up the mountain, and climbing up shook down some fruit to carry home to his master. But when he slid to the ground again, he was dismayed to find a huge bear on the other side of the tree greedily munching the fallen apples. The disciple’s first impulse was to flee, but remembering that his master was fond of fruit, he determined to secure some for him. Taking his staff, therefore, he scratched deep marks at right angles with the tree, and then gravely informed the bear that while he was welcome to the apples on his side of the line, those which fell on the other were reserved for St. Gallus. Strange to relate, the bear understood this speech, and as long as the apples lasted never ventured to touch one on the saint’s side of the line, although he devoured all those on his own!
The cell and cross of St. Gallus were the nucleus of a monastery and school, which for several centuries had no rival in Europe. Kings and emperors were wont to visit it, and the abbey, enriched by their gifts and concessions, daily increased in importance and wealth.
Within the walls of this edifice dwelt men noted for their learning, and countless scribes spent their lives there, patiently copying and illuminating manuscripts which, but for their efforts, might have been lost to mankind. Some of these manuscripts still remain in the abbey library; among others, a thirteenth century copy of the Niebelungenlied, Germany’s famous epic. Innumerable scholars visited the school and abbey at St. Gall, which is said to have been the scene of a comical encounter between the abbot and Charlemagne, almost an exact counterpart of the story of King John and the Archbishop of Canterbury.[15]
[15] See the author’s “Legends of the Rhine.”