Then Audifax drew closer to her and whispered mysteriously. "The holy man has after all got the right God."
"Why so?" asked Hadumoth. He ran away to his chamber where, hidden in the straw of his mattress, were a number of different stones. He took out one of these and brought it to her.
"Look here," he said. It was a piece of grey mica-slate, containing the remains of a fish; the delicate outlines of which, were clearly visible. "That's what I have found at the foot of the Schiener mountain, when I went to look for the goat. That must come from the great flood, which Father Vincentius, once preached about; and this flood, the Lord of Heaven and Earth sent over the world, when he told Noah to build the big ship. Of all this, the woman of the wood knows nothing."
Hadumoth became thoughtful. "Then it must be her fault, that the stars did not fall into our lap. Let us go and complain of her, to the holy man."
So they went to Ekkehard, and told him all that they had beheld that night on the Hohenkrähen. He listened kindly to their tale, which he repeated to the Duchess in the evening. Dame Hadwig smiled.
"They have a peculiar taste, my faithful subjects," said she. "Everywhere handsome churches have been erected, in which the Gospel is preached to them. Fine church-music, great festivals and processions through the waving corn-fields, with cross and flag at their head,--all this does not content them. So they must needs sit on their mountaintops in cold, chilly nights, not understanding what they're about, except that they drink beer. 'Tis really wonderful. What do you think of the matter, pious Master Ekkehard?"
"It is superstition," replied he, "which, the Evil One sows in weak and rebellions hearts. I have read in our books about the doings of the heathens, how they perform their idolatrous rites in dark woods; by lonely wells and even at the graves of their dead."
"But they are no longer heathens," said Dame Hadwig. "They are all baptized and belong to some parish-church. But nevertheless some of the old traditions still live among them; and though these have lost their meaning, they yet run through their thoughts and actions, as the Rhine does in winter, flowing noiselessly on, under the icy cover of the Bodensee. What would you do with them?"
"Annihilate them," said Ekkehard. "He who forsakes his christian faith and breaks the vows of his baptism, shall be eternally damned."
"Not so fast, my young zealot!" continued Dame Hadwig. "My good Hegau people are not to lose their heads, because they prefer sitting on the cold top of the Hohenkrähen, on the first night of November, to lying on their straw-mattresses. For all that, they do their duties well enough, and fought under Charlemagne against the heathenish Saxons, as if everyone of them had been a chosen combatant of the Church itself."