His heart beat with pleasure, as he briskly walked along.
How full of hope and joy is he, who in the days of his youth, goes out on unknown paths, to meet an unknown future. With the wide world before him, a blue sky over-head, and the heart fresh and trusting, as if his walking-stick must produce leaves and blossoms, wherever he plants it in the ground, and must bear happiness, in the shape of golden apples on its boughs. Walk merrily on.--The day will come when thou also, wilt drag thyself wearily along, on the dusty high-roads, when thy staff will be but a dry withered stick, when thy face will be pale and worn, and the children will be pointing their fingers at thee, laughing and asking: where are the golden apples?...
Ekkehard was truly light-hearted and content. To sing merry songs was not becoming for a man of his calling; more fitting was the song of David which he now began:
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters"--and this may have been registered in heaven, in the same book in which the guardian-angels of youth put down the merry songs of wandering scholars, and apprentice-boys.
His path took him through meadows, and past high reeds. A long and narrow island, called Reichenau, extended itself in the lake. The towers and cloister-walls were mirrored in the placid waters, and vine-yards, meadows and orchards testified to the industry of the inhabitants. About two hundred years ago, the island was but a barren tract, where damp ground had been inhabited by hideous crawling things, and poisonous snakes. The Austrian Governor Sintlaz however, begged the wandering Bishop Pirminius, to come over, and to pronounce a solemn blessing on the island. Then the snakes went away in great masses, headed by the scolopendras, ear-wigs and scorpions; toads and salamanders bringing up the rear. Nothing could resist the curse which the Bishop had pronounced over them. To the shore, on the spot where afterwards the castle Schopfeln was built, the swarm directed its course, and from thence they fell down into the green floods of the lake; and the fish had a good meal on that day....
From that time the monastery founded by St. Pirmin had thriven and flourished; a hot-bed of monastic erudition, of considerable repute, in German lands.
"Reichenau, emerald isle, thou favourite child of kind nature, Rich with the law of science, and all that is pious and godly, Rich in thy fruit-bearing trees, and the swelling grapes of thy vineyards; Proudly, and fair from the waves, the lily lifts its white petals,-- So that thy praise has e'en reached, the misty land of the Britons."
Thus sang the learned monk Ermenrich already in the days of Ludwig the German, when in his abbey of Ellwangen, he was longing for the glittering waters of the Bodensee.
Ekkehard resolved to pay a visit to this rival of his monastery. On the white sandy shore of Ermatingen, a fisherman was standing in his boat, baling out water. Then Ekkehard pointing with his staff towards the island, said: "Ferry me over there, my good friend."
The monk's habit in those days, generally gave weight to all demands, but the fisherman crossly shook his head and said: "I will not take any more of you over, since you fined me a shilling, at the last session-day."