As they gave each other a parting embrace, Lina could not tear herself from her lover's arms, and cried, "O Father in heaven! give me strength in this parting hour, and forgive me if my love is sin; but if it is not sin, bless our union."
"Bless our union!" repeated Lindor. At this moment the Abbess with her nuns came forward, when lo, a flash of lightning lit up the darkness; the lovers stood in a sea of dazzling light; it seemed to them they saw heaven open. Arm-in-arm, struck by the stroke, they sank lifeless to the ground. Almost unhurt in appearance, they found them under the lindens, heavenly joy painted on their faces, and there they made their grave.
The terrified Abbess had scarcely sprung back into the convent when a stream of fire, after a terrific thunder-clap, dashed the building to ruins, out of which arose a pillar of dust and flame.
Only a few of the nuns were rescued. The Abbess and her plotting nuns were found awfully disfigured; and now, it is said, the Abbess appears in form of a serpent every seven years near the grave under the lindens.
Legends of the Regenstein.
Who that has visited the romantic Harz has not climbed the lordly sandstone mountain, the Reinstein, wondered at its vast chambers hewn in solid rock, and gazed in silent rapture on a prospect more beautiful than that from the Brocken?
In the year 479, according to the chroniclers, the sharp contest between the tribes of Thuringia and the Sassen[[1]] took place for the possession of the Harz mountains. McIverich, King of Thuringia, with his army thirsting for war, crossed the mountains to repulse the Sassen then dwelling on the north borders of the Harz.
[[1]]Saxons.
Near Wernigerode a bloody battle was fought, in which the Thuringians were defeated, and five thousand left dead on the field.