The ruins of the castle which once proudly dominated the hill-top speak of a past when the lords of Bogen were possessors of the country north of the Danube from the Regen to the Ilz and far up into Bohemia; when they were welcomed as allies, and feared as enemies, by the monarchs of near-by principalities. In the Middle Ages there seem to have been periods of terrible lawlessness in the various German states, and the nobles whose castled homes were perched on the crags bordering the great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, appear to have been some of the most lawless people of the time. “The terms noble and robber were synonymous, and the higher the rank the more lawless and rapacious were the deeds of the titled ruffian. The castle of Bogen was admirably adapted for a bandit’s hold. Seated upon the apex of a pyramidical rock, inaccessible but by one narrow pass on its eastern side, which a handful of determined men might keep against a host, and commanding a view over nearly half the dukedom of Bavaria, its lawless lord watched from its battlements, like a vulture, the approach of his unsuspecting prey, and, pouncing upon it, bore it up in triumph to his mountain aerie, where he feasted at his leisure in security.” The miraculous arrival of the stone figure of the Virgin at Bogen made the Count of that day repent somewhat of his evil ways and, possibly on receiving a hint as to the best way of cancelling some of his sins, presented this castle on the Bogenberg to the monks of Ober-Altaich; having done what they would on the earth, it may have appeared prudent to seek to ensure a comfortable reception in heaven.
The Counts of Bogen seem to have married women well fitted to be their mates, if we may judge by the story that is told of the mother of the last of these nobles—the family became extinct about the middle of the thirteenth century. This lady was Ludmilla, a Bohemian princess, who had married Count Albert the Third of Bogen. After the death of her husband, Duke Louis the Second of Bavaria heard so much about Ludmilla that he offered her marriage, but, like a shrewd man, knowing the unveracity of Rumour, and her sister Report, he made the offer conditional upon his liking her when they became personally acquainted. In other words he expressed a desire to meet the Countess “with a view to matrimony.” The lady agreed to the terms, and duly received her ducal visitor and prospective suitor. Doubtful as to the impression that she had really made upon him, and suspicious of the sincerity of her wooer, she one day, in seeming playfulness, suggested that they should plight their troth in the tapestried chamber in which they happened to be, and that the three knights figured in the tapestry might be regarded as witnesses. The Duke, unsuspecting any trick, humoured the apparently playful widow, and took the oath required of him—and on the instant three living knights stepped out from behind the hangings, and compelled him to ratify his pledge! Had Duke Louis but suspected that there was a “a rat i’ the arras,” the story might have had another ending.
A little beyond Bogen the Danube trends in a southerly direction, and once more the hills of the Wald recede for a time, though after a few miles the stream turns again towards the mountains, the wooded heights of which are never many miles away from the left bank. Among the villages along the banks, Wischelburg is worthy of mention as being the modern representative of the Roman Bisonium destroyed by Attila and his Huns. As the river nears Deggendorf, there is on the right bank the Natternberg, an isolated hill nearly three hundred feet above the river, and notable as the first hill of any size that has broken the plain for many miles—eighty, says one stickler for the definite—on that side of the river. The great mass of granite certainly seems to belong more fittingly to the north side, and if geologists fail to explain its state of splendid isolation on the south, folk-lore is more resourceful. The legend runs that the devil, having a grudge against the too-good people of Deggendorf, brought this little hill all the way from Italy for the purpose of destroying the town. Having reached the south side of the Danube with his burden, he heard the ringing of the Ave Maria bell at the monastery on the other side of the river, and so was compelled to drop it just short of the mark.[5] On the top of the Natternberg are the ruins of an old castle, never restored after its destruction by the triumphing Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War.
Another similar legend of this part of the Danube concerns a large flotilla carrying crusaders towards the Holy Land, a sight which so enraged the devil “that he plucked up rocks from the neighbouring cliffs, and pitched them right into the channel of the river, thereby hoping to arrest their progress. But in this he was completely deceived; for after the first rock came plunging down amongst them, every man made the sign of the cross, and uniting their voices in a holy anthem, the fiend was instantly paralysed, and slunk away without further resistance. So huge, however, was the first stone which he threw, that for ages it caused a swirl and swell in this part of the river, which nothing but the skill and perseverance of Bavarian engineers could remove.”
At the river-side foot of the Natternberg, is the village of Fischerdorf, and across the stream, beautifully situated, is Deggendorf, backed, as it were, by terraced hills, each semicircle rising higher than that in front. These mountains of the Bayerischer Wald, which rise at their highest to nearly five thousand feet, are still largely covered with forests in which pine and beech are the preponderating trees.
Kloster-Metten, the ringing of the bells at which caused the devil to drop the Natternberg, and so saved Deggendorf from destruction, is on the left bank where the Unternbach joins the Danube. The monastery owes its origin, says legendary lore, to the following series of strange occurrences. A herdsman, belonging to the village of Michaelbuch, Gamelbert by name, having been sleeping for some time under a tree, awakened to find that a book was lying on his breast. This book was written in English, of which language the simple herdsman was, of course, wholly ignorant, but, nevertheless, he at once began reading it, and, reading it, was so greatly edified, that abandoning his simple labour as herdsman, he journeyed to Rome and became a priest. On his way he baptized a boy named Utto, desiring that when he became a man the lad should seek him out. This in due time Utto did, when Gamelbert made him priest of Michaelbuch; but Utto did not care for his new task, and so, deserting his flock, he crossed the river and wandered into the woods, and there—close to a spring since known as Utto’s spring—built a hermitage which he dedicated to the Archangel Michael.
It came to pass that the mighty Emperor Charlemagne hunting in the neighbourhood discovered the holy hermit engaged in the curious whim of hanging his axe upon a sunbeam! Astonished greatly by what he saw, and recognizing in it proof of Utto’s holiness, the emperor offered to grant the hermit any request that he might prefer. Utto asked that a convent might be built, and Kloster-Metten was in due course erected in fulfilment of Charlemagne’s promise. Those who are inclined to be sceptical can see the monastery, can visit the spring and the little church of Uttobrunn near by! If these do not persuade them of the truth of the legend, they will, at least, readily admit that the beautiful wooded hills hereabouts, and the delightful mountain streams, form an appropriate setting for the mediæval story.
Deggendorf has the usual tale to tell of suffering during wars, indeed it suffered more than some of its neighbours, for not only was it partly destroyed by the Swedes, but much of what the enemy spared fire destroyed a few years later—including all the town records. But some good old buildings, including the Rathaus and a fourteenth century pilgrimage church escaped destruction. This church is said to date from the year 1337, when a woman and some Jews were concerned in stealing and insulting the Host. Their efforts to destroy the consecrated wafer, by eating, by hammering on an anvil, and other means were miraculously frustrated; and when they flung it down a well, the well was immediately surrounded by a nimbus. However the story arose, the fanatical passions of the populace were aroused against the Jews, and a horrible indiscriminate massacre of those people took place, after which the miraculously preserved wafer was solemnly taken back to the church from which it had been stolen. The massacre took place on the day after that dedicated to St. Michael and a century and a half later the Pope issued a Bull giving general absolution to those who paid a Michaelmas pilgrimage to the Gnaden-Kirche or Church of Grace. In consequence of that, many thousands of pilgrims annually visited—and I believe still visit—Deggendorf. A hundred years ago the pilgrims on one occasion are said to have numbered fifty thousand.
Near to this pleasant old town of unpleasant memories are a number of “bergs” offering easy climbs and magnificent views up and down the Danube and over the Bayerischer and Böhmer Wälder. Indeed there are not wanting enthusiasts who regard this as one of the most beautiful bits of the beautiful river. One feels so often tempted to say this while at a “bit” which is specially pleasing that such a summing up has really but little value. Beautiful indeed is much of the journey between here and Passau—to say nothing of the further beauties beyond—but to pick out the best would be difficult.
Just below Deggendorf, comes in on the right another of those sixty navigable tributaries which, as Gibbon pointed out, go to swell the volume of the mighty river. This is the Isar, the river on which, some eighty miles away, stands Munich. Across the level land about the Isar’s many mouths may be seen the spires of the old market town of Plattling—the last town upon that river. It is inevitable, when mentioning the Isar, that one should think of Campbell’s “Hohenlinden,” with its opening verse—