Page 120.--[May drink], or May wine, a favourite drink in Germany for the spring-time, made by steeping the leaves of woodroof in the light white wine of the country, and sweetening it with sugar. It is an old custom prevailing already in the 16th century, when the woodroof was added to the wine not only to cheer the heart with its fine aroma, but also for medicinal purposes, as acting on the liver.
Page 135.--[Albbruck], a place above Laufenburg on the Rhine, at the mouth of the little river Alb, the valley of which is the most beautiful in the Schwarzwald. Formerly there were here quite important ironworks.
Page 151.--["E'en a common Flemish blacksmith.]" Quentin Massys (1466-1530), a celebrated Flemish painter, said to have been originally a blacksmith. While such, he fell in love, and in order to gain the maiden's consent as well as her father's (who was an artist) he forsook his trade, devoted himself to painting, and became a great master in his art. On the tombstone which his admirers placed on his grave a hundred years after his death, stands the Latin hexameter:
Connubialis amor ex mulcibre fecit Apellem!
Page 152.--[The Gnome's cave] (Die Erdmannshöhle), a stalactite cave near the village of Hasel (whence the cave is called also Haselhöhle), between Wehr and Schopfheim. It can be reached from the former by a walk of half an hour, and is often visited with guides. The first cave, which one reaches through a low passage, is 13 feet high, the next contains a small lake. There is also a little river rushing along under steps, over which one walks. The cave contains, like all caves of this kind, most fantastic stalactite structures, which popular fancy has called the organ, the chancel, the skeleton, &c. Some columns when struck give out tones which sound as thirds. The most interesting part of the cave is called Die Fürstengruft (The Prince's Sepulchre), a large room, 16 feet high, with a stalactite structure resembling a large coffin. Popular superstition has from times immemorial made this cave the haunt of gnomes.
Page 169.--The ancient county of [ Hauenstein] lies between two spurs of the Feldberg, the eastern one coming down to the town of Waldshut on the Rhine, the western one to Säkkingen. It is also called Hozzenland (see note to page 15). The early history of the country is somewhat obscure until the time of the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg, when it acknowledged the sovereignty of Austria. In the times of the fight for the German throne between Albrecht of Austria and Adolphe of Nassau, and between Frederick the Beautiful and Ludwig of Bavaria, when Suabia was without a duke and Germany without an emperor, the different villages of the country founded a union (Einung) for their protection. There is still in existence such a union document drawn up in the year 1433. The entire union was divided into eight smaller ones, each of which stood under an elected leader (Einungsmeister). All these eight leaders elected one of their body as speaker (Redmann), who held the leadership of the entire union. By this the Hauenstein peasants were greatly protected in their ancient rights; still the oppression of the Austrian governors (Waldvoegte) often incited revolutions, the most important of which occurred during the Peasants' War in 1525. Others lasted from 1589 to 1614, arising from an impost laid on wine. The poet introduces such a rising here in the course of his story.
Page 206.--[The Fuggers are an Augsburg family], who, by their linen-trade and weaving, and afterwards by the purchase of mines in Austria, amassed an enormous fortune, and were raised to the rank of nobles by the Emperor Maximilian. The family attained their greatest splendour under the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, at the time of the Diet at Augsburg, raised the two brothers then living to the rank of counts.
Page 235.--[Katzenjammer], literally translated, cats' misery, the vulgar German expression for the indisposition after a drunken debauch.
Page 255.--[Parcival], written by Wolfram von Eschenbach about the year 1200. Theuerdank, a German poem of the 16th century. See note to page 85.
Page 277.--"[As at Strasburg on the bulwarks]." The Swiss soldier refers here to a popular song: