Whore Brentano sowed, many have reaped. Since the publication of his Godwi, about sixty-five Loreleidichtungen have been written in German, the most important being those by Brentano (1810-16), Niklas Vogt (1811), Eichendorff (ca 1812), Loeben (1821), Heine (1823), Simrock (1837, 1840), Otto Ludwig (1838), Geibel (1834, 1846), W. MUeller von KOenigswinter (1851), Carmen Sylva, (ca 1885), A. L’Arronge (1886), Julius Wolff (1886), and Otto Roquette (1889). In addition to these, the story has been retold many times, with slight alterations of the “original” versions, by compilers of chrestomathies, and parodies have been written on it. There is hardly a conceivable interpretation that has not been placed upon the legend. The Lorelei has been made by some the evil spirit that entices men into hazardous games of chance, by others, she is the lofty incarnation of a desire to live and be blessed with the love that knows no turning away. The story has also wandered to Italy, France, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, and the United States, and the heroine has proved a grateful theme for painters and sculptors. Of the epic works, that by Julius Wolff is of interest because of the popularity it has enjoyed. First published in 1886, it had reached the forty-sixth thousand in 1898. Of the dramas that by L’Arronge should be valuable, but it has apparently never been published; nor has Otto Ludwigs operatic fragment, unless recently. Aside from Geibel, Otto Roquette is the most interesting librettist. Of the forty-odd (there were forty-two in 1898) composers of Heine’s ballad, the greatest are Schumann, Raff, and Liszt, and in this case Friedrich Sucher, who married the ballad to its now undivorceable melody.

Though Brentano created the story of his ballad, he located it in a region rich in legendary material, and it was the echo-motif of which he made especial use, and traces of this can be found in German literature as early as the thirteenth century. The first real poet to borrow from Brentano was Eichendorff, in whose Ahnung und Gegenwart we have the poem since published separately under the title of “WaldgesprAech, and familiar to many through Schumanns composition. That Eichendorff’s Lorelei operates the forest is only to be expected of the author of so many Waldlieder. Even if Heine had known it he could have borrowed nothing from it except the name of his heroine.

As to Loeben’s saga, there can be but little doubt that he derived his initial inspiration from Schreiber, with whom he became intimately acquainted at Heidelberg during the winter of 1807-8. This, of course, is not to say that Heine borrowed from Loeben. Indeed, one of the strongest proofs that Heine borrowed from Schreiber rather than from Loeben is the clarity and brevity, ease and poetry of Schreiber’s saga as over against the obscurity and diffuseness, clumsiness and woodenness of Loeben’s saga, the plot of which, so far as the action is concerned, is as follows: Hugbert von Stahleck, the son of the Palsgrave, falls in love with the Lorelei and rows out in the night to her seat by the Rhine. In landing, he falls into the stream, the Lorelei dives after him and brings him to the surface. The old Palsgrave has, in the meanwhile, sent a knight and two servants to capture the Lorelei. They climb the lofty rock and hang a stone around the enchantress’ neck, when she voluntarily leaps from the cliff into the Rhine below and is drowned.

The one episode in Loeben not found in any of Schreiber’s Rheinsagen is the story of the castaway ring miraculously restored from the stomach of the fish. This Loeben could have taken from “Magelone” by Tieck, or “Polykrates” by Schiller, both of whom he revered as men and with whose works he was thoroughly familiar. But there is nothing in Loeben that Heine could not have derived in more inspiring form from Schreiber; and Schreiber contains essentials not in Loeben at all. Indeed, a general study of Schreibers manuals leads one to believe that the influence of them, as a whole, on Heine would be a most grateful theme: there is not one Germanic legend referred to in Heine that is not contained in Schreiber. And as a prose writer, Heines fame rests largely on his travel pictures.

The points of similarity between Loeben’s ballad and saga and the ballads and MAerchen of Brentano, all of which Loeben knew in 1821, are wholly negligible. It remains, therefore, simply to point out some of the peculiarities of Brentano’s “Loreley” as protrayed in the RheinmAerchen peculiarities that are interesting in themselves and that may have played a part in the development of the legend since 1846.

In “Das MAerchen von dem Rhein und dem MUeller Radlauf," Loreley is portrayed in a sevenfold capacity, as it were: seven archways lead to seven doors that open onto seven stairways that lead to a large hall in which Frau Lureley sits on a sevenfold throne with seven crowns upon her head and her seven daughters around her. This makes interesting reading for children, but Brentano did not lose sight of adults, including those who like to speculate as to the origin of the legend. He says: “Sie [Lorelei] ist eine Tochter der Phantasie, welches eine berUehmte Eigenschaft ist, die bei Erschaffung der Welt mitarbeitete und das Allerbeste dabei that; als sie unter der Arbeit ein schOenes Lied sang, hOerte sie es immer wiederholen und fand endlich den Wiederhall, einen schOenen JUengling in einem Felsen sitzen, mit dem sie sich verheiratete und mit ihm die Frau Lureley erzeugte; sie hatten auch noch viele andere Kinder, zum Beispiel: die Echo, den Akkord, den Reim, deren Nachkommen sich noch auf der Welt herumtreiben.”

Just as Frau Lureley closes the first MAerchen, so does she begin the second: “Von dem Hause Staarenberg und den Ahnen des MUellers Radlauf." Here she creates, or motivates, the other characters. Her seven daughters appear with her, as follows: Herzeleid, Liebesleid, Liebeseid, Liebesneid, Liebesfreud, Reu und Leid, and Mildigkeit. She reappears then with her seven daughters at the close of the MAerchen, and each sings a beautiful song, while Frau Lureley, the mother of Radlauf, proves to be a most beneficent creature. Imaginative as Brentano was, he rarely rose to such heights as in this and the next, “MAerchen vom Murmelthier," in which Frau Lureley continues her great work of love and kindness. She rights all wrongs, rewards the just, corrects the unjust, and leads a most remarkable life whether among the poor on land or in her element in the water. All of which is poles removed from Loeben’s saga, though he knew these MAerchen, for they were written when Brentano was his intimate friend.

As to the importance of Loeben’s saga, Wilhelm Hertz says: “Fast alle jUengeren Dichter knUepfen an seinen Erfindungen an, so besonders die zahlreichen musikdramatischen Bearbeitungen." It is extremely doubtful that this statement is correct. It is plain that many of the lyric writers leaned on Schreiber, and the librettists could have done the same; or they could have derived their initial suggestion in more attractive form than that offered by Loeben. It seems, however, that Geibel knew Loeben’s saga. Though his individual poems on the Lorelei betray the influence of Heine, and though his drama resembles Brentano’s ballad in mood and in unimportant details, it contains the same proper names of persons and places that are found in Loeben. And what is more significant, it contains two important events that are not found in any of the other versions of the saga: the scene with the wine-growers and the story of the castaway ring. The latter is an old theme, but that they both occur in Loeben and in Geibel would argue that the latter took them from the former. It is largely a question as to whether a poet like Geibel has to have a source for everything that is not absolutely abstract. The entire matter is complicated. The paths of the Lorelei have crossed each other many times since Brentano started her on her wanderings. To draw up a map of her complete course, showing just who influenced whom, would be a task more difficult than grateful.

As to Brentanos original ballad, try as we may to depreciate the value of his creation by tracing it back to echo-poetry and by coupling it with older legends, such as that of Frau Holla, we are forced to give him credit for having not simply revived but for having created a legend that is beautiful in itself and that has found a host of imitators, direct and indirect, the world over, including one of the world’s greatest lyric writers. This then is just one of the many things that the German romanticists started; it is just one of their many contributions to the literature that lasts. And for the perpetuation of this one, students of German literature have, it seems, given the obscure Graf von Loeben entirely too much credit. But who will give the oft-scolded Clemens Brentano too little credit? Only those who dislike romanticism on general principles and who will not be convinced that the romanticists could be original.