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On the left bank of the Elbe, near Pirna, stands a lofty crag, called the “Maiden’s Rock.” One part of it, in fact, is shaped like a maiden’s figure—and this is the reason why:—

It seems that, a thousand years ago and more, there dwelt in the village of Pfaffendorf, close by, a terrible old witch, who went by the name of Mother Gundelheind. No one dared go near her or enter her house, but those who had ventured to peep through the window in her absence declared that a blue flame danced upon her hearthstone, above which some devilish brew hung boiling, and that a black fox crouched whining beside this uncanny fire. Many a belated passer-by had seen her at night, flashing through the air upon her broomstick; and sometimes she had a companion, a fiery dragon who flew by her side, and brought her great store of red, molten gold, that he dropped from his wings before her threshold. It is needless to say that she was never at home on Walpurgis-night, the great meeting time of all the witches and evil spirits; but, indeed, she was oftener abroad than within doors, for when she was not revelling with her own kind, she was busy working evil spells upon her neighbours, bewitching their wives, their children, and their cattle. Plenty of people had seen her at it, but there was nothing to be done; complaints and lamentations were of no avail against her stony heart, and punishment was not to be thought of, for her revenge would have been such as no one in the land dared brave; and besides, how can any one get the better of a witch so mighty, that neither fire nor water have power over her? Yet her punishment awaited her, and she feared it, and had, in her great wickedness, found a way out of it, as she thought.

For there was another person who dwelt in that ill-famed cottage, and was in all ways the opposite of the terrible Mother Gundelheind. This was her young daughter Truda, and how she came by such a daughter none can tell; for Truda was as sweet as a May morning, and her hazel eyes had the look that the angels wear, in the church pictures. Instead of the old woman’s horny, blackened hide, Truda had a skin as fair and soft as cream; instead of her mother’s harsh and grizzled locks, she had long, silky tresses, the colour of a newly ripened chestnut; and instead of the witch’s cruel, rasping speech, a voice as gentle and musical as the ringdove’s. And her mind and soul were as beautiful as her body, so that every one loved her, and looked after her with friendly smiles, while they turned their eyes from the wicked mother and her ill-omened glance. To be sure, this made it hard for Truda to have any of the friends or the pastimes befitting her age and sweet nature; for none would cross the threshold of her mother’s house, nor would she suffer her daughter to enter one of the neighbours’ dwellings. She kept Truda fast at home, sewing, washing, or spinning; for it can easily be believed that the old witch herself had no time or mind for such a wholesome work, and the housekeeping would have gone to ruin but for Truda.

Nor was this all: the capricious creature would have her child as pious as she herself was godless, and made her learn her Catechism, and go to church on Sundays, and fast, and do penance, with such zeal that the poor child was sometimes quite worn-out. Never a day’s merrymaking did she get; never might she join the dance upon the village-green, or wander by the river in the moonlight, like the other young folk; for even when her mother was from home, she could watch and spy upon her by means of a magic mirror, in which the old witch could see at her pleasure all that was happening at home, or, indeed, in any place she chose to think of.

Now, it may be thought that the old woman was not so graceless but that she still had some lingering care for her child’s well-being—but this, alas! was not the cause of her watchfulness, for which she had only too horrid a reason. It is needless to say that this wicked creature had long been given, body and soul, to the Evil One; she knew that the day would come when he would surely claim his prey, and, as has been said, she feared her punishment, and was ready to pay any price to escape, and to be allowed to go on freely in her wickedness. Now, upon one of those midnight wanderings, during which all dark secrets were unveiled to her, she had happened to find out that the Prince of the lower regions was not so particular as to the fashion in which his debtors paid their score, and that he would be willing to take her little daughter Truda in her place, so long as the girl was innocent of any sort of wrong-doing. And this was why Mother Gundelheind scolded and spied, and used every means in her power to bring up her daughter a model of pious perfection.

She had succeeded pretty well, to be sure, and her bad example, far from doing any harm, seemed rather to have driven the girl in an opposite direction; but there was one thing that had so far escaped the old hag’s notice. She could not choose but let Truda go into the village sometimes—to market, for instance—because no one would have any dealings with the witch herself, if they could help it, while to Truda they gave their freshest fruit and richest cream. And again, she must go to church, for that her mother dared not let her miss. So it came to pass that Truda made a few friends, and one especial admirer, Wippold the forester, who spent half his life in planning stolen meetings with her, or in waiting to catch a glance from those hazel eyes as she went demurely by, prayer-book in hand. Old Mother Gundelheind had by this time got into the habit of trusting Truda, perhaps over much; but even witches will be caught napping sometimes, and this was the time of the Walpurgis Feast, and her head was full of other matters. So it came to pass that she forgot, once or twice, to look into her magic mirror, and never knew that Truda held tryst with the forester upon the rock overhanging the Elbe, to which the country-folk sometimes climbed up on their Sunday rambles. For the witch’s harsh and unnatural behaviour had borne fruit at last, and had driven even the sweet, confiding Truda into underhand ways, because they were the only means of bringing a little relief into a life that would else have been nearly unbearable.

But it was hard work to keep anything from the old hag for long; and presently she began to notice that Truda was wont to sit dreaming by the hearth of an evening, while her spindle lay idle beside her, and her wheel stood silent in a corner. Then the witch grew suspicious, and observed her more closely again; nor was it long before she spied out Wippold escorting the girl home from market one morning. He left her before they turned the corner of the cottage, to be sure, but as soon as Truda’s hand touched the latch, the old woman flew at her like the fury she was.

“What is this?” she screamed. “What good-for-nothing acquaintances hast thou been picking up, idle baggage that thou art? Never think to deceive me! If thou dost so much as give yon fellow a ‘good-day’ again, I will rather starve here at home with thee than suffer thee to set foot in the market!” And she flung herself down, quite out of breath, in her dark ingle-nook, muttering something about “running no such risks.”

Truda betook herself to her wheel, silent and bewildered, and ventured no word of self-defence. But that evening, as she sat gazing into the flame that flickered up with blue tongues from the blackened hearth-stone, she plucked up courage and asked—

“Why must I never speak to a man, mother, or have any dealings with the village-folk, as other maidens do?”

“Because men, and all human folk, are evil. Thou shalt speak to the man I shall choose for thee, and to no other,” rejoined the hag, with a grim chuckle.

“Have men wrought thee harm, then, that thou dost shun them so?” continued the girl. “Methinks the folk at market fear thee more than thou dost them. And yet there be some folk whose company thou dost seek, I have heard thee say, when thou goest forth on these long journeys. Whither dost thou go so far, mother, and wherefore?”

“Fine doings!” sputtered the old woman viciously. “Listening to evil spoken of thine own mother, and spying upon her! Little white-faced fool! what knowest thou of that which is fitting to be done? But have a care, or thou wilt find out something of my power, and of how I can punish when I have a mind.”

Truda sank into terrified silence, and brooded in her own heart over the mysteries of the dark fate which she seemed unable to escape.

But she would escape it yet! She would not give up her love, and everything that made life happy, without a struggle! Only her weapons must be guile and secrecy, and she was but little skilled in the use of them, poor child. For days and weeks she worked and drudged at home, to quiet her mother’s suspicions; only now and then, as she hurried along to get some few things they could not do without, she managed to give Wippold a sign that kept him quiet. At last, one Sunday, the old witch, afraid to keep her from her pious duties any more, and feeling sure that she had frightened her into obedience, bade the girl get ready to go to Mass; she herself would see her to the church door, though she might go no farther. Truda could not quite keep out of her face the joy which this order gave her, and her mother did not fail to notice the radiant gleam which lit up her eyes. She hurried away to get ready; and before the bell had ceased ringing, her mother had watched her run lightly up the steps and disappear into the church. Could she at that moment have seen through stone walls, she would have beheld her daughter reply to a sign made her by the young fellow who stood waiting behind one of the pillars and follow him out at the small north door, which was nearly opposite to the one by which she had gone in. And now, keeping close in the thickets, so as to be seen of no one, the pair of lovers hastened towards the lonely rock, where they were sure of a quiet hour together, and where Truda could unburden her heart of all its fears and sorrows, and hear from her lover that he would never rest till he had carried her away from her unhappy home.

Meanwhile the old witch had returned to her cottage, thinking over her daughter’s behaviour that morning. “I wonder why she was so overjoyed to go to church,” she mused; “it was not always her wont.” She could not get the matter out of her mind, and after a time she was so tormented by suspicion that she fetched out her mirror, and sprinkling some drops of magic water upon it, desired it to show her the spot where her daughter was.

Immediately there arose before her the picture of the lofty rock—its surface sparkled in the sunshine; down below, the blue Elbe wound along amid the meadows, and on a narrow green space near the top of the crag, and overshadowed by it, she saw the forms of the two lovers. Her Truda, the virtuous maiden, on whom she had staked all her hopes, was folded in the arms of the forester, while he pressed burning kisses upon her lips, and prayer-book and rosary lay forgotten at their feet.

Every drop of blood in the old hag’s veins tingled with fury, a hellish light gleamed in her sunken eyes, and seizing her witch’s staff in her hand, she went raging forth, and in the twinkling of an eye had rushed like a storm up the rocky ascent, and fallen upon the luckless lovers.

“Accursed child! and hast thou lied to me, and is this the Mass thou wentest forth to hear? And thou, thrice accursed fellow, it was an evil day for thee when thou camest a-wooing of Gundelheind’s daughter!”

And before the ill-fated man could so much as attempt to defend himself, the witch, suddenly grown to an immense height, and towering grimly above him, seized him in her huge horny hands and cast him down the cliff into the river below.

Truda, white and cold with anguish, stood rooted to the spot, and now the raging fury sprang upon her also. “Now it is thy turn,” she hissed out. “Ah! hast thou lied, and blasphemed, and dallied here with thy lover? A pretty ransom thou art, and much that creditor of mine will care to get thee now! Hence go all my chances of safety! But at least thou, accursed creature, shalt never be a witness of my defeat!” And lifting the staff with which she wrought her wicked spells, she struck her daughter across the face with it. But Truda never felt the blow. Beneath her fiendish mother’s curse she had turned to stone; the rock folded her, as it were, in its inflexible arms, and to this day bears, as a witness of the terrible deed, the form of a maiden.

But where, as she fled through the night from his vengeance, the Arch-Enemy’s stroke fell upon Mother Gundelheind, that the legend forbears to say.