The herdsman shook his head. "Writing! that confounded writing," he growled. "Well 'tis none of my business; and I trow that the high Säntis will still be looking down on our grand-children and great-grandchildren, without their knowing how to guide pen or lead-pencil; for I shall never believe that writing will do a man any good. Man, if he wants to be God's likeness, must walk upright on both his feet, whilst he who wants to write, must sit down with a bent and crooked back. So now I ask you whether that is not just the contrary of how God would have if? Consequently it must be an invention of the Devil. Therefore mountain-brother,--mind what you are about. And whenever you try that trick again, and I find you cowering down like a marmot in your cavern, and writing, thunder and lightning, then I will exercise my power as Master of the Alps, and I will tear up your parchment-leaves into little bits, so that the wind will scatter them amongst the fir-trees below! Up here, everything has to be orderly and simple, and I tell you once for all, that we will have nothing to do with new-fangled things!"
"I promise not to do it again," said Ekkehard laughing and holding out his hand.
The brave Master of the Alps had grown warm over the red wine from Sennwald.
"Thunder and lightning!" he continued. "What after all is the meaning, of writing down a song? 'Tis mere foolery! There! Try and write that down if you can." And with these words he began to sing some Alpine "Jodler" in such rough, unmodulated sounds, that even the sharpest ear would have found some difficulty in discovering a note which could have been rendered by word or writing.
At the same hour, in a vine-clad summerhouse of the Bishop's garden at Passau on the Danube, a man, in the first bloom of manhood, was sitting before a stone table. An indescribable subtle expression played round his lips, half hidden by an ample brown beard, whilst luxurious curls fell down from under his velvet cap. His dark eyes followed the characters which his right hand was tracing on a parchment roll. Two fair-haired boys were standing beside his armchair; curiously peeping over his shoulder. Many a parchment-leaf was already covered with the recital of tempests and battles, and the bloody deaths of valiant heroes,--and he was now approaching the end. And before long, he laid aside his pen, and took a long and solemn draught of Hungarian wine, out of a pointed goblet.
"Is it done?" asked one of the boys.
"Yes, 'tis all finished," said the writer, "how it began, and how it came, and how it ended with sorrow and shame!"
He held out the manuscript to him, and the boys ran away jubilant, to their uncle, Bishop Pilgerim, and showed it to him. "And thou art in it also, dear uncle," they cried. "'The Bishop with his niece, to Passau then did go.' Twice thou art in it,--and here again a third time!"
Pilgerim the Bishop, then stroked his white beard and said: "Ye may well rejoice, my dear nephews, that Conrad has written down this tale for you; and let me tell you that if the Danube streamed with gold for three entire days and nights, ye might not fish up anything more precious than that song, which contains the greatest history the world ever saw."