Ekkehard: A Tale of the Tenth Century. Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

One figure out of that time had, however, been faithfully kept in his heart's memory; and that was Brother Conrad of Alzey. On him, who was his senior by but a few years, Ekkehard had lavished the affection of a first friendship. Their roads in life afterwards became different; and the days of Lorsch had been forced into the background, by later events. But now, they rose warm and glowing in his thoughts, like some dark hill on a plain, when the morning-sun has cast his first rays on it.

It is with the human mind as with the crust of this old earth of ours. On the alluvion of childhood, new strata heap themselves up, in stormy haste; rocks, ridges and high mountains, which strive to reach up to heaven itself, and the ground on which they stand, is forgotten and covered with ruins.--But like as the stern peaks of the Alps, longingly look down into the valleys, and often, overwhelmed by homesickness, plunge down into the depths from which they rose,--in the same way, memory loves to go back to youth, and digs for the treasures which were left thoughtlessly behind, beside the worthless stones.

So Ekkehard's thoughts now recurred often to his faithful companion. Once more he stood beside him, in the arched pillar-supported hall, and prayed with him beside the mausoleums of the old kings, and the stone coffin of the blind Duke Thassilo. With him, he walked through the shady lanes of the cloister-garden, listening to his words;--and all that Conrad had spoken then, was good and noble, for he looked at the world with a poet's eye, and it was as if flowers must spring up on his way, and birds carol gaily, when his lips opened to utter words, sweeter than honey.

"Look over yonder!" Conrad had once said to his young friend, when they were looking down, over the land, from the parapet of the garden. "There, where the mounds of white sand rise from the green fields, there was once the bed of the river Neckar. Thus, the traces of past generations, run through the fields of their descendants, and 'tis well if these pay them some attention. Here, on the shores of the Rhine, we stand on hallowed ground, and it were time that we set to collecting that, which has grown on it, before the tedious trivium and quadrivium, has killed our appreciation of it."

In the merry holiday-time, Conrad and he had wandered through the Odenwald, where, in a valley, hidden by green drooping birch-trees, they had come to a well. Out of this they drank, and Conrad had said: "bow down thy head, for this is the grove of the dead, and Hagen's beech-tree and Siegfried's well. Here the best of heroes received his death-wound from the spear of the grim Hagen, which entered his back, so that the flowers around were bedewed with the red blood. Yonder, on the Sedelhof, Chriemhildis mourned for her slain husband, until the messengers of the Hunnic king, came to demand the hand of the young widow." And he told him all about the princely castle at Worms, and the treasure of the Nibelungen, and the revenge of Chriemhildis, and Ekkehard listened with sparkling eager eyes.

"Give me thy hand!" he cried, when all was over, to his young friend. "When we have become men, well versed in poetry, then we will erect a monument to the legends of the Rhine. My heart is even now brimful with the material for a mighty song of the prowess of heroes, perils, death and vengeance, and I likewise know the art of the horny Siegfried, how he made himself invulnerable; for though there are no more any dragons to be slain in whose blood one could bathe, everyone, who with a pure heart breathes the mountain air, and bathes his brow in the morning dew, is gifted with the same knowledge. He can hear what the birds are singing in the trees, and what the winds tell of old legends, and he becomes strong and powerful; and if his heart is in the right place, he will write it down for the benefit of others."

Ekkehard had listened with an amazed, half fearful surprise at the other's dashing boldness, and had said at last: "My head is getting quite dizzy, when I listen to thee, and how thou intendest to become another Homerus."

And Conrad had smilingly replied: "Nobody will dare to chant another Iliad after Homer, but the song of the Nibelungen has not yet been sung, and my arm is young and my courage undaunted, and who knows what the course of time may bring."

Another time they were walking together on the shores of the Rhine, and the sun, coming over the Wasgau mountains, was mirrored in the waves, when Conrad said: "For thee I also know a song, which is simple and not too wild, so that it will suit thy disposition; which prefers the notes of a bugle, to the roar of thunder. Look up! Just as to-day, the towers of Worms shone and glistened in the sun, when the hero Waltari of Aquitania, flying from the Hunnic bondage came to Franconia. Here, the ferry-man rowed him over, with his sweetheart and his golden treasure. Through yonder dark, bluish looking wood he then rode, and there was a fighting and tilting, a rattling and clashing of swords and spears, when the knights of Worms, who had gone out in his pursuit, attacked him. But his love and a good conscience made Waltari strong, so that he held out against them all, even against King Gunther and the grim Hagen."

Conrad then told him the whole legend with its details. "Around all large trees," he concluded, "wild, young sprouts shoot up in abundance; and so round the trunk of the Nibelungen a whole thicket has sprung up, out of which he who has got the talent can build up something. Couldst thou not sing the Waltari?"