Of course the Germans attached to Barbarossa a legend, as they do to everything. They said that he was not dead, but had fallen a victim to enchantment. He and his knights had been put to sleep in the Kyffhauser cave in Thuringia. They sat around a stone table, waiting for release. His once red, but now white, beard was growing through the stone.
They also said that the spell that bound Barbarossa and his knights would some day be broken, and that they would come back to Germany. This would occur when the country should be in sore distress, and need a champion for its cause.
Ravens flew continually about the cave where the monarch and his knights were held enchanted. When they should cease to circle about it, the spell would be broken, and the grand old monarch would return to the Rhine.
They looked for him in days of calamity; but centuries passed, and he did not return.
The legend is thus told in song:—
“The ancient Barbarossa
By magic spell is bound,—
Old Frederick the Kaiser,
In castle underground.
“The Kaiser hath not perished,
He sleeps an iron sleep;
For, in the castle hidden,
He’s sunk in slumber deep.
“With him the chiefest treasures
Of empire hath he ta’en,
Wherewith, in fitting season,
He shall appear again.
“The Kaiser he is sitting
Upon an ivory throne;
Of marble is the table
His head he resteth on.
“His beard it is not flaxen;
Like living fire it shines,
And groweth through the table
Whereon his chin reclines.