"Thou hast attained the summit of all happiness, and, by thy unshaken constancy, hast arrived at a glory, of which the human intellect can with difficulty conceive! "Thou hast stamped on the forehead of time, the memory of thy numberless exploits, in characters of light, every one of which suffices to illuminate with its dazzling rays the whole extent of the universe! "Who can resist him, whom the assistance of Heaven never abandons, who has victory for his guide, and whose steps are directed by God? "Fortune, in each century has produced a hero who was the pearl of his age; amid these mighty ones, thou shinest like a costly diamond in a necklace of inestimable price. "The meanest of thy subjects, wherever he may reside, is the object of universal homage; he partakes of thy glory, whose lustre is reflected on him. "In thee every virtue is united; but the justice which rules all thy actions, would alone suffice to immortalize thy name. "Didst thou not sprinkle the scorching sands of the desert with the milk that was offered thee, fearing to commit a crime in moistening thy parched tongue, as long as thy brave soldiers remained a prey to their burning thirst? "Now, perhaps, the Briton will at last perceive his folly in opposing the wisdom of thy projects, in struggling against thy fortune. May this new alliance propitiate thy vows, and those we offer up for thy happiness! May it produce thee a son, in whom thy image shall live, and who shall perpetuate the glory of thy name! "No! The daughter of Darius is not to be compared with Louisa, thy spouse; nor the glory of Alexander to that which thy deeds have acquired thee! "How many heroic names have lost their lustre, and sunk into oblivion, since the prodigies of thy might began to efface the remembrance of their actions! "Blessed the epoch that unites so august a pair! The last of my verses, by a wise combination, shall preserve its memory.* Year that art the joy and the triumph of France, thy century shall rejoice to have witnessed the junction of the sun and the lion!" + * All the Arabic letters bear a numerical value: some have one or more tittles over them; others have none. By adding together the amounts of the tittled letters in the last verse, the result is the number 1810. The same product is obtained by adding together the amounts of all the untittled letters in the same verse. + This idea is much juster in the original, as the Arabic word for sun is of the feminine gender. GERMAN POPULAR AND TRADITIONARY LITERATURE, NO. III. Wilt choose To ride upon the winds; or sport with elves WE have not yet finished our excursion into the Hartz; but lest our readers should think we make too long a stay there, and should imagine that we intend to bestow a proportionate attention on other districts, we beg leave to assure them that we propose, at any rate for the present, to limit our view of local traditions to the wild regions with which we commenced. We have only taken this spot as exhibiting a specimen of the variety and copiousness of these popular tales (where no violent convulsions have intervened to break the chain of their correspondence with those great historic changes in society, religion, and government, which have successively taken place), and as evincing the length of time to which they may be almost orally preserved when thus connected with the geographical nomenclature of the country. We shall endeavour to finish our historical series of these traditions in the present number, and shall then turn our attention to some of the other departments of popular literature. King Laurin, and the endless tales of contests between rival races of disproportionate dimensions, were noticed in our last. His dwarfish Majesty's adventures, as told in "the Little Garden of Roses," form by far the most sprightly and poetic portion of the Heldenbuch. We should like to see, and may perhaps attempt a translation of the whole, or at least select portions of it. It is of very reasonable dimensions, and from its lively and graceful descriptions, and its chivalrous fairy-like tone, would be a favourable specimen to select of the curious and venerable class of romances to which it belongs. We have now to inquire, whether or not there are more coincidences between the traditions of these romances and the ruder prose narratives of the peasantry of the forest. The Kyffhaus mountain is the great scene of those enchantments, from the crude tradition of which Peter Claus appears to have been framed by a comparatively modern fancy, for the plot of that tale coincides in the effect of the supernatural agency, without any allusion to the personages to whose history it belongs, and who alone make the story intelligible. The burthen of all the traditions relating to this spot is, that the mountain is the depository of some great and inexhaustible treasure, and of course that it is peopled with guardian beings capable of protecting their trust, and rewarding their favourites with occasional bounty from the store. Over the whole there is a great presiding genius, who is in most of the tales known by the title of the Emperor Frederick. When we consider the great fame of the Emperor Rothbart, or Barbarossa, it is not wonderful that he should be the Frederick selected for the honourable post. The beard itself, therefore, is usually added to complete the identifi cation with the great and popular monarch who met his death in the holy cause. In his gorgeous palace in the vaults of the mountain, glittering with precious stones and metals, he is pictured as holding his enchanted court, surrounded by the pomp of the empire, and attended by a royal princess his daughter, while hosts of dwarfs minister to him. He is sometimes found wandering even to the exterior of the mountain, but generally he reposes with his splendid golden crown upon his head, slumbering in a deep trance on the royal throne. Before him is placed a marble table, against which he reclines, his red beard flowing to his feet,occasionally raising his eye-lids as if struggling with the overpowering weight of sleep, and then, as if wearied with the exertion, exclaiming, "Now will I sleep yet another hundred years." In after-ages he is fated to re-appear on earth; and in token of a renovated order of things, will hang his shield upon a withered tree, that will forthwith sprout. He will restore peace to Christendom, and pass over the seas to the final deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. The reign of Frederick, the great founder of the fortunes of the House of Suabia, was the commencement of a splendid æra in the early literature of Germany. All its princes were lovers of song; most of them were successful courters of the Muse, and their patronage and example roused and formed that school of Northern Troubadours, who yield in no respect to the fame of their Southern brethren. The tradition, therefore, very naturally considers the taste for song as yet animating and reviving the drowsy faculties of the enchanted Emperor. Accordingly most of those who have been from time to time honoured with an introduction to the Imperial presence, have been indebted for it to their poetical or musical abilities, and generally through the agency of one of the attendant dwarfs. We shall translate one tale of this description : "In his enchanted state the Emperor yet loves music; and many a shepherd who has tuned his pipe upon the mountain, has been invited, in return, to his presence, and sent away with rich presents. This became, at length, well known, and a company of musicians resolved to entertain the monarch with a complete concert. Accordingly, in the midst of a gloomy night, they arose, and as the clock of Tilleda struck twelve, they began their music. "Hardly had the band struck up, when the Princess appeared, and invited them by gestures to follow her. The mountain opened, and in they all went, playing in full concert. Meat and drink were provided in plenty, and the choristers of course played their part. So far so good; but they felt a strong desire for the rich and beautiful diamonds which lay around them. No one, however, offered them any. Not very well pleased at this, they broke off as soon as morning dawned, thinking, of course, they should have some drink-money at parting. The Emperor bowed to them in a lordly but friendly manner, and his daughter only gave each of them a green bough. They all took the boughs out of respect to the company they were in, but as soon as they reached the open air, they threw them away, and cracked their jokes at the Imperial generosity-only one took care of his bough as a token of the frolic. When he reached home he shewed it, laughing, to his wife; but behold, when they looked at it, all the leaves had turned into golden ten-dollar pieces. Away ran the others back to the mountain to look for their boughs; but it was too late they were gone." The tale of mountain enchantment is usually the same in all essential particulars, but the Emperor Frederick * is not always the hero of it. The Emperor Charles (sometimes Charlemagne, and sometimes, probably, Charles IV.) is often placed in the same predicament. In one instance Henry VI. occupies the throne; and even the prophet Jonas has, we believe, been raised to a similar dignity, and decorated with the everlasting beard. Sometimes, however, we find a monk occupying a conspicuous station in the guardianship of the mountain; at one time as a sort of master of the ceremonies to the Emperor, at others alone and independent, as in the story of the punishment of the Vintner of Tilleda, which is, however, of comparatively modern origin. "A good citizen of Tilleda, at the christening of one of his chidren, finding his wine indifferent, told his elder daughter Ilsabel, in jest, that she might find better in the cellar of the Old Knights of the Kyffhauser. Ilsabel, taking him at his word, set off, and by a little friendly assistance, found her way to the recesses of the mountain, and actually made free with the stores of the ancient lovers of hospitality, which were, of course, of most excellent quality. Her father and she kept their own counsel; but a vintner who lived opposite watched the girl to the cellar, and found out the secret. Knowing that the commodity which he sold under the name of wine would be considerably improved by the admixture of the produce of a good cellar, he next evening betook himself to the mountain with the largest cask he could find, meaning to repeat the same visit every night. "As he reached the spot where, the day before, he had marked the entrance to the cellar, a horrible darkness suddenly spread around In answer to Y.'s observations in the 10th Number of this work, the writer confesses (though he does not think that his citation renders the confession necessary), that he had overlooked what Y. calls the "quaint” admission in "The Sketch-book," that the tale alluded to "was suggested by a little German superstition about the Emperor der Rothbart and the Kypphauser mountain." Whether the reference be “quaint,” or entitled to any other epithet, he will not inquire; but he still thinks Peter Claus copied "without proper acknowledgement;" and the reference given to "the little German superstition about the Emperor der Rothbart," now shews the author to have been acquainted with the book which contains not only that superstition, but the tale from which he has so largely borrowed, and in which the Emperor has no more part than any other of the many magical persons whom tradition sends to haunt the spot. At the same time, the beauty, and in many respects great originality of Rip Van Winkle is by no means sought to be depreciated. The writer will be always happy to see similar superstructures raised upon such foundations. The insensible effluxion of time by removal, for an apparently momentary space, into scenes of enchantment, is a favourite German incident, and susceptible of great interest and beauty of effect, as "The Sketch-book shews. A curious instance of its application to Christian superstition occurs in the old ballad of "The Daughter of the Commandant of Gross-Wardein, in Hungary," in Büsching's "Volks-Sagen." him. The wind blew tremendously; it howled among the rocks, and a whirlwind hurled him, with his cart and cask, from precipice to precipice, till at length he found himself in what appeared to be a burialvault. "On a sudden, before him passed slowly a funeral procession. He gazed wildly upon the sable train-it was followed by his own wife and by some of his neighbours, whom he easily recognized. Terror seized him, and he fell senseless to the ground. "The vision passed, and after a while he recovered, saw himself still in a vault faintly lighted by a glimmering lamp, and heard the well known bell of Tilleda strike twelve o'clock immediately over where he lay. Several hours then had passed unconsciously, and by some means he was immured in the burying-place under the church of his native village. More dead than alive, he dared scarcely breathe, when a monk entered, took him in his arms, carried him up a long flight of steps, opened a door, put some gold into his hand, and left him lying on the mountain. "It was an icy cold night, and the vintner could barely crawl home. The clock struck one as he reached his door. He took to his bed, and in three days was dead. The gold which the enchanted monk had given him paid the cost of his funeral." But if we seek for some sort of historical basis to these tales of such ancient date and uniform turn of plot, we must ask, how comes the Emperor Frederick, a Suabian prince, having no particular connexion with this part of Germany, over which his sovereignty was but nominal, to be placed with his friend and associate the monk in this state of high veneration in the Hartz forest? Büsching is inclined to date the origin of these traditions much earlier than the age of the Emperor; and of this they bear strong internal evidence. The enchanted residence of kings and heroes in mountains and forest fastnesses, after their removal from active life, is, as he observes, of the very highest antiquity. Dietrich (spelt often Tiederic), one of the great heroes of northern romance, is said not to have died, but to have gone forth under the guidance of one of those dwarfs, with whom so many of his exploits are connected, and never to have returned. The names are easily convertible; and is it not more likely that the traditionary hero of the Hartz should have been Dietrich than the Emperor Frederick, when the scene of action and almost all the leading features of the story evidently belong to the Heldenbuch class of romances? Who then is his associate--the monk? May he not be Ilsan, the traditionary fellow warrior of Dietrich, to whom, somehow or other, the anachronous epithet of monk is given by "The Rose-garden at Worms," another romance, which forms part of the Heldenbuch? Repeated traces of his name are found in the Hartz, such as Ilse, Ilsung, Ilsen, or Isen-stein (a name which occurs in the Niebelungenhid) and Ilsenburg (or Eisenburg, as it is called in the Heldenbuch), near Wernigerode, his reputed residence, afterwards a monastery of that name. Ilsan occupies a high station in the Wilkina and Niflunga Saga, where he appears as a powerful prince ruling in this neigh |