The Berggeist now tormented his unhappy daughter every hour to give up her husband. But her love for Romar only increased, and her father in his insane rage seized the child, broke it in pieces on the rocks, cursed and swore because he could not take the same measures with his mother, created with a wave of his hand the cave, the Weingarten Höhle, banished her into it, and left her with a laugh of scorn.
Banished into the earth, shut up in a cave, the entrance guarded by malicious cobolds, the wretched Ruma sought to reach Romar, and a succession of cavings in proves her efforts to set herself free; but her watchful father always thrust her back into the depths of the earth.
At last, after long years, she succeeded, by a subterranean way, in escaping from her father's dominions, as a full stream to spring into the light of day, and at a time when he, by the decree of an inscrutable destiny, had been attacked by a sort of torpor, she reached her old residence, the Nymph's lake, and was reunited to her faithful husband.
The river which springs from the mountain on the border of the Gyps mountains is called, in honour of the faithful, loving nymph, the Ruma. Still its waters redden with the blood of her innocent child.
The cliffs of the ruinated Giant Castle wear mourning still, and bear the name of the hero, the Romerstein, or Romar's rock.
Legend of the Schildberg.
Not far from the Lautenthal there existed in the pre-historic times the Schloss Schiltberg, or Schildberg, of whose builders, destroyers, and history we know next to nothing. All we know is that the Kaiser Frederic I., in war against Henry the Lion, took the castle in 1180.
On the rugged, precipitous rocks stand the ruins of a dilapidated tower, now half veiled by clouds and mists, now echoing the roar of the savage tempest.
Beneath, in the still valley, is a half-sunken grave, and a weeping willow spreads sadly her branches over it. Above, on the wild rocks, once stood a strong castle, whose walls hid many a deed of horror and crime. Below, in the peaceful vale, there was a small, simple hermitage, where an old hermit had dwelt alone long years.