[Pg 164]
[Pg 165]

Beside the stream of Gerlach, and at the foot of the Glockenberg, in the Hartz Mountains, there is a deep pit, and here—so the country-folk tell—there once stood a mighty castle, that was inhabited, not by knights or earls, but by a wicked woman, who was known only as the “Lady of the Castle.” She was learned in all manner of evil lore, and cast spells upon many of the country-people and their belongings, so that she was feared and hated throughout the district. But her favourite pastime was to capture the village maidens as they passed along the road below, and shut them up in the castle, where she made them work for her, nor ever let them out again as long as they lived. All about the woods and hedges her spies and serving-men were hidden, ready to pounce on any luckless girl whose business obliged her to cross that dangerous valley.

One might suppose that the whole country-side would have risen in arms against this hateful tyrant. But her dread power of working spells and her authority as lady of all the surrounding lands made the people afraid to rebel. At last they could bear it no longer, however, and they determined to form a strong band, and march against the castle, with their priest at their head, carrying a crucifix, to be their defence against the spells and curses of the witch. When the little army reached the castle they found the great gates closed, the drawbridge up, and the walls manned by a host of grinning dwarfs, more like apes than men, who swarmed about the battlements with threatening gestures. This sight struck terror to the hearts of the rescuers, but the priest encouraged them by the assurance that, if every man did but cross himself faithfully, there could no danger befall him from any of these fiendish apparitions. However, as the castle could not be surprised, they determined to surround and keep watch about it that night, till they could bring ladders and storm it on the following day. So sentry-fires were lighted, and preparations made for a camp, but not one of the besiegers could get to sleep that night. And behold! at midnight, as they sat round their fires, watching the dark, silent fortress with anxious eyes, they saw three tongues of blue flame shoot up from the topmost tower, and suddenly there appeared upon it the Lady of the Castle, her witch’s staff in her hand. Her tall form, veiled in black, stood out in dusky outline against the lurid blue light; and as she stood there, she waved her wand towards the four corners of heaven, and uttered some words in an unknown tongue. Immediately the ground trembled, the light of the stars was darkened, a fearful roar and turmoil were heard, and with a rending sound, as though the earth were opening beneath it, the great castle was torn from its foundations and carried by an invisible hand through the air, till it reached the top of a neighbouring mountain, where it settled like some monster bird. But as it went the voice of the witch was heard crying aloud: “If ye dare to disturb me again in my dwelling, I will take your houses too, and carry them through the air, as I do this my castle—but into the lake yonder will I cast them down.” The terror-stricken besiegers hardly dared follow the flight of the castle with their eyes, but there it was the next morning, and for many days to come, standing upon the mountain far above them.

Now there was no more question of rescuing the maidens by force, and no one, you may be sure, ever set foot on that mountain if he could help it. But the witch’s servants still haunted the woodland paths, and bore off many a hapless girl into a captivity, which now seemed more terrible than ever, far away on yon lonely hill-top.

But as the years went on, there grew up in the village a brave and pious maiden whom her parents had dedicated from childhood to the holy St. Anthony, the patron saint of the family. For it was good, they thought, to be under the protection of a saint, when there was so much evil dwelling near at hand, and so much danger to be feared. The maiden was named Antonia, and got her living as a shepherdess. This often led her into lonely places among the woods and meadows at the foot of the dreaded mountain, but she was never afraid, and always escaped being caught, though many a maid she knew was taken almost from her side. Sometimes she would even lead her sheep up the slopes of the mountain itself, for every one shunned those pastures, so that they were rich and untrodden. And as she got nearer to the castle, and looked up at its dark, frowning walls, she mused more and more upon the poor creatures shut up within it, and how they might be helped to escape. At last the matter got such hold upon her mind that she dreamed of it at night, and her dreams took clearer and clearer shape, until this is what she dreamed. She saw a garden filled with shrubs and flowers, such as she had never known before; dark walls closed it in on every side, but within all was bright and blooming. Yet there was a taint in the scent of the blossoms, and an unwholesome heaviness filled the air. She herself lay upon a mossy bank, and above her hung boughs covered with trails of purple blossom. She tried to reach them, but could not move a limb. Then a dreadful sense of terror came over her, and she called aloud upon St. Anthony, and at once the heavy air cleared, and the weight was lifted from her limbs; and as she rose, cheerful and glad once more, a voice sounded among the trees: “From within the castle help must come—from within.”

The sound of the voice woke her, and there she lay in her own bed at home, and wondered. “From within.” Did that mean that she must give herself up into captivity? The more she thought of it, the more she was sure it must be so; but she dared ask counsel of no one, for she knew her parents would never consent to her casting herself into the lion’s jaws.

And there was one other, too, in the village, who would never suffer it either. She thought of him, and sighed; yet now she thought far oftener of her captive sisters even than of him, and his glance and his smile made her sad instead of merry.

The day came—she had felt it coming for long—when she could resist the call no more: the dark walls of the castle drew her as by an irresistible fascination; and when it was time to lead her sheep homeward at evening, she gave them into the charge of another maiden who was going that way, and saying she had lost her staff upon the hill and must turn back to seek it, she sprang up the mountain-slopes.

To her surprise, no one spoke to her, no armed figures dashed out from among the bushes to seize her, but she was allowed to go on unharmed, right up to the castle. She had never been so far before, and when she reached the great gates, they looked so dark and frowning in the twilight, and the whole place so still and lonely, that for the first time her heart sank, and she almost turned back. But just then the vesper-bell sounded from the valley below, and it seemed to put heart into her, and to remind her that her saintly protector was just as near as in the valley. She advanced towards the gate, and was raising her staff to knock upon it, when it opened silently, and in the dusky porch she saw a tall figure, veiled in black, and holding a golden key. It beckoned to her, and with a beating heart Antonia entered, and heard the great door swing to behind her.

As she went forward, the air grew thick and heavy, and she felt the same sense of deadly faintness that she remembered in her dream steal over her now. Presently her guide lifted a dark hanging, that covered one of the doors in the passage they had been following, and they came out into a lofty hall. Here the darkness had fully closed in, and the great, misty spaces of the roof were lit by swinging lamps, that threw out a strong perfume as they burnt. Underneath, all along the walls, ran long divans, or heaps of cushions, covered with silken drapery, and above them hung canopies formed of huge flower-heads, like poppies, whose transparent, blood-red petals waved and fluttered gently in the upper air, shedding the same drowsy perfume as the lamps. Upon the divans many maidens lay sleeping, in all sorts of positions, just as they had sunk down while at work. The faces of some were familiar to Antonia; these were the girls who had been ravished from the village since she could remember; and others there were, who had been taken many years before her birth, and of whom she had but heard. Before every girl—for they kept their youth unchanged—stood a wide tapestry-frame, on which, through each weary day, their fingers wove strange and lovely patterns, in delicate hues of every kind. As long as daylight lasted, the witch, as Antonia learnt afterwards, kept them awake by many ingenious means of torture; by unearthly and startling sounds that broke from the vaults below—by cruel pricks from the magic needles they worked with—by strokes, too, from her fairy wand, with which she walked up and down, and which lengthened at her pleasure, so that none were out of its reach. But even so, though their fingers might move, their heads were heavy and giddy, and no thought of home, no stirrings of a desire for freedom, ever arose with enough strength to give them energy to rebel.

As she entered the hall, the witch cast off her black veil, and Antonia beheld the cruel red eyes, the lank jaws, and the grizzled tresses, the sight of which had first bereft her wretched captives of all their will and courage. But upon brave little Antonia they failed in their dreadful effect, and the witch saw it with surprise. “Here we have a hearty lass indeed,” she jeered; “and truly I might have known it, since she is the first I have known foolhardy enough to come to these gates of her own accord. Perhaps she will be able to bear the burden of the keys.” And bending down, she drew from under an iron table a heavy ebony casket, bound with silver, and a huge bunch of keys. Both of these she fastened with chains about Antonia’s shoulder, and the poor girl almost sank to the ground beneath their terrible weight. The witch grinned. “I have long been looking for a girl strong enough to carry these about for me,” she said, “and perhaps they will keep thee quiet. Now follow me; thy time for slumber is not yet.”

So all through the night, and for many other nights and days, Antonia followed her about, staggering beneath her burden, while the witch visited all the doors and grated windows of the castle, all the underground cells where she put her few unruly prisoners, or where she kept her treasures of gold and jewels, and stores of beautiful silks for the embroideries. Antonia now carried the keys of all these doors, bound about her in such a way that she herself could not raise a hand to touch one.

When the midday sun was hot, all the maidens, and Antonia among them, were allowed to spend an hour in the garden; and as soon as she entered it Antonia knew it for the place she had seen in her dreams. There were the high, dark walls, that matted boughs of ivy, and a poisonous scarlet creeper, only partly succeeded in hiding. There were the strange shrubs and nameless purple flowers, and there was to be felt the heavy, sickly air—she remembered it all so well. The sun struck through the overhanging boughs with a fierce, burning heat, as though it were shining through a roof of glass, and no refreshing breezes ever stirred the leaves, or cooled the brows of the captive maidens. Yet they never complained; and when, during their short hour of leisure, Antonia spoke to them as to old acquaintances, or told them she had come from their home, they did not seem to care about hearing of it, or to have any recollection of their former friends. She saw she could expect no help from them. From whom was she to look for it, then? Surely, only from her guardian, St. Anthony, whose voice it had been, she knew, that had bidden her “give help from within the castle.” But where, in all this bewitched, wicked place, could she find a corner to pray to him, or a spot worthy of his holy presence? Not one of the captive maidens wore her rosary, or seemed ever to think of saying a prayer. How could he turn his eyes upon such a household? Oh! could it be that she, in her earnest desire to obey his voice and help her forsaken sisters, might be thought worthy to make a shrine for him! Well, at any rate she would try.

And so, day after day, in the little time given her for rest and refreshment, Antonia toiled to make St. Anthony a shrine. She found a spot, hidden among wild-rose bushes—the only flowers in the garden that she knew—where there was a ruined pillar and what looked like the remains of an old archway. Here there were some fallen stones; and others she brought—staggering under their weight and that of her hateful keys—from more distant parts of the garden. Sometimes her strength almost gave way; sometimes she had to stop her work because of the spying eyes of the witch herself; sometimes she had to make great efforts to overcome the dull, faint feeling that the unwholesome air produced, and that she feared above all things.

But at last the work was done, and a little shrine rose unseen among the thick bushes. She covered the grey stone with a shower of rose-leaves, and the white petals of a fragrant flower that grew among the grass of the garden—and looked proudly and hopefully upon her labour of love. And now she flung herself upon her knees before it, praying St. Anthony to accept her work, to fill the shrine which she had made, and to free his children from the captivity of evil. At first there was no answer; the minutes of her short hour of rest were ebbing fast away, and the bell which called back the maidens to their tasks was beginning to sound, when her eager eyes caught sight of a shadowy form in the niche of the little shrine. It grew plainer, and a figure like that of an old man, robed in grey, hovered for a moment against the wall. Scarcely had his foot touched the rose-covered pedestal, when a sound like thunder rent the air, and a mighty blast of wind swept through the trees of the sleeping garden. Antonia fell with her face to the earth, but in the roar of the storm she was aware of these words, spoken by the same voice she had heard in her dream: “Thy prayer is heard, the prison-gates are open, and thou art freed from thy burden; but it shall fall upon her who laid it on thee—yea, for twice two hundred years.” The thunder rolled louder, and she heard and knew no more.

When she came to herself she was again in her own little room at home, and might have thought this was but a second awakening from a dream, only that a great noise of rejoicing broke upon her ear, and when she went out into the village, she found that in every house whence a maiden had once been stolen away, the lost one was now restored to the love of her people. Her own parents, too, clasped her with joy to their hearts, for she now found that she had been missing for a whole year, and they also had given her up as lost. When her story was known, the enthusiasm of the village knew no bounds; Antonia was looked up to by every one as only next door to a saint herself, and a splendid shrine, you may be sure, was raised by the people to St. Anthony.

There was one person in the village, however, who thought that nobody had made enough of Antonia, after all, and so he devoted himself for the rest of his days to making up the lack.

And now, amid all the happy faces in the village, faces of parents consoled and lovers reunited, only a few sad ones were seen, those of the maidens who had returned young, to find their loved ones old, or forgetful, or dead. For these Antonia came too late; and thus it is that no evil can be so blotted out but that it will leave some traces in this world.

Of the castle on the hill, however, no traces were left save a few ruins. It was years, to be sure, before any one ventured up there, and then nothing was found but owls and bats and a heap of whitened bones. But something like the old castle still reappears now and then, the people say; only it always shows itself down in the valley, where it first stood, and where the pit now is. It has been seen once or twice, and the saying is, that if only the beholder could throw something that belonged to him upon this castle—a cap, a kerchief, or what not—it would be fixed to the spot and would become his property. Once a maiden, who knew naught of the tale, went to draw water near the spot, and came running home to tell her father she had seen a splendid house standing above the old pit.

“And didst thou cast thy kerchief on it?” asked the father in haste.

“Nay,” replied the girl.

Then he gave her a stinging box on the ear, and ran out himself, but the castle was gone.

As for the witch, St. Anthony’s curse was fulfilled upon her, and she still haunts the hill, carrying the heavy casket and the huge bunch of keys; nor has any one yet been found to ease her of her burden.