The Trumpeter of Sakkingen Part 33

_Page_ 20.--St. Blasien, formerly a very ancient monastery of Benedictine monks, called thus after St. Blasius, Bishop of Sebaste, whose relics were brought here by one of the early abbots.

_Page_ 21.--"Then appeared as Death and Devil." This is the subject of one of Albrecht Durer's most celebrated engravings, called Ritter, Tod, and Teufel (the Knight, Death, and the Devil), where the knight rides quietly and unmoved through a gloomy mountain glen, smiling at Death, who holds up an hourgla.s.s before him, and taking no notice at all of the droll Devil, who tries to grasp him from behind. The knight is evidently an embodiment of the freer spirit which began to reign then in Germany. The engraving is of the year 1513.

_Page_ 26.--"Far off on the island glisten." The town of Sakkingen with its minster.

_Page_ 30.--Rheinfeld, or rather Rheinfelden, a town on the left bank of the Rhine, about halfway between Sakkingen and Basel, where, during the Thirty Years' War, in the year 1638 several actions took place.

_Page_ 32.--Wehr, a village about six miles from Sakkingen, on the road to Schopfheim, in the neighbourhood of a stalact.i.te cave (Hasler Hoehle) mentioned in the Tenth Part.

_Page_ 38.--Cujacius (Jacques de Cujas), a very distinguished jurist and professor of law in the university of Bourges (d. 1590). His only daughter, Susanna, became known by her profligate life. But the stories told of her by Catherinot cannot have happened during her father's lifetime, as he died when she was only three years old.

_Page_ 43--Palsgrave Frederic married the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James the First of England, in 1613. He was afterwards made king of Bohemia by the Protestant princes of Germany, and moved to Prague in 1619. In the year following his army was routed near Prague by the forces of the Catholic League, and he had to fly with his family.

_Page_ 46.--"Of a young and handsome carpenter." The pastor refers here to a popular German song, still often sung by students:

War einst ein jung, jung Zimmergesell, Der hatte zu bauen ein Schloss, etc.

It is the story of a young carpenter who built a castle for a Margrave.

During the absence of the latter the Margravine falls in love with the carpenter. The lovers are afterwards surprised by the Margrave, who has a gallows built on which the carpenter is hung.

_Page_ 49.--Clovis (465-511), king of the Franks, was married, while he was still a heathen, to Clotilde, a Christian princess of Burgundy.

During the battle at Tolbiac (Zulpich), near Cologne, when sorely pressed by the enemy, the Allemanni, he vowed to become a Christian, if he should gain the victory. After routing and subjugating the Allemanni, the king and many thousands of his people were baptised by the Bishop of Rheims, on the 23rd of December of the same year (496).

_Page_ 50.--"Augusta Rauracorum," Colonia Raurica, afterwards called Augusta Rauracorum, a Roman colony founded in the year 44 B.C., by L.

Munatius Plancus. On the site of the Roman town are now two villages, Basel-Augst and Kaiser-Augst, the latter a station on the railroad from Basel to Zurich. Near Basel-Augst the remains of a Roman amphitheatre and of a temple can still be seen.

_Page_ 56.--Count Ursus of Glarus had been converted to Christianity by St. Fridolinus, and, with the consent of his brother Landolph, donated, a short time before his death, all his estates to the new cloister at Sakkingen. When Landolph, after the death of his brother refused to acknowledge his will, Fridolinus was obliged to go to law in order to make good his claim, and after a long litigation was at last notified by the government of Glarus that he would not be able to have his claims settled, unless he could bring the dead Count Ursus himself in court as a witness. Then, the legend says, Fridolinus went, on the day appointed for the court, to Glarus, raised Ursus from his grave, and walked with him to Rankweil (the seat of the court, ten hours from Glarus), where the count gave testimony in regard to his donation.

Landolph then not only gave up his brother's estates, but added also a large portion of his own. After that Fridolinus walked back to Glarus with Count Ursus, and committed him again to his grave. The saint, on account of this miracle, is visually portrayed in company with the skeleton of Count Ursus.

_Page_ 58.--Laufenburg, a town six miles above Sakkingen, and situated on the beautiful rapids of the Rhine. A tower of the old strong castle on the Swiss side is still standing.

_Page_ 59.--Beuggen, a town on the Rhine below Sakkingen. The ancient building of the Teutonic order is still standing, and is used now by the Moravians as an inst.i.tute for children.

_Page_ 71.--The Wiese, a river coming from the Feldberg and flowing into the Rhine a little below Basel. The beautiful valley of the clear rapid river is now much visited, as there is a railroad as far as the town of Zell. This region has become cla.s.sic through the poet Hebel, who wrote in the Allemannic idiom, still generally spoken in this whole region. At Hausen, the station before Zell, where he was born, a monument has been erected to him. There is also at Schopfheim, the station below Hausen, on a hill called Hebelshoehe, a bust of the poet The women of this region are remarkable for their large singular-looking caps, to which Scheffel alludes.

_Page_ 76.--This gravel bank, called Field of Fridolinus, is still seen in the Rhine, opposite the castle Schoenau.

_Page_ 80.--Hallau, a village not far from the railroad station Neuhausen, the stopping-place for visiting the falls of the Rhine. The red wine grown there is still very celebrated.

--The Hohe-Randen, a mountain to the north of Schapfhausen.

_Page_ 85.--Theuerdank, a German poem of the beginning of the 16th century, written by Melchior Pfinzing, the secretary of the Emperor Maximilian, who had planned and sketched the poem himself.

_Page_ 101.--Grenzach, the first German village going from Basel, on the railroad to Sakkingen and Constanz. It is celebrated for the wine grown there.

_Page_ 104.--The Frickthal, in the Swiss canton Aargau, nearly south of Sakkingen.

_Page_ 105.--Schinznach, a village in the canton Aargau, much visited on account of its hot sulphur springs. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of the castle of Hapsburg, the cradle of the imperial house of Austria.

_Page_ 109.--The mountain lake. See note to page 17.

_Page_ 120.--May drink, or May wine, a favourite drink in Germany for the spring-time, made by steeping the leaves of woodroof in the light white wine of the country, and sweetening it with sugar. It is an old custom prevailing already in the 16th century, when the woodroof was added to the wine not only to cheer the heart with its fine aroma, but also for medicinal purposes, as acting on the liver.

_Page_ 135.--Albbruck, a place above Laufenburg on the Rhine, at the mouth of the little river Alb, the valley of which is the most beautiful in the Schwarzwald. Formerly there were here quite important ironworks.

_Page_ 151.--"E'en a common Flemish blacksmith." Quentin Ma.s.sys (1466-1530), a celebrated Flemish painter, said to have been originally a blacksmith. While such, he fell in love, and in order to gain the maiden's consent as well as her father's (who was an artist) he forsook his trade, devoted himself to painting, and became a great master in his art. On the tombstone which his admirers placed on his grave a hundred years after his death, stands the Latin hexameter:

Connubialis amor ex mulcibre fecit Apellem!

_Page_ 152.--The Gnome's cave (Die Erdmannshohle), a stalact.i.te cave near the village of Hasel (whence the cave is called also Haselhohle), between Wehr and Schopfheim. It can be reached from the former by a walk of half an hour, and is often visited with guides. The first cave, which one reaches through a low pa.s.sage, is 13 feet high, the next contains a small lake. There is also a little river rushing along under steps, over which one walks. The cave contains, like all caves of this kind, most fantastic stalact.i.te structures, which popular fancy has called the organ, the chancel, the skeleton, &c. Some columns when struck give out tones which sound as thirds. The most interesting part of the cave is called Die Furstengruft (The Prince's Sepulchre), a large room, 16 feet high, with a stalact.i.te structure resembling a large coffin. Popular superst.i.tion has from times immemorial made this cave the haunt of gnomes.

_Page_ 169.--The ancient county of Hauenstein lies between two spurs of the Feldberg, the eastern one coming down to the town of Waldshut on the Rhine, the western one to Sakkingen. It is also called Hozzenland (see note to page 15). The early history of the country is somewhat obscure until the time of the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg, when it acknowledged the sovereignty of Austria. In the times of the fight for the German throne between Albrecht of Austria and Adolphe of Na.s.sau, and between Frederick the Beautiful and Ludwig of Bavaria, when Suabia was without a duke and Germany without an emperor, the different villages of the country founded a union (Einung) for their protection.

There is still in existence such a union doc.u.ment drawn up in the year 1433. The entire union was divided into eight smaller ones, each of which stood under an elected leader (Einungsmeister). All these eight leaders elected one of their body as speaker (Redmann), who held the leadership of the entire union. By this the Hauenstein peasants were greatly protected in their ancient rights; still the oppression of the Austrian governors (Waldvoegte) often incited revolutions, the most important of which occurred during the Peasants' War in 1525. Others lasted from 1589 to 1614, arising from an impost laid on wine. The poet introduces such a rising here in the course of his story.

_Page_ 206.--The Fuggers are an Augsburg family, who, by their linen-trade and weaving, and afterwards by the purchase of mines in Austria, ama.s.sed an enormous fortune, and were raised to the rank of n.o.bles by the Emperor Maximilian. The family attained their greatest splendour under the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, at the time of the Diet at Augsburg, raised the two brothers then living to the rank of counts.

_Page_ 235.--Katzenjammer, literally translated, cats' misery, the vulgar German expression for the indisposition after a drunken debauch.

_Page_ 255.--Parcival, written by Wolfram von Eschenbach about the year 1200. Theuerdank, a German poem of the 16th century. See note to page 85.

_Page_ 277.--"As at Strasburg on the bulwarks." The Swiss soldier refers here to a popular song:

Zu Strasburg auf der Schanz, Da ging mein Trauern an, etc.

The simple but touching story of a soldier who stands guard on the bulwarks of Strasburg and hears the Alpine horn blown on the other side of the Rhine. Seized with home sickness he swims across the Rhine, but is taken afterwards and shot as a deserter.

_Page_ 278.--The villa of the Cardinal Borghese, Casa Baldi, near Olevano, in the Sabine country, is still in existence, and is now an inn much frequented by artists. It has become celebrated by Scheffel's humorous song, "Abschied von Olevano" (Farewell to Olevano), which he wrote on the spot when leaving there after a long sojourn. It is published in Scheffers collection of songs, "Gaudeamus."

_Page_ 285.--Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni of Venice, who in 1689 became the successor of Innocent XI. as Alexander VIII.

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.