Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace

by Wilhelm Hauff

The raftsmen on the other side of the forest also aroused his envy. When these giants came over among the glass-makers, dressed in their elegant clothes, wearing at least fifty pounds of silver in buttons, buckles, and chains, when they looked on at a dance, with legs spread wide apart, swore in Dutch, and smoked pipes from Cologne three feet long in the stem, just like any distinguished Mynheer--then was Peter convinced that such a raftsman was the very picture of a lucky man. And when these fortunate beings put their hands into their pockets and drew out whole handfuls of thalers and shook for half a-dozen at a throw--five guldens here, ten there--then he would nearly lose his senses, and would steal home to his hut in a very melancholy mood. On many holiday nights he had seen one or another of these timber merchants lose more at play than his poor father had ever been able to earn in a year.

Distinguished above all others were three of these men and Peter was uncertain which one of them was most wonderful. One was a large heavy man, with a red face, who passed for the richest man of them all. He was called Stout Ezekiel. He went down to Amsterdam twice a year with timber, and always had the good fortune to sell it at so much higher a price than others could sell theirs, that he could afford to ride back home in good style, while the others had to return on foot. The second man of the trio was the lankest and leanest person in the whole forest, and was called Slim Schlurker. Peter envied him for his audacity; he contradicted the most respectable people, occupied more room when the inn was crowded than four of the stoutest, either by spreading his elbows out on the table, or by stretching his legs out on the bench, and yet no one dared to interfere with him, for he had an enormous amount of money. But the third was a handsome young man, who was the best dancer far and wide, and had, therefore, received the title of King of the Ball. He had been a poor boy, and had been a servant to one of the lumber dealers, when he suddenly became very rich. Some said that he had found a pot of gold under an old pine tree, others asserted that he had fished up a packet of gold pieces near Bingen on the Rhine, with the pole with which the raftsmen sometimes speared for fish; and that the packet was part of the great Nibelungen treasure that lies buried there. In short, he had suddenly become a rich man, and was looked upon by young and old with the respect due a prince. Charcoal Pete often thought of these three men, as he sat so lonely in the forest of pines. It is true that all three had a common failing that made them hated by the people; this was their inhuman avarice--their utter lack of sympathy for the poor and unfortunate; for the inhabitants of the Black Forest are a kind-hearted people. But you know how it goes in the world; if they were hated on account of their avarice, they yet commanded deference by virtue of their money; for who but they could throw away thalers as if one had only to shake them down from the pines?

"I won't stand this much longer," said Peter, dejectedly, to himself one day; for the day before had been a holiday, and all the people had been down to the inn. "If I don't make a strike pretty soon, I shall make away with myself. Oh, if I were only as rich and respectable as the Stout Ezekiel, or so bold and mighty as the Slim Schlurker, or as famous and as well able to throw thalers to the fiddlers as the King of the Ball! Where can the fellow get his money?" He thought over all the ways by which one could make money, but none of them suited him. Finally there occurred to him the traditions of people who had become rich through the aid of Dutch Michel and the Little Glass-Man. During his father's life-time, other poor people often came to visit them, and Peter had heard them talk by the hour of rich people and of the way their riches were acquired. The name of the Little Glass-Man was often mentioned in these conversations, as one who had helped these rich men to their wealth; and Peter could almost remember the verse that had to be spoken at the Tannenbuehl in the centre of the forest in order to summon him. It ran thus:

"Schatzhauser im grünen Tannenwald,

Bis schon viel' hundert Jahre alt,

Dir gehört all' Land wo Tannen stehn--"

But strain his memory as he would, he could not recall another line. He often debated within himself whether he should not ask this or that old man what the rest of the rhyme was, but was held back by a certain dread of betraying his thoughts--and then, too, the tradition of the Glass-Man could not be very widely known, and the rhyme must be known to but very few, for there were not many rich people in the forest; and, strangest of all, why had not his father and the other poor people tried their luck? He finally led his mother into speaking about the Little Glass-Man; but she only told him what he knew before, and knew only the first line of the rhyme, although she did add afterwards that the spirit only showed himself to people who were born on a Sunday between eleven and two o'clock. In that respect, she told him, he would fill the requirements, if he could only remember the verse; as he was born on a Sunday noon.

When Charcoal Pete heard this, he was almost beside himself with joy at the thought of undertaking this adventure. It appeared to him sufficient that he knew a part of the verse, and that he was born on a Sunday; so he thought that the Glass-Man would appear to him. Therefore, after he had sold his charcoal one day, he did not kindle any more fires, but put on his father's best jacket, his new red stockings and his Sunday hat, grasped his black-thorn cane, and bade good-bye to his mother, saying: "I must go to town on business; we shall soon have to draw lots again to see who shall serve in the army, and I will once more call the justice's attention to the fact that I am the only son of a widow."

His mother commended his resolution, and he started off for Tannenbuehl. The Tannenbuehl lies on the highest point of the Black Forest; and within a radius of a two-hours' walk, not a village nor even a hut was to be found, for the superstitious people held the Tannenbuehl to be an unsafe place. And tall and splendid as were the trees in this region, they were now but seldom disturbed by the woodman's ax; for often when the wood-choppers had ventured in there to work, the axes had flown from the helves and cut them in the foot, or the trees had fallen unexpectedly before they could get out of the way, and had killed and injured many. Then, too, these magnificent trees could only be sold for firewood, as the raftsmen would never take a single log from this locality into their rafts, for the tradition was current among them that both men and rafts would come to grief if they were to do so. Therefore, it was that the trees of the Tannenbuehl had been left to grow so thick and tall that it was almost as dark as night there on the clearest day; and Peter Muck began to feel rather timid there, for he heard not a voice, not a step save his own, not even the ring of an ax, while even the birds appeared to shun these dark shadows.