Another story associating the Evil One in the days of the Emperor Henry the Third, with this part of the river is told by John Aventinus, the sixteenth century annalist of Bavaria: “The Emperor departed from Regensburg and came by water to Passau: there he tarried during the Passion week, and till the holy feast of the Ascension. The next day after which, he again took water, and journeyed into lower Bavaria as Austria was then called. There is a town in Austria by name Grein; near this town is a perilous place in the Danube called the Strudel by Stockerau.[8] There doth one hear the water rushing far and wide, so falls it over the rocks with a great foam, which is very dangerous to pass through, and brings the vessel into a whirlpool rolling round about. The Emperor Henry went down through the Strudel; in another vessel was Bruno, Bishop of Wartzburg, the Emperor’s kinsman, and as the Bishop was passing also through the Strudel, there sat upon a rock that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out and said to Bishop Bruno, ‘Hear! Hear! Bishop! I am thine evil spirit! Thou art mine own, go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine, yet now I will do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again.’ All who heard this were terrified. The bishop crossed and blessed himself, said a few prayers, and the spirit vanished. This rock is shewn to this day; upon it is built a small tower all of stone, without any wood: it has no roof, and is called the Devil’s Tower.” Thus far the credulous chronicler Aventinus. The tragic sequel to this demoniac threat we shall learn a little further down the Danube.
These waters, so long the terror and wonder of those who used the river, have, as I have indicated, been greatly tamed by the removal of the obstructing rocks, but there were not wanting people who regarded the dangers as greatly exaggerated. The German traveller, Riesbeck, did so, as we saw a little earlier, but the traditional dangers long sufficed as an excuse for dwellers on the bank, and boatmen, too, to secure “tips” from passengers journeying down the river. The custom still obtained when Planché took his trip, for he says that as soon as the Wirbel was passed a boat put off from the village of St. Nikola and paddled alongside, when a man held out a box bearing a figure of the saint, that a few coins might be dropped in as a thank-offering for saintly protection during the passage of the dangerous reach. On board the regular passage boats—the Ordinari—which preceded the steamers, too, money was collected by the steersmen as soon as the Wirbel was astern, “and another ceremony likewise takes place, something similar to that customary on board a ship when passing the Line. The steersman goes round with the wooden scoop or shovel with which they wet the ropes that bind the paddles to their uprights, filled with water; and those who have never before passed through the Strudel and the Wirbel must either pay or be well soused with the element, the perils of which they have just escaped.” Was there no clamouring for compensation, no indignation at interfering with the vested interests of the tip-gathers, when the obstructing rocks were cleared away? At any rate, the passenger by steamer over these troubled but no longer terrible waters is not called upon for backshish or thank-offering. That the waters are troubled no one who passes over them will deny, for as the steamer passes over the Strudel we are—or imagine that we are—conscious of a distinct change in the level as we go over the “fall.”
As even those who take a more or less hurried journey along the Danube should make a stay, however short, in this neighbourhood, I will take up the story of the shore from Grein. Leaving that pleasant town by the road cut along the foot of the cliff, we get, looking back from the opposite corner of the “bay” which the bending river here forms, a picturesque view of the Coburg castle above the town, and the timber-grown hill to the left. The road is here cut along the very rock which in bold crags towers above our heads, while on the further side of the river are densely wooded hills. At the corner we are directly above the swirling waters of the Greiner-schwall, and after a pleasant walk of about a mile come opposite the western end of the Wörth island, with a capital view of the wooded rock surmounted by its cross, and on the left bank of the river the boldly perched ruins of the castle of Struden or Werfenstein. Before reaching these, however, we pass the opening of a narrow valley—the “Stillenstein Klamm,” which, before we have been long in Grein, is known to be one of the special view-places of the neighbourhood.
From this valley, beneath the high viaduct of the new railway which spans it just before it reaches the Danube, comes a small hurrying brook, the course of which should be followed by any lover of woodlands and water. Passing the mill that stands a little way up the valley, we may follow a path that keeps fairly close to the stream for two or three miles up to the very point where it emerges from beneath the Stillenstein itself—a great mass of rock, with a couple of pine trees growing on it, which has fallen at some immemorial period and got wedged between the opposite rocky sides of the valley. From the black cavern under this rock the stream emerges, at once as a cascade; and as an almost continuous series of cascades it continues all the way to the great river to which it adds its contribution. Here and there are pools in which many trout are to be seen “staying their wavy bodies against the stream.” The principal “fall” is where the water has got imprisoned between great rocks and falls over in a wedge-like shape, a mass of foaming white. The mountains rise steeply on either side as we pass up the “Klamm,” clothed from the very water’s edge—their boughs almost intermingling above it in places—with beech and pine and other trees. About the great grey boulders of rock are a profusion of ferns and mosses: the whole is like the beauty of some Devonshire lane and stream raised to the nth—a kind of lyric loveliness that uplifts and gladdens, where the grandeur of the great river to which the stream is hurrying has something rather of epic sweep and solemnity.
Returning to the bank of the Danube we pass below the ruined castle and through the small village of Struden, the road narrowing considerably between quaintly picturesque houses. Beyond Struden we come abreast of the old Wirbel of many terrors, but the rock which formed it has gone, and a great gilt inscription on the face of the cliff above us is its chief memorial:—
“KAISER FRANZ JOSEF
befriete die Schiffahrt von den Gefahren im
DONAU—WIRBEL
durch Sprengung der Hausstein Isel
1853-1866.”
Beneath this inscription is a tiny chapel on the inner side walls of which are a couple of inscriptions concerning the clearing of the river channel; the one surmounted by a view of the Hausstein island, the other by a plan of this part of the river before the improvements were carried out. A little beyond we reach the village of St. Nikola, the slender tower of its church rising picturesquely above the roofs of its houses, set amid trees and backed by the wooded mountains. Here comes in another mountain stream inviting to inland excursion. It is not surprising to learn that this is a favourite centre for artists, seeing that it is not only beautiful in itself but a centre from which many other varied beauties are to be reached. In this walk along the left bank, as one enthusiast has put it, the tourist may enjoy the scenery in all its perfection: “Castles, rocks, rapids, beetling precipices, romantic cliffs, and mountains, whose sweeping forests descend to the water’s edge, present themselves to his eye under every variety of combination—often compelling him to halt till he has paid again and again his tribute of admiration.”
ST. NIKOLA