The Monk and the Spring.
It was at Whitsuntide of the year 1292, as tradition tells us, that the town council of the free, imperial Möhlhausen issued a proclamation, that whoever could discover and conduct a spring into the upper town, which suffered much from fires through want of water, should be richly rewarded; and in case he had committed a crime, he should be pardoned.
At that time a monk of Kloster Reifenstein sat in the dungeon of the Rabenthurm[[1]]—now called the Adlerthurm[[2]]—-under sentence of death.
[[1]] Rabenthurm—raven tower.
[[2]] Adlerthurm—eagle tower.
In the days of his freedom, when he had gone on affairs concerning his convent from Pfaffenrode to St. Daniel, he had often seen a spring among the hills.
The proclamation of the council penetrated to his criminal cell, and he recalled this spring to his memory, and felt a wild longing through it to regain his freedom.
But the spring bubbled up in a deep valley, and a long chain of hills lay between it and the town.
And the monk thought and studied, for before his soul stood the fragrant dishes of his convent and the costly wines, as attractive as the fleshpots of Egypt to the Jews; but with this vision stood the hangman, hand-in-hand with the impossibility of moving this spring through these hills, grinning in diabolical glee. He tossed restless on his bed of straw, longing for the dawn.
Now he sank into an uneasy slumber, disturbed by the most frightful dreams. The Rabenthurm seemed to quake and tremble, he heard distant thunder, and saw the glare of the lightning.