The Fisherman of Treseburg.
From the windings of the Bode, a huge greenstone rock rises steep and rugged, partially overgrown with the Planta genista, or wild broom, and creeping plants, nearly its entire base being washed by the waves of the clear mountain stream.
On its summit, half hidden by moss and wild thorns, are grey ruins of a castle, of which no trace of its history is left to us save its name—the Treseburg.
At the foot of this massive rock, on the opposite bank of the Bode, stood, nearly two hundred years ago, a small cottage, in which dwelt a poor but good fisherman, who earned but a scanty subsistence from the fruits of his toil.
At that time thousands of strangers did not, as now, visit the sublime rocky valley, to enjoy its wild and savage grandeur, and its trout and merlins, and the poor man, though naturally of a contented mind, often murmured at his poverty.
Also the romantic situation of his cottage satisfied him no longer, and when he looked across the Bode to the mighty rock, and the ruins on its top, all sorts of foolish and ambitious thoughts crowded his mind.
These reflections were all the more bitter since there was a tradition in the village that he himself was a descendant of the ancient Ritter who once ruled in the Treseburg.
And in fancy he pictured the old Schloss in its former state, throned on the proud rock, with giant round tower, and arched entrance gates, and Gothic windows, the battlements covered with soldiers in steel harness, with sword and lance.
Thus he frequently sat hours at a time by his nets, lost in dreams, ever glancing again across to the wild ruins, and wishing the long-vanished centuries back again.