Duke Henry had the broken-hearted girl—only twenty-three—buried in the garden of the Staufenburg, returned to Court and insisted on a search of the castle. They did search, of course discovering nothing, and the mystery was still impenetrable.
The Duchess Maria died a few months after her rival, and nothing was ever known of the well-guarded secret, until Henry himself betrayed it in his partiality for his favourite son Eitel Henry—Eva's only son and eldest child. The Duke besought the Pope to recognise him as the heir to the ducal throne, offering a heavy bribe. His Holiness consented, the more readily since the Duke's lawful heir, Henry Julius, had become a Protestant.
But Eitel proved himself, as his mother had said, noble in character as in name. He absolutely refused his consent to this injustice, and lived in retirement on the estate Kirchberg, which the Duke had given him, the name of which Eva's children bore. The Kirchbergs, however, soon became extinct.
The learned Duke Henry Julius, founder of a university, never forgot the refusal of his noble illegitimate brother to deprive him of his birthright, and ever remained his warm friend.
There were two castles in the Harz mountains, both of which bore the name of Staufenburg; that near Zorge, an hour and a half from the beautiful ruins of Convent Walkenried. It is said to have been occupied during the Thirty Years' War. When built or by whom destroyed are matters of conjecture. The Staufenburg of our tale is near Gittelde. Some derive the name from the idol Stuvo, or Stuffo, once set up on the mountain. The mountain was so steep that Staufen, or Stufen—steps—were used in climbing it, hence probably the name.
The Weingarten Höhle and the Three Men.
There is perhaps no cave in all Germany concerning which so many legends and traditions are in the mouth of the people as this Weingartenloch.
A plank crosses over a black piece of water from the outer portion of the cave further into the darkness, far from human help and human voices.
The tradition is, that whoever crosses that beam will be given over to the Evil One, who governs there, and sits, between heaps of gold and silver, by a table, with a great book before him, in which he writes the name of every person who approaches him.