From Bingen to Coblenz, a distance of about forty miles, the gorge of the Rhine is continuous and we are never out of sight of the vine-covered hills and frequent ruins. Nearly all the ruined castles of Germany center here and we see fit matches for Caerphilly, Richmond or Kenilworth in Britain. In this hurried chronicle I cannot even mention all of these picturesque and often imposing ruins, though a few may be chosen as typical.
CASTLE RHEINSTEIN
A short distance from Bingen is Rheinstein, originally built about 1270 and recently restored by Prince Henry as one of his summer residences, though he has visited it, the custodian tells us, but once in two years. A wearisome climb is necessary to reach the castle, which is some two hundred and fifty feet above the road where we leave our car. The mediaeval architecture and furnishings are carried out as closely as possible in the restoration, giving a good idea of the life and state of the old-time barons. There is also an important collection of armor and antiquities relating to German history.
In this same vicinity is Ehrenfels, which has stood in ruin nearly three hundred years. Its towers still stand, proud and threatening, though the residential portions are much shattered. Opposite this ruin, on a small island in the river, is the curious “Mouse Tower,” where, legend asserts, a cruel archbishop was once besieged and finally devoured by an army of mice and rats, a judgment for causing a number of poor people to be burned in order to get rid of them during a famine. But as the bishop lived about 915 and the tower was built some three hundred years later, his connection with it is certainly mythical and let us hope the rest of the story has no better foundation. The old name, Mausturm (arsenal), no doubt suggested the fiction to some early chronicler.
The castles of Sonneck and Falkenburg, dating from the eleventh century, surmount the heights a little farther on our way. These were strongholds of robber-barons who in the middle ages preyed upon the river-borne traffic—their exploits forming the burden of many a ballad and tale. These gentry came to their just deserts about 1300 at the hands of Prince Rudolph, who consigned them to the gallows and destroyed their castles. Sonneck is still in ruins, but Falkenburg has been restored and is now private property.
Almost every foot of the Rhine Gorge boasts of some supernatural or heroic tale—as myth-makers the Germans were not behind their contemporaries. We pass the Devil’s Ladder, where the fiend once aided an ancient knight—no doubt on the score of personal friendship—to scale the perpendicular cliff to gain the hand of a “ladye fair.” A little farther are the Lorelei Rocks, where the sirens enticed the sailors to destruction in the rapids just below. Quite as unfortunate were the seven virgins of Schonburg, who for their prudery were transformed into seven rocky pinnacles not far from the Lorelei—and so on ad infinitum.
