Legends of the Rhine | Page 6

the maker from making
another like it, they did not shrink from the vilest of crimes.
Taking advantage of the rumour that such a wonderful work could only
have been made by the aid of witchcraft, they accused the clock-maker
of being united with the devil, threw him into prison, and cruelly
condemned him to be blinded. The unhappy artist resigned himself to
his bitter fate without a murmur. The only favour he asked was that he
might be allowed to examine the clock once again before the judgment
was carried out. He said he wanted to arrange something in the works
which no one else could understand.
The crafty magistrates, being anxious to have the clock perfect, granted
him this request.
The artist filed, sawed, regulated here and there, and then was led away,
and in the same hour deprived of his sight.
The cruel deed was hardly accomplished, when it was found that the
clock had stopped. The artist had destroyed his work with his own
hands; his righteous determination that the chimes would never ring
again, had become a melancholy truth. Up to the present no one has
been able again to set the dead works going. An equally splendid clock
now adorns the cathedral, but the remains of the first one have been
preserved ever since.

The little Man at the Angel's Pillar

Close to the famous clock in the Cathedral of Strassburg, there is a little
man in stone gazing up at the angel's pillar which supports the south
wing of the cathedral. Long ago the little man who is now sculptured in
stone, stood there in flesh and blood. He used to stare up at the pillar
with a criticising eye from top to bottom and again from bottom to top.
Then he would shake his head doubtfully each time.
It happened once that a sculptor passed the cathedral and saw the little
man looking up, evidently comparing the proportions of the pillar.
"It seems to me you are finding fault with the pillar, my good fellow,"
the stone-cutter remarked, and the little man nodded with a
self-satisfied look.
"Well, what do you think of it? Speak out my man," said the master,
tapping the fellow's shoulder encouragingly.
"The pillar is certainly splendid," began the latter slowly, "the Apostles,
the angels, and the Saviour are most beautiful too. But there is one
thing troubling me. That slender pillar cannot support that heavy vault
much longer; it will soon totter and fall down, and all will go to
pieces."
The sculptor looked alternately at the work of art and at its strange
fault-finder. A contemptuous smile passed over his features.
"You are quite convinced of the truth of your statement, aren't you?"
asked he enquiringly.
The bold critic repeated his doubts with an important air.
"Well," cried the stone-cutter, with comical earnestness, "then you will
remain there always, gazing at the pillar until it sinks down, crushed by
the vault."
He went straight off into his workshop, seized hammer and chisel, and
formed the little man into stone just as he was, looking upwards with a
knowing face and an important air.

This little figure is still there at the present day with both hands leaning
on the balustrade of St. Nicholas' chapel, awaiting the expected fall of
the pillar, and most likely he will remain there for many a century to
come.

WORMS
The Nibelungen Lied
[Illustration: Siegfried auf der Totenbahre--Nach dem Gemälde von
Emil Lauffer]
To-day we are deeply touched, as our forefathers must have been, at the
recital of the boundless suffering and the overwhelming concatenation
of sin and expiation in the lives of the Recken and Frauen of the
Nibelungen Legend. That naive singer has remained nameless and
unknown, who about the end of the 12th century wrote down this
legend in poetic form, thus preserving forever our most precious relic
of Germanic Folksepic. A powerful story it is of sin and suffering:
corresponding to the world itself and just as the primitive mind of a
people loves to represent it. The story begins as a lovely idyll but ends
in gloomy tragedy.
The ancient Rhenish town of Worms was during the great migrations
the seat of authority of the Burgundian invaders, an east Germanic
stock. During the glorious reign of King Gunther there appears,
attracted by the beauty of Chriemhild the king's sister, a young hero,
Siegfried, by name. He is himself a king's son, his father Siegmund
reigning in Xanten "nieden by dem Rine." King Gunther receives the
fair Recken into his service as a vassal.
Siegfried, exhibiting the fairest loyalty to his overlord, and rendered
invisible by magic, conquers for him the redoubtable Brunhild, the
proud queen of the island kingdom of Isenland (Iceland) and compels
her to