Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales/Legends of Rubezahl/The Third Legend
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Legend the Third.
There was one old shepherd, a good and worthy man, with whom the Gnome had made an acquaintance, which had ripened into such warm friendship that he had permitted him to pasture his flock close to the hedges of his gardens, which no other person could have done with impunity. The Spirit of the Mountain sometimes listened with pleasure to the recital which this patriarch gave of several of the unpretending events in his life. Yet even this poor man got into a scrape with Rubezahl; for having one day, according to custom, led his flock to the borders of the Gnome’s domain, a few sheep broke through the hedge, and got browzing on the grass plots of his garden, which threw Rubezahl into such a fury, that he spread a panic-terror through the flock, and the sheep madly rushing about, and precipitating themselves over the rocks, the greater part of them perished. And so the poor fellow’s means of subsistence being thus taken from him, he pined away and died.
A physician of Schmiedeberg, who used to go botanizing on the Giant Mountains, had also the honour of sometimes chatting with the Gnome, who attired now as a wood cutter, now as a traveller, listened with interest to the history of the wonderful cures which the Schmeideberg Æsculapius boasted of having performed, the most trifling details of which he set forth in the most pompous and pragmatical manner. At times Rubezahl went so far in his complaisance as to carry the doctor’s basket of herbs a good bit of the way home for him, having first rendered it doubly heavy and valuable by pointing out, and teaching him the healing properties of, many a herb of which he knew not the whereabout, nor even the existence. The doctor, who thought he must needs know more of the matter than a wood cutter could possibly know, one day took his instructions amiss, and with some ill humour, said: “Cobbler! stick to thy last. What! shall a wood cutter pretend to teach a physician botany? But come, now, thou to whom all plants, known and unknown, from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar on Lebanon, tell me, thou Solomon, which came first, the acorn or the oak?”—“The oak, doubtless,” replied the Gnome; “for the fruit comes of the tree.”—“Blockhead!” cried the doctor; “whence, then, came the first oak, if not from an acorn, which contains the essential germ of oaks?”—“That,” replied the wood cutter, “is a master’s question, which, I confess, is far beyond me. But let me, in turn, propose a question to you. Tell me to whom belongs the ground on which we are? To the King of Bohemia, or to the Lord of the Mountain?” (so was the Gnome now called by the people of the surrounding district, who had learned to their cost that Rubezahl was a name interdicted, and that whoever made use of it within reach of the touchy Spirit, was sure to get well kicked and cuffed, as the very least that would happen to them).—“This land,” replied the physician, without hesitation, “belongs to my sovereign, the King of Bohemia. As to Rubezahl, he’s a mere chimera, a nonentity, a name wherewith to frighten children.” Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when the wood cutter became a monstrous giant, with fire-darting eyes and furious gestures, who, glaring ferociously at the wretched doctor, roared at him in a voice of thunder, “Rubezahl! rascal! Rubezahl: Ill Rubezahl thee. I’ll crack thy ribs, till thou art a nonentity thyself.” He then seized the unhappy son of Æsculapius by the nape of the neck, shook him as a cat shakes a mouse, banged him against the trees, knocking one of his eyes out of his head; and finally left him half dead on the ground. After awhile, the poor wretch recovered a little, and crawling away as best he could, got home at last, and took very good care never to go herbalizing on the Giant Mountains again.
Rubezahl’s friendship, you see, was easily forfeited; on the other hand, ’twas as readily secured. A peasant of the district of Reichenberg had for his neighbour a bad, litigious man, who having taken an enmity to him, had persecuted him by means of a villanous lawsuit, until he had stripped him of the little property he had possessed; even his last cow had been taken from him. The poor fellow had now nothing left but a wife and six children, all well nigh reduced to skeletons; a good half of whom, in his despair, he would willingly have given in exchange for his cow. He had still, indeed, a pair of vigorous arms, but without a foot of land these were of no service. It went to his heart to hear the poor children crying for bread, and he with none to give them. “If any one,” said he one day to his miserable wife, “would lend us a hundred dollars, we might establish ourselves on some farm at a distance from our litigious neighbour, and raise our fallen fortunes. Thou hast rich relations on the other side of the mountains; I will go and tell them of our distress; perhaps one of them will take pity on us, and out of his superfluity lend us, at interest, the money necessary to relieve us from our misery.”
The poor woman acquiesced in this idea, with slight hopes, indeed, of any beneficial result; but she had nothing better to suggest. Early next morning, accordingly, the husband departed on his journey, saying hopefully to his wife and children: “Do not weep; my heart tells me I shall find a benefactor.” Faint and weary, for ’twas a long distance, and he had naught but a hard crust to support him on his way, he arrived by nightfall at the village where the rich relations lived; but not one of them offered him a night’s lodging; some of them even denied all knowledge of him. The scalding tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks, he piteously represented to them his utter misery; ’twas all in vain; the hard-hearted wretches were in no degree affected, but, on the contrary, insulted his misfortune by reproaches and throwing musty proverbs at him: “As you make your bed, so you must lie in it,” said one. “Every one forges his own fortune,” cried another. And so they all mocked him and abused him, calling him idler, spendthrift, a sieve, and finally thrust him out of doors by the shoulders. The poor man had not expected such a reception from his wife’s rich relations: he slunk off, oppressed with disappointment and grief, and having no money to pay for a lodging at the inn, he was fain to lay down under a hay-stack in a neighbouring field; where, without once closing his eyes, he waited impatiently until day-break, and then began his journey home.
When he got back to the mountains, he felt so overcome with grief and weariness, that he almost yielded to despair. “Two day’s labour lost,” groaned he; “worn out with heart-sorrow and hunger; no hope! no hope! What shall I do, what can I do when my toil-worn limbs shall reach my wretched hovel? the starving inmates will hold up their hands, crying to me for bread, and I have none to give them! Father’s heart, can’st thou bear this? Break rather, ere this extreme of misery comes upon thee!” He threw himself beneath a sloe tree, and tore up the grass with his nails and teeth, and wept and howled in his despair. As the sailor who sees his vessel sinking will have recourse to any expedient, even jumping into the boiling waves, in the hope of escaping, or at all events postponing immediate destruction, so poor Veit, after forming and rejecting a thousand futile schemes, resolved at last to have recourse to the Spirit of the Mountain. He had heard a hundred stories about the Gnome from travellers with whom he had conversed at different times, and he remembered that though sometimes the Spirit had shown himself excessively touchy and spiteful, he had on other occasions manifested considerable kindness of heart to people in distress. He was aware, too, that one certain mode of irritating his Lordship was to call him by his nickname; but as he knew not how to make himself understood by any other means, he made up his mind to a sound cudgelling, and set to work, bawling at the pitch of his voice: “Rubezahl! Rubezahl!” Forthwith there started up before him a great black, sooty collier, with a broad red beard that reached down to his girdle; fire flashed from his eyes, and he was armed with an enormous club as long as a weaver’s beam, which he raised with a ferocious air, and was about to smash with it the impudent vagabond who had dared thus barefacedly to insult him.
“A word, by your leave, my Lord Rubezahl,” said Veit, with an intrepid air; “pray pardon me, that, unacquainted with your proper designation, I have, may-be, unintentionally addressed you by a title that seems disrespectful. I meant no offence.” This straightforward address, and the man’s care-worn face, expressive of anything in the world but insolence or impertinent curiosity, somewhat mollified the Gnome. “Earth worm!” cried he, “what can have possessed thee to disturb me thus? Know’st thou not how terribly I punish such an outrage?”
“My Lord,” replied Veit, “sheer necessity has driven me to take this step. I have a petition to lay before you, which you can readily comply with, and thereby save me from utter destruction. If you will lend me a hundred dollars, I will in three years, as I am an honest man, repay you the money with full legal interest.”—“Blockhead!” replied the Gnome, “dost thou take me for a usurer? Go, address thyself to thy brother men, and borrow of them the sum thou needest, and trouble me no longer.”—“Alas!” replied Veit, “it’s all up with me in that quarter; brotherhood among men does not extend to money matters.” He then told his pitiful story in detail, and described the oppression and misery he had suffered so pathetically, that the Gnome could not resist his entreaties. Even had the poor wretch been less deserving of compassion, the idea of borrowing money from him struck Rubezahl as something so original, so confiding, so ingenuous, that he would not have hesitated to extricate the petitioner from his difficulties. “Follow me,” said he; and plunging into the wood, he led Veit through it to a distant valley, at whose extremity rose a steep rock, the base of which was surrounded by thick brushwood.
When Veit and his conductor had with some trouble forced their way through the bushes, they found themselves at the mouth of a dark cavern. Poor Veit was not without his misgivings while groping his way through the deep gloom. A cold chill began to come over him, and his hair was getting on end. “I should not be the first,” thought he, “whom Rubezahl has deceived. Who knows on the brink of what abyss I may at this moment be walking, into which the next step may hurl me!” At that moment he began to hear a terrible roaring, rushing noise, as of a torrent dashing into a gulf. The farther he advanced the more was his heart oppressed with fear; but at length, to his great consolation, he perceived in the distance a bluish flame, which, on nearer approach, he found to proceed from a large lamp suspended from the centre of the rocky ceiling of a spacious grotto, throughout which it diffused a brilliant light. On the floor, beneath the lamp, stood an immense copper, brimful of new, hard, glittering dollars. At sight of this treasure all Veit’s fears vanished, and his heart leaped with joy. “Take,” said the Spirit, “what thou needest, be it more or less; and then, if thou canst write, draw up thy note of hand for the amount.” Veit having replied that he could write, scrupulously counted out the hundred dollars, not one more, not one less. The Gnome, affecting to pay no attention to him while thus occupied, went to another part of the grotto, to look for his writing materials. Veit then drew up the note in the most binding terms he could think of, and handed it over to the Gnome, who locked it up in a strong box, and then bad him farewell. “Go thy way, my friend,” said he, in the gentlest tone, “and by thy honest industry make the most of the money thou hast got. Forget not that thou art my debtor; impress well on thy memory the road to this valley, and the entrance to the cavern. On the third year complete from this day, thou must return and pay me principal and interest. I am a strict creditor; so fail not, or thou wilt repent it.” Honest Veit, without taking any oath in the matter, without pledging soul and salvation, as so many lax payers are so ready to do, promised, by his two hands, to be punctual to the day; and then departed, full of gratitude to the kind-hearted Mountain Spirit, finding his way out of the cavern without any of that difficulty which he experienced on entering it. The hundred dollars were to poor Veit a very balsam of life. When, on leaving the dark cave, he hailed the light of heaven, he felt as though born anew. Full of joy and renovated vigour, he walked sturdily homewards, and reached the miserable cottage just as the day was closing. As soon as the starving children descried their father, they cried out, with their faint voices; “Bread, father! a morsel of bread! How long thou hast kept us waiting!” The woe-worn mother sat weeping in a corner, scarcely daring to look at her husband, so much did her oppressed spirit dread his having only bad news to communicate; but he, assuring her with a cordial smile and a loving kiss, bade her mend the fire; and then lit up the hollow eyes of all by drawing from his wallet the oatmeal, millet, and other eatables he had bought at Reichenberg on his way home. In the shortest possible time there was got ready a bowl of porridge, so thick that the spoon stood upright in it; and then the poor hungry folks set to work, and ate away so heartily and joyously, ’twould have done you good to have seen them. The next thing to be done was to satisfy his wife’s earnest desire to know how he had sped. Not deeming it advisable for the present to let her know the real state of the case, he said: “Thy relations are uncommonly nice people; they by no means insulted me for my poverty, nor affected not to know me, nor turned me into the street by the shoulders. Oh! dear, no; they received me most hospitably; opened heart and hand to me, and advanced me a hundred dollars down on the nail. Of course they did!” The poor woman felt relieved from a sense of mortification which had long weighed heavily on her mind. Her rich relations, then, would notice her, and give her a helping hand, The thought quite elevated her: “Ah!” said she, with an air, “had we in the first instance knocked at the right door, had you thought proper to apply earlier to my relations, we should have been spared much misery.” And so she went on to laud and glorify her rich kindred, though up to that moment she had always discouraged any recourse to them as utterly hopeless on account of their pride and meanness. For some time Veit, in consideration of the many troubles she had gone through, allowed her to indulge in the pleasure she took in setting forth the importance, the inestimable value, of her rich relations; it tickled her vanity, and though he was annoyed, yet for awhile he put up with it; but when he found that the theme seemed exhaustless, that week after week the praises of those opulent niggards was well nigh her only topic, he lost all patience, and one day said to her: “Dost thou know what the master of the house gave me when I went, as thou boastest, to knock at the right door?”—“No, tell me.”—“Well, he gave me a proverb: ‘Every one forges his own fortune;’ that was what he gave me. Another of thy rich relations gave me—what dost think? another proverb: ‘Strike while the iron is hot,’ said he. And a third gave me a third proverb: ‘Help yourself, and your friends will bless you.’ Now, wife, let us at all events attend to this last proverb; let us help ourselves; let us talk no more of thy rich relations, but make the best use we can of our hands and heads, so that by the end of three years we may be able to pay principal and interest, the money I borrowed of thy rich relations, as thou thinkest, and then we shall be clear before the world.” The wife was a woman of good natural sense; she took the advice now given, and thenceforward heartily seconded her husband, who by slow and safe degrees bought one bit of land after another, until he had realized a hundred acres. A blessing was on the hundred dollars, and they went on doubling themselves as though there had been a decoy dollar among them. Veit sowed and reaped, and was already looked up to in the village as a man well to do in the world; every year he saved something towards the purchase of more land, so that at the close of the third summer he had considerably added to his hundred acres. Good fortune so attended him in all he did, that not a single investment he made but returned him large profits.
The time of payment approached, and Veit had so well managed that he was perfectly able to take up his note, without the slightest inconvenience. Having already put apart the hundred crowns, with interest, on the appointed day he rose very early in the morning, roused his wife and children, directed her to wash and comb them nicely, and to dress herself and them in their Sunday clothes, desiring her, in especial, to put on the new shoes and fine scarlet bodice he had bought her for a new-year’s gift, and which she had only worn once. He himself donned his best things, and, meantime, opening the window, called out: “Hans, put to the horses!”
“Why what’s the meaning of all this?” asked his wife; “’tis no holiday or church festival to-day; what has put thee into this merry-making vein? Where art thou going to take us?”—“Oh!” said he, laughingly, “I’m going to see those rich relations beyond the mountains, who helped us in the time of need, and to pay my debt; to-day, principal and interest, the money falls due.” The wife, highly delighted, dressed out herself and her children in all their finery, and to complete the favourable effect she intended to produce in the minds of her rich relations, and manifestly to prove that her circumstances were now good, she hung round her neck a string of crooked ducats. Everybody being ready, Veit took the heavy bag of dollars in his hand, and off they started; and Hans making the four horses keep up a good trot, they were not long in reaching the Giant Mountains.
At the bottom of a steep hill Veit stopped the vehicle, stepped out himself, and made his family do the same. “Hans,” said he, “go gently up the mountain, and wait for us under the three linden trees thou wilt come to; don’t be uneasy if we do not immediately join thee; the horses will have time to rest and graze a bit. We’re going by a foot-path I’m acquainted with, somewhat round about, ’tis true, but very pleasant.” He then conducted his family through the wood into the valley, and down to the copse at its extremity, where he looked about, up and down, here and there, until his wife began to fear he had lost his way, and proposed to him to return and get into the high road again. Hereupon Veit called around him his six children, who were playing about, and said: “Thou believest, my dear wife, that we are going to pay a visit to thy friends; but such is not, just now, my intention. Thy rich relations are niggards and knaves, who, when in my affliction I went to seek consolation and assistance at their hands, treated me with insolence and outrage, and turned me out of doors. No; ’tis here resides the benefactor to whom our gratitude is due for our present well-being, who lent me, on my bare word, the hundred dollars which have so prospered in my hands. This is the day he fixed for the repayment of the debt. And who, thinkest thou, is our creditor? No other than the Lord of the Mountain, whom men call Rubezahl.” The wife was horribly frightened at this intelligence, and pulling out a great cross, waved it franticly about herself and the children, who were clinging round her, all trembling at the idea of their father having anything to do with Rubezahl, of whom they had heard, over and over again, as a hideous giant and man-eater. Veit proceeded to relate all the circumstances of his adventure; how the Spirit, on being called, had appeared to him in the form of a collier; how he had gone with him into the cavern, received the money, and given a note of hand for its repayment; and so moved was the poor fellow with the recollection of the Gnome’s kindness to him, that, as he spoke, the tears of affectionate gratitude ran down his sun-burnt cheeks.
“Await me here,” said he at last, “I am now going into the cavern to settle this affair. Fear nothing; I shall be back directly; and, if I can prevail upon his Lordship, will bring him to receive your thanks; hesitate not to shake him cordially by the hand, black and rough though it be, if he will permit you; he will do you no harm, but, on the contrary, will doubtless be pleased with the fruits of his good action, and our heartfelt thanks. Fear nothing, I say; perhaps he may even give you some gold-streaked apples, or gingerbread.”
The timid woman was but half reassured, and did all in her power to prevent her husband from entering the cavern; the children, too, cried, and held him back; but, disengaging himself, Veit forced his way through the thick underwood, and, after much labour, reached the well-remembered rock. He at once recognized all the land-marks he had so well impressed on his memory; and, prominent among them, there stood, and had stood for centuries, the hollow oak, amongst the roots of which the subterranean entrance opened; but not a trace of any opening was now to be seen.
In vain did he try every means he could think of to gain admission into the mountain; he took up a great stone and threw it a dozen times against the rock with all his might; he intreated, implored it to open; he drew the bag of crowns from his pocket, and rattled its contents, calling out as loud as he could bawl: “Spirit of the Mountain! come and receive thy due!” But the Spirit was not to be seen or heard. The honest debtor was therefore fain to carry his dollars back again out of the wood, through which, strange enough, he had now no difficulty in making his way, a path presenting itself which he had not before remarked. As soon as his wife and children saw him coming they joyfully ran to meet him; but Veit, full of sorrow and heaviness at not being able to effect his payment, threw himself disconsolately on the grass, to consider what he should do. By-and-bye, his old device recurred to him, and up he jumped with a delighted air. “Yes! yes! that will be sure to do,” cried he; “I’ll call on him by his nickname: he’ll be angry, no doubt, and perhaps beat me black and blue; but no matter, so that he comes and receives the money. I’d rather be well cudgelled than he should think me dishonest.” And therewith he set to work, shouting with all his might: “Rubezahl! Rubezahl!” His alarmed wife implored him to be silent, and essayed to put her hand upon his mouth; but he did but bawl all the louder. By-and-bye the youngest of the children suddenly cried out, pressing close to his mother: “Ah, there’s the black man!” “Where?” said Veit, joyfully. “There, behind that tree,” replied the little one. And thereupon all the little things crowded together, screaming at the pitch of their lungs. The father ran towards the tree, but saw nobody there: fear, or a shadow, had deceived the child. It was clear Rubezahl would not make his appearance, so it was of no use to call him any more.
The party now turned their heads towards home, Veit walking slowly on, full of grief and disappointment, and fear for his character with the Gnome, All at once a gentle breeze arose; there was a rustling among the trees; the slender birches waved gently to and fro their graceful heads; the trembling aspen leaves quivered. The breeze still rose, and agitating the wide-spreading branches of the holm oak, scattered their dry leaves and stems abroad, sending them round and round in a gay whirl with the circling dust, which danced up from the arid road, making fine sport for the children, who (Rubezahl altogether forgotten) chased the flying leaves, as airy and well nigh as heedless as they. Among the other things that were tearing about, the boy who had seen, as he thought, the Spirit of the Mountain, descried much more certainly a bit of white paper, which he forthwith made a special dash after. He had just caught hold of it, when there came a gust of wind, and off it went again, and off went the boy. Again and again it escaped him. At last he threw his hat at it, and having caught it in the cleverest way in the world, and found it to be a good big sheet, that might be of use, he ran after his father with it. On examination, what should it turn out to be but the identical note of hand he had given to the Spirit of the Mountain; at the bottom was written: Received in full.
At sight of this, Veit was transported with joy, and loudly exclaimed: “Dear wife! dear children! rejoice with me! He has seen us! he has heard the expression of our heartfelt thanks. Our good benefactor, though he remained invisible to us, knows that Veit is an honest man. I am quit of my debt. Now I can return home happy.” And away went parents and children to their vehicle, weeping tears of joy and gratitude. But ere they returned home, the wife, whom her husband’s narrative had greatly irritated against her rich relations, determined to go and pay them a visit: not now to return them thanks, but to make them ashamed of their mean conduct. So the horses’ heads were turned towards the village where the niggards lived; and in the evening they reached the very farm from which, three years before, Veit had been so inhospitably and cruelly driven. This time the thriving farmer marched boldly up and knocked with a flourish. A perfect stranger opened the door; and, in answer to Veit’s inquiries, informed him that the rich relations had all gone to the dogs: one was dead, leaving no money; another was still alive in the place, subsisting on alms; a third had found it convenient to decamp, without beat of drum, and was wandering about without a home, and so on. Veit, with his family, spent the night in the house of the new proprietor, a very hospitable man, who related to him at large the various misfortunes that had befallen the niggards. Next day he returned home; his affairs continued to prosper, and he and his wife lived together in health, happiness, and opulence, to a very advanced period of life.