As when a Gryphon through
the wilderness,
With winged course, o’er hill
and moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold: So eagerly
the Fiend
Paradise Lost.
When their collation was ended, Sir
Arthur resumed the account of the mysteries of the
divining-rod, as a subject on which he had formerly
conversed with Dousterswivel. “My friend
Mr. Oldbuck will now be prepared, Mr. Dousterswivel,
to listen with more respect to the stories you have
told us of the late discoveries in Germany by the brethren
of your association.”
“Ah, Sir Arthur, that was not
a thing to speak to those gentlemans, because it is
want of credulity what you call faith that
spoils the great enterprise.”
“At least, however, let my daughter
read the narrative she has taken down of the story
of Martin Waldeck.”
“Ah! that was vary true story but
Miss Wardour, she is so sly and so witty, that she
has made it just like one romance as well
as Goethe or Wieland could have done it, by mine honest
wort.”
“To say the truth, Mr. Dousterswivel,”
answered Miss Wardour, “the romantic predominated
in the legend so much above the probable, that it
was impossible for a lover of fairyland like me to
avoid lending a few touches to make it perfect in
its kind. But here it is, and if you do not incline
to leave this shade till the heat of the day has somewhat
declined, and will have sympathy with my bad composition,
perhaps Sir Arthur or Mr. Oldbuck will read it to
us.”
“Not I,” said Sir Arthur;
“I was never fond of reading aloud.”
“Nor I,” said Oldbuck,
“for I have forgot my spectacles. But here
is Lovel, with sharp eyes and a good voice; for Mr.
Blattergowl, I know, never reads anything, lest he
should be suspected of reading his sermons.”
The task was therefore imposed upon
Lovel, who received, with some trepidation, as Miss
Wardour delivered, with a little embarrassment, a
paper containing the lines traced by that fair hand,
the possession of which he coveted as the highest
blessing the earth could offer to him. But there
was a necessity of suppressing his emotions; and after
glancing over the manuscript, as if to become acquainted
with the character, he collected himself, and read
the company the following tale:
The Fortunes of Martin Waldeck.
The solitudes of the Harz forest in
Germany, but especially the mountains called Blocksberg,
or rather Brockenberg, are the chosen scenes for tales
of witches, demons, and apparitions.
[The outline of this story is taken
from the German, though the Author is at present unable
to say in which of the various collections of the
popular legends in that language the original is to
be found.]
The occupation of the inhabitants,
who are either miners or foresters, is of a kind that
renders them peculiarly prone to superstition, and
the natural phenomena which they witness in pursuit
of their solitary or subterraneous profession, are
often set down by them to the interference of goblins
or the power of magic. Among the various legends
current in that wild country, there is a favourite
one, which supposes the Harz to be haunted by a sort
of tutelar demon, in the shape of a wild man, of huge
stature, his head wreathed with oak leaves, and his
middle cinctured with the same, bearing in his hand
a pine torn up by the roots. It is certain that
many persons profess to have seen such a form traversing,
with huge strides, in a line parallel to their own
course, the opposite ridge of a mountain, when divided
from it by a narrow glen; and indeed the fact of the
apparition is so generally admitted, that modern scepticism
has only found refuge by ascribing it to optical deception.
The shadow of the person who sees
the phantom, being reflected upon a cloud of mist,
like the image of the magic lantern upon a white sheet,
is supposed to have formed the apparition.
In elder times, the intercourse of
the demon with the inhabitants was more familiar,
and, according to the traditions of the Harz, he was
wont, with the caprice usually ascribed to these earth-born
powers, to interfere with the affairs of mortals,
sometimes for their weal, sometimes for their wo.
But it was observed that even his gifts often turned
out, in the long run, fatal to those on whom they were
bestowed, and it was no uncommon thing for the pastors,
in their care of their flocks, to compose long sermons,
the burden whereof was a warning against having any
intercourse, direct or indirect, with the Harz demon.
The fortunes of Martin Waldeck have been often quoted
by the aged to their giddy children, when they were
heard to scoff at a danger which appeared visionary.
A travelling capuchin had possessed
himself of the pulpit of the thatched church at a
little hamlet called Morgenbrodt, lying in the Harz
district, from which he declaimed against the wickedness
of the inhabitants, their communication with fiends,
witches, and fairies, and, in particular, with the
woodland goblin of the Harz. The doctrines of
Luther had already begun to spread among the peasantry
(for the incident is placed under the reign of Charles
V. ), and they laughed to scorn the zeal with which
the venerable man insisted upon his topic. At
length, as his vehemence increased with opposition,
so their opposition rose in proportion to his vehemence.
The inhabitants did not like to hear an accustomed
quiet demon, who had inhabited the Brockenberg for
so many ages, summarily confounded with Baal-peor,
Ashtaroth, and Beelzebub himself, and condemned without
reprieve to the bottomless Tophet. The apprehensions
that the spirit might avenge himself on them for listening
to such an illiberal sentence, added to their national
interest in his behalf. A travelling friar, they
said, that is here to-day and away to-morrow, may
say what he pleases: but it is we, the ancient
and constant inhabitants of the country, that are
left at the mercy of the insulted demon, and must,
of course, pay for all. Under the irritation
occasioned by these reflections, the peasants from
injurious language betook themselves to stones, and
having pebbled the priest pretty handsomely, they
drove him out of the parish to preach against demons
elsewhere.
Three young men, who had been present
and assisting on this occasion were upon their return
to the hut where they carried on the laborious and
mean occupation of preparing charcoal for the smelting
furnaces. On the way, their conversation naturally
turned upon the demon of the Harz and the doctrine
of the capuchin. Max and George Waldeck, the two
elder brothers, although they allowed the language
of the capuchin to have been indiscreet and worthy
of censure, as presuming to determine upon the precise
character and abode of the spirit, yet contended it
was dangerous, in the highest degree, to accept of
his gifts, or hold any communication with him, He
was powerful, they allowed, but wayward and capricious,
and those who had intercourse with him seldom came
to a good end. Did he not give the brave knight,
Ecbert of Rabenwald, that famous black steed, by means
of which he vanquished all the champions at the great
tournament at Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards
precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so
steep and fearful, that neither horse nor man were
ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame Gertrude
Trodden a curious spell for making butter come? and
was she not burnt for a witch by the grand criminal
judge of the Electorate, because she availed herself
of his gift? But these, and many other instances
which they quoted, of mischance and ill-luck ultimately
attending on the apparent benefits conferred by the
Harz spirit, failed to make any impression upon Martin
Waldeck, the youngest of the brothers.
Martin was youthful, rash, and impetuous;
excelling in all the exercises which distinguish a
mountaineer, and brave and undaunted from his familiar
intercourse with the dangers that attend them.
He laughed at the timidity of his brothers. “Tell
me not of such folly,” he said; “the demon
is a good demon he lives among us as if
he were a peasant like ourselves haunts
the lonely crags and recesses of the mountains like
a huntsman or goatherd and he who loves
the Harz forest and its wild scenes cannot be indifferent
to the fate of the hardy children of the soil.
But, if the demon were as malicious as you would make
him, how should he derive power over mortals, who
barely avail themselves of his gifts, without binding
themselves to submit to his pleasure? When you
carry your charcoal to the furnace, is not the money
as good that is paid you by blaspheming Blaize, the
old reprobate overseer, as if you got it from the
pastor himself? It is not the goblins gifts which
can endanger you, then, but it is the use you shall
make of them that you must account for. And were
the demon to appear to me at this moment, and indicate
to me a gold or silver mine, I would begin to dig away
even before his back were turned, and I
would consider myself as under protection of a much
Greater than he, while I made a good use of the wealth
he pointed out to me.”
To this the elder brother replied,
that wealth ill won was seldom well spent; while Martin
presumptuously declared, that the possession of all
the treasures of the Harz would not make the slightest
alteration on his habits, morals, or character.
His brother entreated Martin to talk
less wildly upon the subject, and with some difficulty
contrived to withdraw his attention, by calling it
to the consideration of the approaching boar-chase.
This talk brought them to their hut, a wretched wigwam,
situated upon one side of a wild, narrow, and romantic
dell, in the recesses of the Brockenberg. They
released their sister from attending upon the operation
of charring the wood, which requires constant attention,
and divided among themselves the duty of watching
it by night, according to their custom, one always
waking, while his brothers slept.
Max Waldeck, the eldest, watched during
the first two hours of the night, and was considerably
alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the
glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures
that appeared to wheel around it with antic gestures.
Max at first bethought him of calling up his brothers;
but recollecting the daring character of the youngest,
and finding it impossible to wake the elder without
also disturbing Martin conceiving also
what he saw to be an illusion of the demon, sent perhaps
in consequence of the venturous expressions used by
Martin on the preceding evening, he thought it best
to betake himself to the safeguard of such prayers
as he could murmur over, and to watch in great terror
and annoyance this strange and alarming apparition.
After blazing for some time, the fire faded gradually
away into darkness, and the rest of Max’s watch
was only disturbed by the remembrance of its terrors.
George now occupied the place of Max,
who had retired to rest. The phenomenon of a
huge blazing fire, upon the opposite bank of the glen,
again presented itself to the eye of the watchman.
It was surrounded as before by figures, which, distinguished
by their opaque forms, being between the spectator
and the red glaring light, moved and fluctuated around
it as if engaged in some mystical ceremony. George,
though equally cautious, was of a bolder character
than his elder brother. He resolved to examine
more nearly the object of his wonder; and, accordingly
after crossing the rivulet which divided the glen,
he climbed up the opposite bank, and approached within
an arrow’s flight of the fire, which blazed
apparently with the same fury as when he first witnessed
it.
The appearance, of the assistants
who surrounded it resembled those phantoms which are
seen in a troubled dream, and at once confirmed the
idea he had entertained from the first, that they did
not belong to the human world. Amongst these
strange unearthly forms, George Waldeck distinguished
that of a giant overgrown with hair, holding an uprooted
fir in his hand, with which, from time to time, he
seemed to stir the blazing fire, and having no other
clothing than a wreath of oak leaves around his forehead
and loins. George’s heart sunk within him
at recognising the well-known apparition of the Harz
demon, as he had been often described to him by the
ancient shepherds and huntsmen who had seen his form
traversing the mountains. He turned, and was about
to fly; but upon second thoughts, blaming his own
cowardice, he recited mentally the verse of the Psalmist,
“All good angels, praise the Lord!” which
is in that country supposed powerful as an exorcism,
and turned himself once more towards the place where
he had seen the fire. But it was no longer visible.
The pale moon alone enlightened the
side of the valley; and when George, with trembling
steps, a moist brow, and hair bristling upright under
his collier’s cap, came to the spot on which
the fire had been so lately visible, marked as it
was by a scathed oak-tree, there appeared not on the
heath the slightest vestiges of what he had seen.
The moss and wild flowers were unscorched, and the
branches of the oak-tree, which had so lately appeared
enveloped in wreaths of flame and smoke, were moist
with the dews of midnight.
George returned to his hut with trembling
steps, and, arguing like his elder brother, resolved
to say nothing of what he had seen, lest he should
awake in Martin that daring curiosity which he almost
deemed to be allied with impiety.
It was now Martin’s turn to
watch. The household cock had given his first
summons, and the night was well-nigh spent. Upon
examining the state of the furnace in which the wood
was deposited in order to its being coked or charred,
he was surprised to find that the fire had not been
sufficiently maintained; for in his excursion and its
consequences, George had forgot the principal object
of his watch. Martin’s first thought was
to call up the slumberers; but observing that both
his brothers slept unwontedly deep and heavily, he
respected their repose, and set himself to supply
the furnace with fuel without requiring their aid.
What he heaped upon it was apparently damp and unfit
for the purpose, for the fire seemed rather to decay
than revive. Martin next went to collect some
boughs from a stack which had been carefully cut and
dried for this purpose; but, when he returned, he found
the fire totally extinguished. This was a serious
evil, and threatened them with loss of their trade
for more than one day. The vexed and mortified
watchman set about to strike a light in order to rekindle
the fire but the tinder was moist, and his labour
proved in this respect also ineffectual. He was
now about to call up his brothers, for circumstances
seemed to be pressing, when flashes of light glimmered
not only through the window, but through every crevice
of the rudely built hut, and summoned him to behold
the same apparition which had before alarmed the successive
watches of his brethren. His first idea was, that
the Muhllerhaussers, their rivals in trade, and with
whom they had had many quarrels, might have encroached
upon their bounds for the purpose of pirating their
wood; and he resolved to awake his brothers, and be
revenged on them for their audacity. But a short
reflection and observation on the gestures and manner
of those who seemed to “work in the fire,”
induced him to dismiss this belief, and although rather
sceptical in such matters, to conclude that what he
saw was a supernatural phenomenon. “But
be they men or fiends,” said the undaunted forester,
“that busy themselves yonder with such fantastical
rites and gestures, I will go and demand a light to
rekindle our furnace.” He, relinquished
at the same time the idea of awaking his brethren.
There was a belief that such adventures as he was
about to undertake were accessible only to one person
at a time; he feared also that his brothers, in their
scrupulous timidity, might interfere to prevent his
pursuing the investigation he had resolved to commence;
and, therefore, snatching his boar-spear from the
wall, the undaunted Martin Waldeck set forth on the
adventure alone.
With the same success as his brother
George, but with courage far superior, Martin crossed
the brook, ascended the hill, and approached so near
the ghostly assembly, that he could recognise, in the
presiding figure, the attributes of the Harz demon.
A cold shuddering assailed him for the first time
in his life; but the recollection that he had at a
distance dared and even courted the intercourse which
was now about to take place, confirmed his staggering
courage; and pride supplying what he wanted in resolution,
he advanced with tolerable firmness towards the fire,
the figures which surrounded it appearing still more
wild, fantastical, and supernatural, the more near
he approached to the assembly. He was received
with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural laughter,
which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than
a combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds
that could be imagined. “Who art thou?”
said the giant, compressing his savage and exaggerated
features into a sort of forced gravity, while they
were occasionally agitated by the convulsion of the
laughter which he seemed to suppress.
“Martin Waldeck, the forester,”
answered the hardy youth; “and who
are you?”
“The King of the Waste and of
the Mine,” answered the spectre; “and
why hast thou dared to encroach on my mysteries?”
“I came in search of light to
rekindle my fire,” answered Martin, hardily,
and then resolutely asked in his turn, “What
mysteries are those that you celebrate here?”
“We celebrate,” answered
the complaisant demon, “the wedding of Hermes
with the Black Dragon But take thy fire
that thou camest to seek, and begone! no mortal may
look upon us and live.”
The peasant struck his spear-point
into a large piece of blazing wood, which he heaved
up with some difficulty, and then turned round to regain
his hut, the shouts of laughter being renewed behind
him with treble violence, and ringing far down the
narrow valley. When Martin returned to the hut,
his first care, however much astonished with what he
had seen, was to dispose the kindled coal among the
fuel so as might best light the fire of his furnace;
but after many efforts, and all exertions of bellows
and fire-prong, the coal he had brought from the demon’s
fire became totally extinct without kindling any of
the others. He turned about, and observed the
fire still blazing on the hill, although those who
had been busied around it had disappeared. As
he conceived the spectre had been jesting with him,
he gave way to the natural hardihood of his temper,
and, determining to see the adventure to an end, resumed
the road to the fire, from which, unopposed by the
demon, he brought off in the same manner a blazing
piece of charcoal, but still without being able to
succeed in lighting his fire. Impunity having
increased his rashness, he resolved upon a third experiment,
and was as successful as before in reaching the fire;
but when he had again appropriated a piece of burning
coal, and had turned to depart, he heard the harsh
and supernatural voice which had before accosted him,
pronounce these words, “Dare not return hither
a fourth time!”
The attempt to kindle the fire with
this last coal having proved as ineffectual as on
the former occasions, Martin relinquished the hopeless
attempt, and flung himself on his bed of leaves, resolving
to delay till the next morning the communication of
his supernatural adventure to his brothers. He
was awakened from a heavy sleep into which he had sunk,
from fatigue of body and agitation of mind, by loud
exclamations of surprise and joy. His brothers,
astonished at finding the fire extinguished when they
awoke, had proceeded to arrange the fuel in order
to renew it, when they found in the ashes three huge
metallic masses, which their skill (for most of the
peasants in the Harz are practical mineralogists)
immediately ascertained to be pure gold.
It was some damp upon their joyful
congratulations when they learned from Martin the
mode in which he had obtained this treasure, to which
their own experience of the nocturnal vision induced
them to give full credit. But they were unable
to resist the temptation of sharing in their brother’s
wealth. Taking now upon him as head of the house,
Martin Waldeck bought lands and forests, built a castle,
obtained a patent of nobility, and, greatly to the
indignation of the ancient aristocracy of the neighbourhood,
was invested with all the privileges of a man of family.
His courage in public war, as well as in private feuds,
together with the number of retainers whom he kept
in pay, sustained him for some time against the odium
which was excited by his sudden elevation, and the
arrogance of his pretensions.
And now it was seen in the instance
of Martin Waldeck, as it has been in that of many
others, how little mortals can foresee the effect of
sudden prosperity on their own disposition. The
evil propensities in his nature, which poverty had
checked and repressed, ripened and bore their unhallowed
fruit under the influence of temptation and the means
of indulgence. As Deep calls unto Deep, one bad
passion awakened another the fiend of avarice invoked
that of pride, and pride was to be supported by cruelty
and oppression. Waldeck’s character, always
bold and daring but rendered harsh and assuming by
prosperity, soon made him odious, not to the nobles
only, but likewise to the lower ranks, who saw, with
double dislike, the oppressive rights of the feudal
nobility of the empire so remorselessly exercised
by one who had risen from the very dregs of the people.
His adventure, although carefully concealed, began
likewise to be whispered abroad, and the clergy already
stigmatized as a wizard and accomplice of fiends, the
wretch, who, having acquired so huge a treasure in
so strange a manner, had not sought to sanctify it
by dedicating a considerable portion to the use of
the church. Surrounded by enemies, public and
private, tormented by a thousand feuds, and threatened
by the church with excommunication, Martin Waldeck,
or, as we must now call him, the Baron von Waldeck,
often regretted bitterly the labours and sports of
his unenvied poverty. But his courage failed
him not under all these difficulties, and seemed rather
to augment in proportion to the danger which darkened
around him, until an accident precipitated his fall.
A proclamation by the reigning Duke
of Brunswick had invited to a solemn tournament all
German nobles of free and honourable descent; and Martin
Waldeck, splendidly armed, accompanied by his two brothers,
and a gallantly-equipped retinue, had the arrogance
to appear among the chivalry of the province, and
demand permission to enter the lists. This was
considered as filling up the measure of his presumption.
A thousand voices exclaimed, “We will have no
cinder-sifter mingle in our games of chivalry.”
Irritated to frenzy, Martin drew his sword and hewed
down the herald, who, in compliance with the general
outcry, opposed his entry into the lists. An
hundred swords were unsheathed to avenge what was in
those days regarded as a crime only inferior to sacrilege
or regicide. Waldeck, after defending himself
like a lion, was seized, tried on the spot by the
judges of the lists, and condemned, as the appropriate
punishment for breaking the peace of his sovereign,
and violating the sacred person of a herald-at-arms,
to have his right hand struck from his body, to be
ignominiously deprived of the honour of nobility, of
which he was unworthy, and to be expelled from the
city. When he had been stripped of his arms,
and sustained the mutilation imposed by this severe
sentence, the unhappy victim of ambition was abandoned
to the rabble, who followed him with threats and outcries
levelled alternately against the necromancer and oppressor,
which at length ended in violence. His brothers
(for his retinue were fled and dispersed) at length
succeeded in rescuing him from the hands of the populace,
when, satiated with cruelty, they had left him half
dead through loss of blood, and through the outrages
he had sustained. They were not permitted, such
was the ingenious cruelty of their enemies, to make
use of any other means of removing him, excepting
such a collier’s cart as they had themselves
formerly used, in which they deposited their brother
on a truss of straw, scarcely expecting to reach any
place of shelter ere death should release him from
his misery.
When the Waldecks, journeying in this
miserable manner, had approached the verge of their
native country, in a hollow way, between two mountains,
they perceived a figure advancing towards them, which
at first sight seemed to be an aged man. But
as he approached, his limbs and stature increased,
the cloak fell from his shoulders, his pilgrim’s
staff was changed into an uprooted pine-tree, and the
gigantic figure of the Harz demon passed before them
in his terrors. When he came opposite to the
cart which contained the miserable Waldeck, his huge
features dilated into a grin of unutterable contempt
and malignity, as he asked the sufferer, “How
like you the fire my coals have kindled?” The
power of motion, which terror suspended in his two
brothers, seemed to be restored to Martin by the energy
of his courage. He raised himself on the cart,
bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at
the spectre with a ghastly look of hate and defiance.
The goblin vanished with his usual tremendous and
explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this
effort of expiring nature.
The terrified brethren turned their
vehicle toward the towers of a convent, which arose
in a wood of pine-trees beside the road. They
were charitably received by a bare-footed and long-bearded
capuchin, and Martin survived only to complete the
first confession he had made since the day of his
sudden prosperity, and to receive absolution from the
very priest whom, precisely on that day three years,
he had assisted to pelt out of the hamlet of Morgenbrodt.
The three years of precarious prosperity were supposed
to have a mysterious correspondence with the number
of his visits to the spectral fire upon the bill.
The body of Martin Waldeck was interred
in the convent where he expired, in which his brothers,
having assumed the habit of the order, lived and died
in the performance of acts of charity and devotion.
His lands, to which no one asserted any claim, lay
waste until they were reassumed by the emperor as
a lapsed fief, and the ruins of the castle, which Waldeck
had called by his own name, are still shunned by the
miner and forester as haunted by evil spirits.
Thus were the miseries attendant upon wealth, hastily
attained and ill employed, exemplified in the fortunes
of Martin Waldeck.