Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe

by S. Baring-Gould

That the outlaw and he who has dropped out of the ranks of ordered social life, and he who seeks to prey on civilised society should naturally, instinctively, make the cave his home, is what we might expect. He is reverting to the habits of early man whose hand was against every man.

In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," the outlaws are presented as living in a cave. The robbers in "Gil Blas" had their lair also in one.

One of the finest and most pathetic of Icelandic Sagas is the history of Grettir the Outlaw, who was born in 997, and killed by his enemies in 1031. He spent nineteen years in outlawry in Iceland, and outlawry there in that terrible climate, with no house to cover his head, would seem an ordeal impossible for human endurance. Between the autumn of 1022 and the spring of 1024, that is to say during two winters, he lived in a cave in the west of the island. A steep shale slide was below a cliff, and above this a hollow in the rock. He built up the mouth of the cave, and hung grey wadmal before the entrance, so that none below could notice anything peculiar, or any one living there. Whatever fuel he wanted, all he had to eat, everything he needed, had to be carried up this slippery ascent by him. Down the shale slide he went when short of provisions, and over the marshes to this or that farm and demanded or carried off, sometimes a sheep, sometimes curds, dried fish—in a word what he required.

In the summer of 1862 a very similar lair which Grettir inhabited a little later in the east of Iceland was explored by a farmer living near. This is his description of it: "The lair stands in the upper part of a slip of stones beneath some sheer rocks. It is built up of stones, straight as a line, four and three-quarter ells long and ten inches wide, and is within the walls seven-eighths of an ell deep. Half of it is roofed over with flat stones; small splinters of stone are wedged in between these to fill up the joints, and these are so firmly fixed that they could not be removed without tools. One stone in the south wall is so large that it would require six men to move it. The north wall is beginning to give way. On the outside the walls are overgrown with black lichen and grey moss."

A chapman spending the winter in a farm hard by, named Gisli the Dandy, heard that a price of nine marks of silver was placed on the head of Grettir. "Let me but catch him," said he, "and I will dress his skin for him."

The outlaw heard of this threat, and one day looking down from his rock he saw a man with two attendants riding along the highway. His kirtle was scarlet, and his helmet and shield flashed in the sun. It occurred to Grettir that this must be the dandy, and he at once ran down the slide of stones, clapped his hand on a bundle of clothes behind the saddle, and said, "This I am going to take." Gisli, for it was he, got off his horse, and called on his men to attack Grettir. But the latter soon perceived that the chapman kept behind his servants, and never risked himself where the blows fell; so he put the two thralls aside and went direct upon the merchant, who turned and took to his heels. Grettir pursued him, and Gisli, in his fear, threw aside his shield, then away went his helmet, and lastly a heavy purse of silver attached to his girdle. Presently the flying man came to a bed of old lava full of cracks. He leaped the fissures and reached a river that flowed beyond. There he halted, unable to make up his mind to risk a plunge into it, and that allowed Grettir to run in on him and throw him down.

"Keep my saddle-bags and what I have thrown away," pleaded the fallen man, "only spare my life." "There must be a little skin-dressing done first," answered Grettir. Then he took a good handful of birch rods from the wood, pulled Gisli's clothes up over his head, and laid the twigs against his back in none of the gentlest fashion. Gisli danced and skipped about, but Grettir had him by his garments twisted about his head, and contrived to flog till the fellow threw himself down on the ground screaming. Then Grettir let go, and went quietly back to his lair, picking up as he went the purse and the belt, the shield, casque, and whatsoever else Gisli had thrown away. Also he retained the contents of his saddle-bags. [Footnote: "Grettir Saga," Copenh. 1859. "Grettir the Outlaw," Lond. 1890.]

At Dunterton, on the Devon side of the Tamar, is a headland of rock and wood projecting above the river, and in this is a cave. In or about 1780 there was a man, the terror of the neighbourhood, who lived in this cave, but that he was there was unknown. He was wont to "burgle" the houses of the gentry round, and his favourite method of proceeding was to get on the roof and descend the chimneys, which in those days were wide. In my hall chimney was, till I removed it, an apparatus fitted with sharp spikes upward to impale the burglar should he attempt to get into the house that way. In the house of a neighbouring squire a funnel was made into which he might drop, and from which he could not escape. He was finally discovered by Colonel Kelly, when drawing the wood with his hounds; as the cave was held to be the den of the ogre, it was looked upon with fear, and was also long the lair of smugglers.

Perhaps the latest cave-dwelling criminal was Carl Friedrich Masch, who before his execution confessed to having committed twelve murders and to having attempted several more. This man carried on this warfare against society from 1856 to 1864, that is to say for eight years, in Prussia. His presence in the district was always suspected rather than ascertained, by the numerous cases of arson, burglary, and robbery, as well as by murders and murderous attacks. One of his worst crimes was the butchery of a whole family, a miller, his wife, three children, aged respectively twelve, ten, and five, and a young servant-maid in 1861. In vain were large rewards offered for the capture of Masch; if he had confederates they were not bribed to betray him, and the police were powerless to trace him. Even soldiers were called out to search the forests, but all in vain, and he was not captured till 1864 when he was arrested when tipsy in the street of Frankfurt on the Oder, and then it was not till some hours later that it was discovered he had but just committed a fresh murder.

In March 1858 a miller named Ebel went into the Pyritz forest near Soldin, along with his servant-man to fetch away firewood he had purchased. After having laden his wagon he sent it home under the conduct of his man, and remained behind among the trees. He looked about among the bushes to find a suitable branch that he could cut to serve as a walking-stick. Whilst thus engaged he came on some rising ground overgrown with young birch, and on the slope of the hill not more than 200 paces from the much-frequented highroad he noticed a spot where the snow was beaten hard, as if it had been the lair of a wild beast. To get a better sight of this, Ebel parted the bushes and came closer. Then he was aware of a patch of dried leaves uncovered by snow. Unable to account for this, he stirred the leaves with his recently cut stick, and to his surprise saw them slide down into the earth as into a funnel. More puzzled than ever he began to examine the locality, when he noticed that the ground under his feet sounded hollow, and that there was hard by a second and larger hole. As he stood staring at this, suddenly a cudgel appeared followed by the white face of a man with black hair and beard and dark piercing eyes, rising out of the ground. For a moment Ebel stood paralysed with terror, and then, as the man was heaving himself to the surface, he beat a hasty retreat.