The Enchanted Knights/The Demon of the Ring
THE
DEMON OF THE RING;
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
OF
MUSÆUS,
LONDON:
HUGH CUNNINGHAM, 193, STRAND.
THE DEMON OF THE RING.
A young prince, Udo by name, swayed the island of Rugen, on the Pomeranian shore, (long before the northern deluge had overwhelmed and buried the greater part of it in the depths of the sea, and at the time when the powerful race of the Obotrites inhabited its plains,[1]) and resided in the town of Arcon the capital of his hereditary possessions, whose ruins now lie entombed since many centuries in the all engulphing ocean. He was married to Edda, the daughter of one of his vassals, and his petty principality was to him a terrestrial paradise. Here he lived as best he liked, loving his subjects and beloved by them, doing nothing but what he believed just, and caring but little for the department of “Foreign Affairs;” in short, being free from the cares of an entangled government, his life resembled more that of a happy country gentleman than of a prince governing a country—combining the privileges of power with the enjoyment of a tranquil and social life, without ever feeling the oppression of ennui; and the moments he did not bestow upon his loving consort he generally devoted to fishing and hunting, his favourite sports.
Once having hunted on the most northern point of his dominions, on a cape running far into the sea, he reposed with his suite during the heat of the day in the shadow of an oak; luxuriating at once in the splendid sight and refreshing breeze of the billowy ocean.
Suddenly awful Aœlus spread his rustling wings, the face of the water grew wrinkled as an angry brow, gigantic billows stormed the rocks as though an hostile castle, and fell back in boiling rage a powerless and bubbling foam. In the midst of the battling element a ship, sport of the winds which mocked the toiling pilot, was seen dancing upon the wave. It was driven towards the cliffs in sight of which it was foundered upon a hidden rock. To behold from a place of safety the contention of human daring against two powerful and deceitful elements, is an awful sight, but as soon as victory is decided in favour of the stronger, the better feelings of man revolt at the unequal contest, and all his sympathies are enlisted in favour of the weaker, to whom he offers all the protection and aid that the human will can command.
Prince Udo and his suite directly hastened to the shore to snatch if possible the shipwrecked men from the enraged flood, and give them all the assistance they needed. He offered to the most daring of the fishermen large rewards to save those who were yet struggling in the water, but all labour was lost—the sea had already swallowed its prey ere the succouring bark had cleft the raging surge.
Nought was left of the ill-fated vessel, all had disappeared save one man who was seen riding upon a cask, as if it were a well-trained horse, which obeys the slightest sign of its master. An advancing wave threw him high on the strand, at the feet of the sympathising prince, who kindly received the sufferer and ordered him a change of dress and necessary food. Udo himese!f presented the stranger with his own goblet as a token that he would keep him as a guest, and not as a slave, as he could by right of shorage. The stranger received the goblet thankfully, and drank its contents to the health of the owner of the shore. He was gay and in high spirits, and seemed to forget his late misfortune. This stoical equanimity of the seafarer pleased the prince, and made him desirous of further intimacy; he therefore asked:—“Stranger, who are you, from whence do you come, and what is your profession?” The stranger answered:—“I am called Waidewuth, the Unknown. I am a swimmer coming from the Amber shore, in Bruzzia, and was sailing towards England.”
The stranger’s physiognomy and surname, and skill in swimming highly excited the prince’s curiosity, but the Unknown so skilfully evaded Udo’s questions that it was impossible for him to learn what he wanted to know, still he hoped after a closer acquaintance to withdraw the mysterious veil that covered him. Thereupon the prince continued his hunting excursion, to which he invited the stranger, who, not showing the slightest appearance of fatigue, accepted the proposal with pleasure, but before he leaped into the saddle he broke the cask, and put a chip of it in his belt, as if for remembrance sake.
During the chase he proved himself no less expert in archery than in swimming. The prince at length left the wood, when galloping over the fallow field towards his residential town, he perceived some jays starting from the ground, and he much regretted the absence of his falcons to cast them in chase. The Unknown saw and gratified the desire of the prince. He took the chip of the cask, which had served him as a sea-horse, and threw it into the air unseen by any one, when it became a hawk which arose above the head of the prince, followed the jays and brought them down successively without obeying any call but that of the stranger to whose hands it returned, much to the astonishment of the prince and his whole hunting suite. All made their secret comments on the enigmatic man, some believed him a god of the sea, others, a sorcerer; Udo himself knew not what to think, but judged him rather favourably. He took him to the palace as a guest, tended him carefully, and presented him to his wife, Edda, as a friend. The Unknown justified by his behaviour the good opinion of the prince. He was a high-bred courtier, exhibited much knowledge, and amused the ladies by his wizard tricks, yet neither the kindness shown to him, nor the friendship of his host could untie the band that bound his tongue. The quick-sighted eye of the prince perceived a certain melancholy in his guest, principally when he made him a witness of his domestic happiness, a spectacle as rare in the palaces of the great as in the divan of Gods in the Homeric Olympus. This discovery awakened in Udo a suspicion that the mysterious guest might by chance nourish an impure flame towards his spouse, which he was afraid to give vent to, and unable to subdue. As the microscopic seed of jealousy where it falls germinates into a poisonous mushroom, which, in a humid night grows from an atom to its full size, so was the prince as quickly strengthened in his suspicion, yet also as quickly undeceived.
On one of their hunting excursions Udo and his favourite were separated from the rest of the party, when the latter approached the prince, and said:—“Brave prince, you have taken pity on the shipwrecked and he is not ungrateful for the boon. By right of shorage I was your slave, but you granted me my liberty, and I now intend to use it—I shall return to my country, if you will permit me to depart.” The prince returned:—“My friend, you are at liberty to do as you choose, still your leaving is unexpected, say therefore what drives you hence?” “A suspicion that wounds my feelings,” retorted Waidewuth the Unknown, “which you have conceived, though my heart absolves me from the slightest stain. You mistake, my melancholy has quite a different cause than you imagine—a cause which I must conceal.” This speech perplexed Udo; he was unable to conceive how human perception could discern inmost thoughts, and he tried as best he might to arrange matters, saying:—“Thoughts, my friend, are free of duty. If I were led into error, let it be so, you have not been called to account for it. The best explanation you can give to me is to tell the reasons for your secret grief.”—“Be it so,” replied Waidewuth, “I understand astrology, and out of friendship, drawing your destiny from the stars, I found that you have to meet a sad change of fortune; this is the sole reason of my melancholy—if you want to know more, listen.” “Stop!” cried Udo to the prophet of evil. “Your countenance forebodes nought good; you sympathize with my misfortunes, and I thank you; but refrain from announcing them, lest my evil star should torture me beforehand.” The messenger of evil was silent. Udo dismissed him with many gifts, in token of his esteem, and feelings of sincere friendship. The stranger disappeared, and none knew which way he had taken.
Scarcely had a few months glid away before a terrible war-cry was heard approaching from the continent; it was rumoured that Cruco, king of the Obotrites, who at that time swayed over Mecklenburg, in order to reunite the separate principalities with his crown, prepared to war against all the Obotrite tribes, who had withdrawn from the vassalage of his regal authority. Udo now saw himself much to his displeasure forced to take notice of his foreign affairs. He dispatched emissaries and learned that all he had heard was true. The storm was yet distant, and the lightning was only seen from afar, still the wind blew direct to the island, and would in all probability bring the tempest in its course. Prince Udo though not quite at his ease, made not his vassals feel the cares which oppressed him; he behaved like a cautious abbot, who conducts his monks to the choir with the same calmness as if no change had taken place, even though the executors of the decree of abolition be standing at the convent door, and the pious inhabitants be chanting their fervent strains. He flew to arms with all possible haste, relying partly on the doubtful protection of the sea; but the treacherous element sided with the strongest, and willingly carried the inimical fleet on its broad back to the unopposing shore.
The prince, not being prepared for an open battle with so superior an enemy, was besieged in his town of Arcon. For forty days the assailants stormed the town on all sides, which after a most desperate resistance fell into their hands. When all around was noise and tumult a small but courageous band of citizens joined the prince, and like the heroes of King David,[2] aided by night, after bursting open the town gates forced their way through the enemy’s camp. They reached the shore and went under sail in a small vessel which they found anchored off the strand, without knowing whither to bend their course. Soon the fugitives could only discern their paternal shores in the dim distance, but the tearful eyes of the unhappy prince were still directed towards his former possessions, not regretting so much the loss of his dominions, as the absence of his faithful consort and his little babe still at the breast—the image of the mother and the joy of the father. The uncertainty of his wife’s and child’s fate, not knowing whether they had fallen a prey to the conqueror, or been sacrificed by the enraged enemy drove him nearly to despair. Far from being thankful to his faithful followers for saving him from the voracious sword, he thought those happy whom pallid death had delivered from knawing anguish.
Destiny itself seemed to pity the unfortunate prince, and to grant him the wish of terminating his suffering life. A raging tempest broke over the Baltic sea, unshipped the rudder, split the sails, shivered the masts, seized the vessel, and whirled it round and round. The towering wave now lifted the miserable wreck to the clouds, then again threw it into the bottomless depths, till by a violent gust it was shattered on a rock. Udo hearing the cry:—“Save himself who can!” was the first to plunge into the sea, rejoicing in the secret hope of a speedy death, but in spite of himself, an irresistible power snatched him from a watery grave, and the receding wave left him senseless on the shore. On recovering he saw himself surrounded by a multitude of men engaged in restoring him; one of them was the most assiduous in the task, and Udo on close inspection found him to be Waidewuth the Unknown; but instead of expressing gratitude for their care, the prince said in a weak voice and with melancholy gesture:—“Cruel man! have I merited this treatment; to be thus forcibly torn from the arms of repose, and thrown back into a sea of suffering, from which my mind had already escaped. Have pity upon me, let the flood be my tomb! let me glide again into the deep! and you will be to me a benefactor as you are now my torturer who finds pleasure in beholding the racking agonies of the unfortunate.”
Waidewuth the Unknown offered his hand to Udo, saying in a compassionate tone:—“Your misfortune, noble prince, bends you down, yet, know that a persevering man ought not to give way beneath its heavy load; but exercise his last remaining strength to throw off its burden, and become himself again. Before you determine upon dying, at least confide the cause of your sufferings to the bosom of him whom you believed formerly worthy of your friendship, and deny not yourself the consolation of knowing that there is one who participates in them: for this is comfort to a sufferer.” “Alas!” replied the sorrowful prince, “why do you ask me to tell you my misfortune whose remembrance rends my heart in twain. A powerful prince has wrested from me my principality; I have lost a tender wife, and a beautiful child, the pledge of faithful love. Now, as you know all, I am sure you will agree with my resolution to lay down a life which seems to me far more horrible than death itself.” Waidewuth retorted:—“I was warned of all this when I consulted the stars, and it was this which made me melancholy when I left you; but the constellation is again favourable to you—do not therefore despair; it is in the power of destiny to recompense you for all your losses. You are young and vigorous; will you then consume life by lamenting the loss of a woman? You have only to wish for, and you shall not be wanting of a consort, who will bring forth children to tend you in your old age. Does not Fortune grant crowns and principalities to whomsoe’er she pleases; if you require such for your happiness she may restore yours.” A good husbandman endeavours to regain the sum he has lost—a bad one laments his hard fate without exercising his resources and thus becomes ruined.”
The Prince, lost in deep sorrow, did not find such philosophy to his taste, but Waidewuth used language so persuasive that Udo finally agreed to follow the Unknown to the neighbouring cottage of a fisherman, where he was provided by his host with humble fisherman’s fare. Udo by this plain reception forsook the romantic idea he had conceived of the inexplicable stranger on the shores of Rugen; seeing now that this adventurer was no king, nor sorcerer, but a common fisherman, distinguishing himself from his companions by the power of prophecy—a power not valued in his own country, (for no one is a prophet at home,) still he was pleased at the ardour he shewed in return for the kindness he had received.
After a simple repast where the cup of welcome, filled with wine which would have been a credit to a kingly banquet, was not wanting, the hospitable entertainer led his wearied guest to his resting-place, wishing him to forget in the arms of the God of dreams his deeply wrought sorrows. On Udo’s awakening next morning he, to his great surprise, saw that he was no longer within the fisherman’s hut, but on a regal state bed filled with the softest down, in a kingly apartment, splendidly furnished. The sun welcomed him through the rich and variously stained glass windows, and he felt as if the noble orb’s beneficent rays revived his drooping spirits. As soon as he moved several servants entered, respectfully awaiting his orders: the first questions he addressed to them were to learn where he was, how he came into the palace, and to whom it belonged. They answered that he was in the town of Geden,[3] on the river Vistula, in the palace of the king, whose name was Waidewuth the Powerful.
Udo was amazed at finding in the king of the Amber shore, of whom so many wondrous tales were reported, a friend and ally; he had never dreamed that the wizard Waidewuth, to whom he had given hospitality, was so powerful a monarch. He had scarcely recovered from his amazement when the king, covered with all the insignia of his rank, entered to welcome and give friendly embrace to his guest;—“Brother,” said he, “you are in your property and I am rejoiced at finding an occasion of returning the friendship you proved for me.” Udo felt no small embarassment at being received as a sovereign by the same king whom he had treated as a private man, and excused himself by alleging the strict incognito his majesty had chosen to preserve. To turn the thoughts of the sorrowful guest into another channel, Waidewuth explained to the prince all he wished to know respecting him when in his dominions, not yet having satisfied his curiosity upon that subject.
“I went travelling,” said the king, “to study mankind; to observe the manners and customs of foreign nations in order to become more accomplished and learned, and at the same time, I shall not deny it, to choose a consort amongst Eve’s daughters. Elfrieda, the daughter of the king of the East Angles, in Britania, was in the repute of high beauty and virtue, and her renown came to my ears. I freighted a vessel to transport my suite, and the presents destined for the princess; as for myself I needed no ship, as I made use of a much more secure and convenient conveyance. In the environs of your island, I was overtaken by a tempest which destroyed my ship, but the injury was easily repaired as far as I was concerned. During the hurricane I observed your movements in aid of the shipwrecked; this philanthropic conduct determined me to seek your acquaintance. The reception I met with warmed my heart towards you, and induced me to stay in your island, but the knowledge of your unhappy fate grieved me deeply, so that I felt compelled to depart, and had not your change of fortunes been registered on the tablets of destiny I should have employed all the powers I could command to protect you; as it was I went on my bridal errand to England. I was too late—the handsome Elfreida had already given her heart away and I was too discreet to disturb her love, or, perhaps, too proud to seek a heart where the ardent torch of love already flamed. On returning I visited the Court of Cruco, your vanquisher, where I saw the Princess Obizza, his daughter, a maiden as lovely and handsome as ever maiden was, but her heart was incapable of love, and mine too haughty to leave disdain unrevenged; I therefore took care not to commit any act of folly nor to compromise the tranquility of the two kingdoms by leaving my passions unconquered.
Udo could not comprehend how Fortune should have refused to his crowned friend a favour which she lavished upon every shepherd. The King’s unmarried state not being to his own inclination, he could not refrain from asking him to solve the riddle. Waidewuth gave him, without hesitation, the wished-for explanation. “You know that I possess the gift of prescience, which reveals the dark future to my eyes, whilst you and others draw your lots without knowing whether a blank or a prize will come to your share. When I consult the stars, and find that the advantage is not on my side I renounce a deceitful love whose possession would be followed by the most bitter repentance. The most brilliant hopes are often the most deceiving. If the lovers always knew how to draw the horoscope of future destiny few brides would touch the bridal bed, and the army of bachelors become innumerable.” Udo terminated the conversation with the following good advice: “that in choosing a consort we should not examine the future with prophetic eye, but simply study the temper of the bride; for if all obeyed the king’s rule the number of bachelors would certainly much increase.” The king of the Amber Shore followed the prince’s recommendation, searched in the neighbourhood for what he was unable to find afar, and shared his heart and throne with a daughter of the country; drawing a lot, directed only by chance, he seized a prize which gave him all the sweetness of wedded life without any of its bitterness.
Although the fraternal monarch did everything to dispel the cloud from his guest’s brow he could not succeed in restoring his spirits. He always remained melancholy and downcast, and the image of his former spouse being never distant from his imagination, he often asked the royal seer to divulge her fate. The king frequently eluded Udo’s questions, but finally considering that suspension between hope and fear was more painful than the certainty of misfortune, determined to grant his desire, and, not having any good news to communicate, he used a common-place expression, saying:—“A half-severed nerve pains more than one entirely cut away; the pain of a crushed limb is alleviated by amputation. Listen then, my brother, your wife could not survive the anguish of the separation; her shadow already hovered around me ere you touched this shore; in Walhalla,[4] you will find her again. It was from your own goblet she drank a farewell to love, having mixed poison in her wine, when she learnt that the town was in the enemy’s power, for she thought it unbecoming in a princess to wear the chains of slavery.
Udo grieved deeply upon the loss of his beloved spouse, shut himself up for seven days in his apartment and his tears flowed freely. On the eighth day he left his confinement with a mild and serene countenance, as the sun goes forth after a misty spring morning. Sorrow was extirpated from his heart, and his mind was directed to the world; he wished to try whether the fickle Goddess having treated him so harshly, would again bestow one of her favourable smiles.
He communicated his intention of visiting the world, to his bosom friend, who was glad to see him in this disposition. “I cannot offer you any dignity,” said Waidewuth, “equal to your rank; born an independent sovereign as such you ought to live and die, and if possible regain your lost estates. The stars favour you, and at the spring of your misfortunes you will find your future happiness.” Udo prepared for his departure, Waidewuth providing him with a brilliant train. When the day of departure drew near, the king commanded a splendid feast where all the grandees of the empire were bidden, and which continued nine days, amid various amusements. On the last day Waidewuth conducted his guest into a separate apartment to drink with him a confidential goblet; and when the wine had warmed their hearts, and the thermometer of confidence had risen by degrees, the host took his guest’s hand, and thus spoke:—“One thing more, dear brother, ere we separate. Accept this ring, not as a present but as a loan, in token of my boundless friendship; it will serve for any period you may require it; and, listen to a secret which will prove to you the amount of my feelings and confidence.
“The whole world believes me to be a sorcerer, still I know as little of the black art as a baby, but the world always attributes to princes qualities which they do not possess. I have the means of foretelling by the stars, but my whole sorcery consists in this ring, given me by a sage on his death-bed. It contains a small demon, who bears no malice; he is quick, intelligent and faithful, and can adopt any form his owner wishes him to take. It was he who in the shape of an empty barrel carried me over the sea. He was embodied in the splinter which changed into a hawk for your amusement, which returned to my hand, was carried by me to your residence, amused the court by his different tricks, and procured me at the same time the reputation of a wizard. He carried me over the sea to England, in the form of a light skiff, and returned with me to Mecklenburg, where he changed into a winged horse which carried me comfortably on its back to my own country. It was he also who went as a scout to bring me information of your affairs. By my order, transformed into a light zephyr, he directed your ship towards the Amber shore, and when the tempest had shattered it, he drew you from the water to the sands, and while asleep in the fisherman’s hut, carried you on his back to this palace.—I would not lose him for half my kingdom but, as you have gained my friendship, I shall give him to you on your good faith to use him for a time, and when you shall no longer want his services, send him back in the form of a hawk with the ring in his beak. If you require his assistance, turn the ring three times round your finger, towards the right, and he will be ready to obey you, and as soon as he has done what you desired, turn the ring three times to the left, when he will again enter his adamantine habitation.” Prince Udo received this token of the king’s esteem with the utmost gratitude. He looked at the ring and saw through the transparent gem, a misty little cloud, which imagination could as easily picture into a little devil with two horns, claws, tail and horse leg, as see in the moon a man carrying a bundle of sticks on his back.
Udo, having taken leave of his host in the most cordial manner, bent his steps towards Mecklenburg, following the advice of his phrophetic entertainer. The hermeneutic of common sense could give no better explanation of the source of his misfortunes. He determined to maintain there the strictest incognito, and, although it seemed very improbable to him to make his fortune at the residence of his vanquisher, he wisely refrained from troubling his mind about it, and left the solution of this anomaly to time and chance. The town of Mecklenburg was the capital of the Obotrites, and the residence of the king; it was the European Bagdad or Cairo, regarding its size and population, or rather the London and Paris of Germany.[5] Cruco had raised this town to the height of prosperity; he held there a splendid court surrounded by all the princes and vassals conquered by his glorious achievements. He extended the frontiers of his empire in an heroic manner, by the force of the strong over the weak, and the whole race of the Obotrites obeyed his sceptre; but in spite of all this his happiness was not complete. He wanted a male heir; the Salic law, then obeyed by all northern nations, prevented the succession of Obizza, his only daughter. The king imagined that he had found the means of perpetuating the succession in his family, because he had stipulated by the pragmatic sanction, that the first born son of his daughter should succeed in the government, to whomsoever she was married; but the princess had, notwithstanding all her accomplishments, the fault, so rarely met with in the fair sex, of feeling an aversion for the men. She had refused the most brilliant offers, and as her father tenderly loved her, and would not force her into a marriage where inclination had no part—making love a state business, as it had generally been with princesses, he at least wished to see her united to one whom she loved, but even this wish the young lady would not satisfy; her time had not yet arrived, and nature seemed to have refused to her the tender feeling she so generally lavishes upon her daughters.
Cruco nearly lost patience, and desiring a successor, he was obliged to allow every adventurer to try his chance, by besieging the heart of Obizza, promising at the same time, the town of Rugen as a reward. Such a bait attracted a number of fortune hunters from all quarters of the world to win her heart. Every candidate was well received at court, and Obizza was obliged, by her father’s order, to behave courteously to them. It would have been a very amusing sight for a philosophic observer, to have seen the different manœuvres of all those fops trying to conquer the invincible heart of the noble lady, surrounded like a comet with a dense circle of vapourous atmosphere. Some tried by artifice, others by lamention, others by flattery, and some by bold attack; but all their schemes tended only to strengthen her aversion for them, and augmented her contempt to such a degree, that even an Endymion would have failed in making an impression on her heart.
Udo, in the mean time, arrived at Mecklenburg. Not knowing by what name to introduce himself, he joined the legion of wooers, and although he was struck by the idea of his principality being the recompense, he had not the slightest intention of regaining his country by marrying the king’s daughter. He saw the princess, and she made a deep impression upon him; he felt a charming surprise, his sleep was interrupted, he became thoughtful, and in all his dreams the Mecklenburgian Grace played the principal part: he felt himself attracted by an irresistible power, like that which had rescued him from the depths of the sea, but the crowd of wooers prevented the princess from noticing him.
Till that time he had no occasion to use the present of Waidewuth, but now he thought of giving employment to the serviceable demon. He formed him into the shape of as pretty an Amor as ever the imagination of the troubadour Jacobi had formed—locking him up in a needle case, with strict injunctions to perform all the duties of the god of Love to the lady who would open it.
On a beautiful evening, when the court was assembled in the king’s pleasure garden, a gentle zephyr disordered the veil of the princess and she asked for a pin wherewith to fasten it. Prince Udo immediately approached, bent one knee, and presented her the golden case, which contained as dangerous a present as once Pandora’s box. The princess opened it without suspicion, when instantly the demon of the ring took refuge in her bosom, and wounded her with his arrow. Udo retreated full of disquietude, not knowing what would be the result of the demon’s art.
The next day, he perceived with delight, that the eyes of the princess sought him in the crowd of her admirers. On the third day, the cunning Aya[6] perceived that a revolution had taken place in the heart of the princess, and on the fourth, the court began to speak loudly of the extraordinary phenomenon; the king himself, secretly informed of the event, was highly pleased with his sagacity at finding out the right means of attaining his end. He lost no time in asking Obizza the state of her feelings; it was so little in her power to conceal them, that she was obliged to draw the veil over her face before confessing that the unknown knight had won her heart.
Udo, to the astonishment of the whole court, received his bride Obizza from the hands of the king as a man without a name; but the marriage contract being signed, the father of the lovely bride inquired the name and station of the happy lover, who now without restraint, made himself known. Cruco was highly gratified at the opportunity of repaying, with interest, the injury he had done to the Prince of Rugen. Udo remained at court till the heir to the throne, a splendid boy was born, whom Cruco received from the hands of his daughter, and then gave his son-in-law leave to depart. As Udo required the demon no longer, he sent him back in the form of a hawk, with the ring in his beak, feeling the utmost gratitude to the demon’s master.
Since that time, Demon Amor has formed many unions, but he never succeeded so well as with Prince Udo and the Princess Obizza of Mecklenburg; for generally when he had been the wooer, the sentimental pair, while engaged in a domestic quarrel, were driven to exclaim, “the D has united us.”
End of The Demon of the Ring.
NOTES
TO THE
DEMON OF THE RING.
Demon Amor is the name of the German tale now translated under the title of the Demon of the Ring. The original name might not be understood by some of our readers, for Amor in the German language, signifies not only the God of Love, but any supernatural being connected with it. The German nomenclature of the spiritual world being much more copious than the English, we have no appropriate names to designate these numerous beings.
NOTE 1.
↑ In the Year 1309, the Baltic and a part of the German Sea were strongly shaken by an earthquake, and a considerable tract of the northern part of Germany was damaged by the Sea. Rugen, now an island, then formed a peninsula, and was much larger than in our days; but by this revolution of the elements, it was torn from the continent, partly inundated and reduced to its present dimensions, less than the third part of its original extent. At that time (before 1309) it was inhabited by the Obotrites, one of the Vandalic tribes, who dwelled all along the northern shore of Germany. They are already mentioned by several of the Roman writers; and their name did not disappear from history until the fourteenth century, when they were completely amalgamated with the rest of the Germans. Cruco was one of the kings of the Obotrites, and seems to have lived in the seventh century. Bruzzia was the ancient name of Prussia. It is well known that Amber is found only in Prussia, principally near the shores of the Baltic; its coasts, therefore, were formerly called the Amber Shore.
NOTE 2.
↑ See the Scriptures.
NOTE 3.
↑ Geden was the ancient name for Dantzic, which is called in Latin, Gedanum; it is now called Gansk in the Polish language.
Waidewuth was the name of an ancient king of the Prussian Venedians, (Wenden) called in the language of the country, Wittewulf. According to tradition, he was a great sorcerer and magician, and his twelve sons are said to have given their names to the Prussian provinces.
NOTE 4.
↑ Walhalla, the heaven or paradise of nearly all the ancient people of the North, where they placed the souls of all heroes and pious men after death.
NOTE 5.
↑ Mecklenburg, formerly bearing the Greek name Megalopolis, (great town) has since given its name to the whole of that country. It is said to have been once as large as Rome, and on its ruins, they tell, the town of Strelitz was built.
NOTE 6.
↑ Aya, is an oriental name for a chambermaid or duenna.
THE END.
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