"I have it! I have it!" he exclaimed joyfully. "That is the Hypericon, or St. John's Wort. It drops blood on St. John's Eve and St. John's Day, and to-morrow will be St. John's Day, and the flower grows abundantly by my garden fence."
Accordingly the next morning he cut a bunch of the St. John's Wort, in which at this time all wonder-power lies, and carried it to the White Stag on the Hagedorn. The stag sprang impetuously forward to meet him, and hardly had he eaten the plants, when the stag took the form of a stately youth, in knightly gold-embroidered doublet, streaming plume in his barret, and baldrick worked in gold and antlers. With beaming countenance and sparkling eyes he embraced the astonished Weidemann, and cried: "Have thanks, thou honest man; thou hast released me, and shalt not go unrewarded. My father, when I return home, will bestow a rich reward on the deliverer of his son. But tell me. I see there only ruins, where once a strong castle raised its towers. Who has destroyed it, and where is the radiant daughter of the Treseburg?"
"Ah, Herr!" replied the herb-gatherer sadly, "so long as I can remember, and my parents and grandparents, no castle has stood there, and neither knight nor maiden has dwelt in its broken walls. Dost thou, then, not know that long centuries have passed since thy enchantment began?"
"Centuries?" cried the young noble in horror.
"Yes, centuries!" exclaimed a scorn-laughing voice, and the Waldfrau stood before them; "that is thy punishment for thy criminal deed. Now go and seek thy lordly family and thy beloved; thou wilt find them mouldering in the vault of the dead.
"Thou mayest find rest, now thy enchantment is broken. But thy punishment is not yet at an end. Every seven years, on this day, thou shalt take the form of my slain White Stag for a single day, and appear on this spot."
With these words the Waldfrau vanished.
The youth shuddered, and said, deeply sighing: "Is it so? Is my age so far in the past? Then truly I have nothing more to find in life. Neither can I find treasures at home to reward thee, honest man. Thou must be contented with my baldrick, all that I can give thee, with God's blessing."
And giving him the baldrick, he walked away and was seen no more.
And sometimes still, on St. John's Day, the White Stag is seen on the Hagedorn, gazing with fixed eyes into the peaceful vale.