This castle is also said to owe its name—“Greif-an-den-Stein”—to the fact that the hill on which it stands was at one time the haunt of a griffin, the marks of the talons of which can still be found in the rocks by those who regard seeing as necessary to believing. But the griffin is not the only tradition of this beautifully situated place, for it has the great distinction of being doubly haunted—by an “old white woman” and by one of the first of the lords of Greifenstein who, early in the eleventh century, “sware a dreadful oath.” The story of the first of these ghosts haunting the castle is told by Planché, who says that it arose owing to the fact that a châtelaine of the place, the Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, was given to devoting herself to the cure of the sick, and was so generally successful that the very people whom she had benefited at length suspected her of possessing an unholy supernatural power, and so on her death, having received all the good they could at her hands, the peasants accused her posthumously of witchcraft, and declared that her ghost haunted the place of demoniacally inspired benefactions!
The second ghost story about this castle on the edge of the Wiener Wald is a long one, but deserves remembering for its romantic elements, and may best be given here in the words of Planché:
“As early as the eleventh century the lords of Greifenstein were famed and feared throughout Germany. One of the first knights who bore that name, lost his lady soon after she had presented him with a daughter, who received the name of Etelina. The dying mother painfully aware how little attention would be paid to the education of a female by a rude and reckless father, half knight, half freebooter, however fond he might be of his child, had recommended her infant, with her last breath, to the care of a kind and pious monk, the chaplain of the castle; and under his affectionate guidance, the pretty playful girl gradually ripened into the beautiful and accomplished woman. Sir Reinhard of Greifenstein, though stern, turbulent, and unlettered himself, was, nevertheless, sensible to the charms and intelligence of his daughter; and often as he parted her fair hair and kissed her ivory forehead, before he mounted the steed or entered the bark, that waited to bear him to the hunt or the battle, a feeling of which he was both proud and ashamed would moisten his eye and subdue a voice naturally harsh and grating, into a tone almost of tenderness. On his return, weary and sullen, from a fruitless chase or a baffled enterprise, the song of Etelina could banish the frown from his brow, when even the wine-cup had been thrust untasted away, and the favourite hound beaten for a mistimed gambol. So fair a flower, even in the solitary castle of Greifenstein, was not likely to bloom unknown or unsought. The fame of Etelina’s beauty spread throughout the land. Many a noble knight shouted her name as his bright sword flashed from the scabbard, and many a gentle squire fought less for his gilt spurs, than for the smile of Etelina. The minstrel who sang her praises had aye the richest largess, and the little footpage who could tell where she might be met with in the summer’s twilight, clinging to the arm of the silver-haired chaplain, might reckon on a link of his master’s chain of gold for every word he uttered. But the powerful and the wealthy sighed at her feet in vain—she did not scorn them, for so harsh a feeling was unknown to the gentle Etelina. Nay, she even wept over the blighted hopes of some, whose fervent passion deserved a better fate; but her heart was no longer hers to give. She had fixed her affections upon the poor but noble Rudolph and the lovers awaited impatiently some turn of fortune which would enable them to proclaim their attachment without fear of the anger and opposition of Sir Reinhard, who was considerably annoyed by Etelina’s rejection of many of the richest Counts and Barons of Germany.
“Business of importance summoned the old Knight to the Court of the Emperor. His absence, prolonged from month to month, afforded frequent opportunities of meeting to the lovers; and the venerable monk, on whom the entire charge of the castle and its inhabitants had devolved at Sir Reinhard’s departure, was one evening struck dumb with terror, by the confession which circumstances at length extorted from the lips of Etelina! Recovered from the first shock, however, his affection for his darling pupil seemed only increased, by the peril into which passion had plunged her. In the chapel of the castle, he secretly bestowed the nuptial benediction upon the imprudent pair, and counselled their immediate flight, and concealment, till his prayers and tears should wring forgiveness and consent from Sir Reinhard, who was now on his return home, accompanied by a wealthy nobleman, on whom he had determined to bestow the hand of his daughter. Scarcely had Rudolph and Etelina reached the cavern in the neighbouring wilderness, selected for their retreat by the devoted old man, who had furnished them with provisions, a lamp and some oil, promising to supply them from time to time with the means of existence, as occasions should present themselves, when the rocks of the Danube rang with the well known blast of Sir Reinhard’s trumpet, and a broad banner lazily unfolding itself to the morning breeze, displayed to the sight of the wakeful warden the two red griffins rampant in a field vert, the blazon of the far feared Lords of Greifenstein. In a few moments the old Knight was galloping over the drawbridge, followed by his intended son-in-law.
“The clatter of their horses’ hoofs struck upon the heart of the conscious chaplain, as though the animals themselves were trampling on his bosom; but he summoned up his resolution, and relying on his sacred character, met his master with a firm step and a calm eye, in the hall of the castle. Evading a direct answer to the first enquiry for Etelina, he gradually and cautiously informed Sir Reinhard of her love, her marriage, and her flight. Astonishment for a short space held the old warrior spell-bound, but when his gathered fury at last found vent, the wrath of the whirlwind was less terrible. He seized the poor old monk by the throat, and upon his firm refusal to reveal the retreat of the culprits, dashed him to the earth, had him bound hand and foot, and flung into a pit beneath an iron grating in the floor of the donjon or keep of the castle. Tearing, like an infuriated Pasha, ‘his very beard for ire,’ he called down curses on Etelina and her husband, and prayed that, if ever he forgave them, a dreadful and sudden death might overtake him on the spot where he should revoke the malediction he now uttered! Upwards of a year had elapsed when, one winter day, the Knight of Greifenstein, pursuing the chase, lost his way in the mazes of a wilderness on the banks of the Danube. A savage-looking being, half clothed in skins, conducted him to a cavern, in which a woman similarly attired was seated on the ground, with an infant on her knees, and greedily gnawing the bones of a wolf—Sir Reinhard recognised in the squalid form before him his once beautiful Etelina. Shocked to the soul at the sight of the misery to which his severity had reduced her, he silently motioned to the huntsmen, who came straggling in upon his track to remove the wretched pair and their poor little offspring to the castle. Moved by the smiles of his innocent and unconscious grandchild he clasped his repentant daughter to his bosom, as she recrossed the threshold, bore her up into the banquet hall, and consigning her to the arms of her faithful Rudolph, hastened down again to release with his own hands the true-hearted monk, who still languished in captivity. In descending the steep staircase his foot slipped, and he was precipitated to the bottom—his fall was unseen—his cry was unheard—dying, he dragged himself a few paces along the pavement, and expired upon the very spot where he had just embraced and forgiven his daughter. Rudolph, now Lord of Greifenstein, restored the chaplain to liberty, and lived long and happily with his beloved Etelina; but the spirit of Sir Reinhard to this day wanders about the ruins of his ancestral castle, and will continue so to do till the stone whereon he expired shall be worn in twain. ‘Alas! poor ghost!’ the very slight hollow which is at present perceivable in it, affords you little hope of its division by fair means previously to the general ‘crack of doom.’”
Such is the romantic story attaching to this square-towered old ruin picturesquely set on the summit of a tree-grown hill. The view from the storied place is a peculiarly beautiful one—over the extensive Tullner Feld, up the broad Danube, and across the archipelago of islands formed by the branching of the river. But a short journey from Vienna, it is small wonder that this is a popular point for holiday makers to seek. Beyond Greifenstein the river sweeps in a southerly curve round the hills, and inland on the left, on a hill, but hidden by trees is the interesting castle of Kreuzenstein—a place which was destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War, but which has been fully restored by a modern owner, and filled with old furniture and weapons, so that it appears handsomely suggestive of what the many castle ruins we see in a journey down the river must have looked like in the days of their prosperity. Crenellated and machicolated this renewed old castle, with its towers and its great walls shows to us how great must have been the strength of such places, well provisioned, in days when bows and pikes were the principal weapons of warfare.
Beyond, almost opposite each other, we reach Korneuburg and Klosterneuburg. Korneuburg on the left, with a handsome old fifteenth century tower, is near the foot of the Bisamberg—the hills here nearing the river on this bank, too, for a brief time. The name of the vine-grown hill is accounted for thus: “Am Bisamberg floss in allers Zeiten de Donau Vorbei, daher sei der Name—Bis am Berg.”
Korneuburg, like Krems and Deggendorf, was the scene of a massacre of the Jews in the fourteenth century, and like so many of the towns we glance at as we come down the Danube, saw much of siege and battle in the good old days; being twice besieged by the conquering Matthias Corvinus, and in the Thirty Years’ War being captured and garrisoned by the Swedes. Here, in 1462, the Emperor Frederick the Fourth met his rescuer, the great Bohemian King George Podiebrad, after the latter monarch had brought an army to his assistance. And that that help came only just in time may be gathered from the fact that the Emperor was closely besieged in the citadel of Vienna with only two hundred men.
Klosterneuburg, on the right bank backed by the Kahlenberg, owes its name to the great Augustine monastery, rebuilt in the seventeenth century, the oldest and wealthiest of the monasteries belonging to this Order in Austria. This Kloster is standing evidence in stone of the truth that great events from small occasions spring, for its establishment on this spot is said to have been the result of a mere puff of wind. In the chronicles of the monks themselves the story of the origin of the place is thus presented: The Margrave, Leopold the Fourth—or Leopold the Holy—having erected a new family fortress, on the summit of Mons Cetius (now the Leopoldsberg), was sitting one evening at the window of his hall, musing on the passing events of his time—on the fate of the old emperor whom he had abandoned—and visited, perhaps, with compunctious feelings as he bethought him of his own sinful course. At his side sat his beloved spouse, the Margravine Agnes; and while they were talking over the religious topics of the day—the endowment of monasteries, the purchase of masses, and the powerful efficacy of good works in quieting the upbraidings of conscience, Leopold expressed an earnest desire to promote the glory of God by raising a sumptuous altar, and surrounding it by holy men, who should there serve Him night and day. But among the number of inviting spots which there met the eye, he could not decide which was the most eligible for the building in contemplation. Thus perplexed in his choice, he appealed to his wife; and just as she leant forward to take a more minute survey of the adjacent country, a gentle breeze, suddenly rising, fluttered for an instant amidst her flowing ringlets, and then, lifting her veil, carried it away—no one knew whither. For some days subsequent to this incident, strict search was made for the veil, but without effect. It could neither be recovered by threats of punishment nor promises of reward.
During the three months ensuing, affairs of state diverted the mind of Leopold from his pious purpose. But one day, while engaged in his favourite pastime of boar hunting, he entered a thicket of alder trees on the verge of the river, and there, to his astonishment, his steed would not take one step further, but, defying both whip and spur, dropped upon his haunches, and lastly falling upon his knees, brought his noble rider to the ground. Starting to his feet in a princely passion, and winding the small horn that hung at his belt, Leopold would have dealt very summarily with the obstinate quadruped; but, turning round to address his retainers, who now rushed forward to their chief, he suddenly observed the identical veil of his wife, which had been so mysteriously carried off three months before! Leopold had always been a very piously given prince—but now that the finger of Providence was so clearly manifested his devotion became intense; and the same day it was determined that the tree on which the veil had been deposited by angelic hands, should be enclosed in a magnificent temple. Faithful to his vow, a spacious area was soon cleared, and in the course of three years, the monastery and monks of Klosterneuburg became the admiration of architects, and the theme of pious exaltation among all the faithful. The alder tree which had preserved the mysterious veil, was cased in gold and consigned to precious immortality; and in their religious processions branches of that sacred tree were usually carried in triumph, or woven into trophies and suspended over the altar. The fair Margravine, not to be outdone even by her husband in acts of piety, founded a nunnery at a commodious distance from the monastery, so that, by occasional intercourse, these holy friars and maidens might, without scandal or inconvenience, promote each other’s spiritual welfare, and leave a bright example of mortification and self-denial—“under the veil.”[11]