Then there is the lion on the roof who could tell a fine tale if he chose; the great banqueting hall and the little chapel.
On the top of the tower is a beautiful cross that is lit up at night by electric light and can be seen from a great distance in the country round. This is of course a modern addition.
But the most interesting room in the castle is that where Dr Martin Luther spent his time translating the Bible. A reward had been offered to anyone who should kill this arch-heretic; so his friends brought him disguised as a knight to the Wartburg, and very few people knew of his whereabouts.
As you look through the latticed windows of that little room, the exquisite blue and purple hills of the Thüringen-Wald stretch away in the distance, and no human habitation is to be seen. There too you may see the famous spot on the wall where Luther threw the inkpot at the devil. To be correct you can see the hole where the ink-stain used to be; for visitors have cut away every trace of the ink, and even portions of the old wooden bedstead. There is the writing-desk with the translation of the Bible, and the remarkable footstool that consisted of the bone of a mammoth.
Those were the days in which a man risked his life for his faith; but they were the days also, we must remember, of witchcraft and magic.
One other story of the Wartburg I must narrate in order to give you some idea of the interest that still surrounds the place, and influences the children who grow up there. It was in the days of the old Emperor Barbarossa (Redbeard).
The sister of the Emperor whose name was Jutta, was married to the Landgraf Ludwig of Thüringen, and they lived at the Wartburg.
One day when Barbarossa came to visit them, he observed that the castle had no outer walls round it, as was usual in those days.
"What a pity," he said, "that such a fine castle should be unprotected by walls and ramparts, it ought to be more strongly fortified."
"Oh," said Landgraf Ludwig, "if that is all the castle needs, it can soon have them."