Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine | Page 6

many of
them dying from sheer starvation. The cargo of corn would have
provided bread for them throughout the whole winter, and the
commander urged Richberta to reconsider her decision. As a last resort
he sent the barefooted children of the city to her, thinking that their
mute misery would move her to alleviate their distress and give them
the shipload of corn. But all was in vain. Richberta remained
adamantine, and in full view of the starving multitude she had the
precious cargo cast into the sea.
But the curses of the despairing people had their effect. Far down in the
bed of the sea the grains of corn germinated, and a harvest of bare
stalks grew until it reached the surface of the water. The shifting
quicksands at the bottom of the sea were bound together by the
overspreading stalks into a mighty sand-bank which rose above the
surface in front of the town of Stavoren.
No longer were the merchant-vessels able to enter the harbour, for it

was blocked by the impassable bank. Nay, instead of finding refuge
there, many a ship was dashed to pieces by the fury of the breakers, and
Stavoren became a place of ill-fame to the mariner.
All the wealth and commerce of this proud city were at an end.
Richberta herself, whose wanton act had raised the sand-bank, had her
ships wrecked there one by one, and was reduced to begging for bread
in the city whose wealthiest inhabitant she had once been. Then,
perhaps, she could appreciate the words of the old traveller, that bread
was the greatest of earthly treasures.
At last the ocean, dashing against the huge mound with ever-increasing
fury, burst through the dyke which Richberta had raised, overwhelmed
the town, and buried it for ever under the waves.
And now the mariner, sailing on the Zuider Zee, passes above the
engulfed city and sees with wonderment the towers and spires of the
‘Sunken Land.’
Historical Sketch
Like other world-rivers, the Rhine has attracted to its banks a
succession of races of widely divergent origin. Celt, Teuton, Slav, and
Roman have contested for the territories which it waters, and if the
most enduring of these races has finally achieved dominion over the
fairest river-province in Europe, who shall say that it has emerged from
the struggle as a homogeneous people, having absorbed none of the
blood of those with whom it strove for the lordship of this vine-clad
valley? He would indeed be a courageous ethnologist who would
suggest a purely Germanic origin for the Rhine race. As the historical
period dawns upon Middle Europe we find the Rhine basin in the
possession of a people of Celtic blood. As in Britain and France, this
folk has left its indelible mark upon the countryside in a wealth of
place-names embodying its characteristic titles for flood, village, and
hill. In such prefixes and terminations as magh, brig, dun, and etc we
espy the influence of Celtic occupants, and Maguntiacum, or Mainz,
and Borbetomagus, or Worms, are examples of that ‘Gallic’ idiom
which has indelibly starred the map of Western Europe.

Prehistoric Miners
The remains of this people which are unearthed from beneath the
superincumbent strata of their Teutonic successors in the country show
them to have been typical of their race. Like their kindred in Britain,
they had successfully exploited the mineral treasures of the country,
and their skill as miners is eloquently upheld by the mute witness of
age-old cinder-heaps by which are found the once busy bronze hammer
and the apparatus of the smelting-furnace, speaking of the slow but
steady smith-toil upon which the foundation of civilization arose. There
was scarcely a mineral beneath the loamy soil which masked the
metalliferous rock which they did not work. From Schönebeck to
Dürkheim lies an immense bed of salt, and this the Celtic population of
the district dug and condensed by aid of fires fed by huge logs cut from
the giant trees of the vast and mysterious forests which have from time
immemorial shadowed the whole existence of the German race. The
salt, moulded or cut into blocks, was transported to Gaul as an article of
commerce. But the Celts of the Rhine achieved distinction in other arts
of life, for their pottery, weapons, and jewellery will bear comparison
with those of prehistoric peoples in any part of Europe.
As has been remarked, at the dawn of history we find the Rhine Celts
everywhere in full retreat before the rude and more virile Teutons.
They lingered latterly about the Moselle and in the district of Eifel,
offering a desperate resistance to the onrushing hordes of Germanic
warriors. In all likelihood they were outnumbered, if not outmatched in
skill and valour, and they melted away before the savage ferocity of