Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine

by Lewis Spence

Liba entered a convent, and a few years later she herself passed away, and was buried by the side of her husband.

The Mouse Tower

Bishop Hatto is a figure equally well known to history and tradition, though, curiously enough, receiving a much rougher handling from the latter than the former. History relates that Hatto was Archbishop of Mainz in the tenth century, being the second of his name to occupy that see. As a ruler he was firm, zealous, and upright, if somewhat ambitious and high-handed, and his term of office was marked by a civic peace not always experienced in those times. So much for history. According to tradition, Hatto was a stony-hearted oppressor of the poor, permitting nothing to stand in the way of the attainment of his own selfish ends, and several wild legends exhibit him in a peculiarly unfavourable light.

By far the most popular of these traditions is that which deals with the Mäuseturm, or ‘Mouse Tower,’ situated on a small island in the Rhine near Bingen. It has never been quite decided whether the name was bestowed because of the legend, or whether the legend arose on account of the name, and it seems at least probable that the tale is of considerably later date than the tenth century. Some authorities regard the word Mäuseturm as a corruption of Mauth-turm, a ‘toll-tower,’ a probable but prosaic interpretation. Much more interesting is the name ‘Mouse Tower,’ which gives point to the tragic tale of Bishop Hatto’s fate. The story cannot be better told than in the words of Southey, who has immortalized it in the following ballad:

THE TRADITION OF BISHOP HATTO
The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet;
’Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.
Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door,
For he had a plentiful last-year’s store,
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnished well.
At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.
Rejoiced such tidings good to hear,
The poor folk flocked from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.
Then when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn and burnt them all.
“I’ faith, ’tis an excellent bonfire!” quoth he,
“And the country is greatly obliged to me
For ridding it in these times forlorn
Of rats that only consume the corn.”
So then to his palace returnèd he,
And he sat down to supper merrily;
And he slept that night like an innocent man,
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.
In the morning as he enter’d the hall
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all over him came,
For the rats had eaten it out of the frame.
As he looked there came a man from his farm,
He had a countenance white with alarm;
“My lord, I opened your granaries this morn,
And the rats had eaten all your corn.”
Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be;
“Fly, my Lord Bishop, fly!” quoth he,
“Ten thousand rats are coming this way—
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!”
“I’ll go to my tower on the Rhine,” replied he,
“’Tis the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong and the water deep.”
Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away,
And he crossed the Rhine without delay,
And reached his tower, and barred with care
All windows, doors, and loop-holes there.
He laid him down and closed his eyes;—
But soon a scream made him arise,
He started and saw two eyes of flame
On his pillow from whence the screaming came.
He listened and looked—it was only the cat;
But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that,
For she sat screaming, mad with fear,
At the army of rats that were drawing near.
For they have swum over the river so deep,
And they have climbed the shores so steep,
And up the tower their way is bent,
To do the work for which they were sent.
They are not to be told by the dozen or score,
By thousands they come, and by myriads and more,
Such numbers had never been heard of before,
Such a judgment had never been witnessed of yore.
Down on his knees the Bishop fell,
And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder, drawing near,
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear.
And in at the windows and in at the door,
And through the walls helter-skelter they pour,
And down through the ceiling, and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below,
And all at once to the Bishop they go.
They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop’s bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him.

A Legend of Ehrenfels

Many other tales are told to illustrate Hatto’s cruelty and treachery. Facing the Mouse Tower, on the opposite bank of the Rhine, stands the castle of Ehrenfels, the scene of another of his ignoble deeds.

Conrad, brother of the Emperor Ludwig, had, it is said, been seized and imprisoned in Ehrenfels by the Franconian lord of that tower, Adalbert by name. It was the fortune of war, and Ludwig in turn gathered a small force and hastened to his brother’s assistance. His attempts to storm the castle, however, were vain; the stronghold and its garrison stood firm. Ludwig was minded to give up the struggle for the time being, and would have done so, indeed, but for the intervention of his friend and adviser, Bishop Hatto.

“Leave him to me,” said the crafty Churchman. “I know how to deal with him.”

Ludwig was curious to know how his adviser proposed to get the better of Adalbert, whom he knew of old to be a man of courage and resource, but ill-disposed toward the reigning monarch. So the Bishop unfolded his scheme, to which Ludwig, with whom honour was not an outstanding feature, gave his entire approval.