Chapter 32

Similar to removal into mountains or banishment into the ground, and proceeding from like causes, there is also a sinking into the waters. What the elves get hold of in one case, nixes and sea-sprites do in the other. Holla dwells not only in the hollow mountain, but in the fountain and the lake.

Accordingly, to spirits of heroes and to treasures we shall see a residence assigned in water as well as in a mountain. King Charles sits in the fountain at Nürnberg, with his beard grown into the table (Deut. sag. no. 22). (32) The Nibelungs' hoard lies sunk in the Rhine: 'Rîn skal râða rôgmâlmi, î veltanda vatni lýsaz valbaugar,' Sæm. 248a. In the Siegfried's Lay 167, 4 the hero himself spills it into the stream, that it may not work the ruin of his Recken, as Eugel has foretold; the Epic however makes Hagen destroy it, and not till after Siegfried's murder 1077, 3:

er sancte in dâ ze Lôche allen in den Rîn;
this he did secretly, without the knowledge of Chriemhilde, who to the last supposes it to be in his hands, till he answers 2308, 3:

den schatz weiz nu nieman wan (but) Got unde mîn.
No doubt there were other legends which placed it in mountains: the account given by a woman living in Nerike was, that it lay inside the Kilsberg there, and the key to the cavern was kept under a rosebush (Iduna 10, 269). The Ms. 2, 169b has: der Imelunge hort lît in dem Burlenberge in bî (by them, i.e. the Rhine-folk); but the MsH. 2, 241a reads 'der Nibelunge hort' and 'in dem Lurlenberge.' Imelunge may be corrupt for Nibelunge, as Imelôt for Nibelôt (p. 385n.), and Lurlenberg shall have its due, if such be the reading, though I had taken Burlenberc for Burglenberg, Bürglenberg, OHG. Burgilûnberc on the Rhine near Breisach (Dumbeck p. 339), where the Harlungs, perhaps Amelungs, dwelt with their treasure (Heldens. p. 186-8). One of the Venus-hills in the Breisgau and Eckart may also have to do with it. But the Harlunge golt (Dietr. 7835) enters into Gothic Amelung legends, and there might be an 'Amelunge hort' like the famous 'Ermenrîches hort' of which so much is told. Again, the Vilk. saga cap. 381 makes Etzel the avaricious first get at Siegfried's gold which is locked in a mountain, and then significantly die of hunger, so that the Niflûnga skattr drags him also to destruction; while Danish lays have it, that Gremild, immured in the mountain, pines to death in presence of Nöglings (i.e. Nibelung's) pelf (Heldens. p. 306). So many conflicting yet connected accounts may justify us in conceding even to that far older aurum Tolosanum, which the Tectosages sunk in the lake of Tolosa, some influence on old Gothic legend. (33)

Stories of submerged castles are found in abundance. When the waters are at rest, you may still descry projecting pinnacles of towers, and catch the chiming of their bells. Scarcely can enchanted men be dwelling there; all life is grown dumb beneath the waves. Three legendary features I will single out. The approaching doom is commonly announced by talking beasts: the enormity of the crime whose punishment impens has lent them speech, or some magic has opened to man the meaning of their tones. The serving-man tastes a piece off a silver-white snake, and immediately knows what the fowls, ducks, geese, doves and sparrows in the yard are saying of the speedy downfall of the castle (DS. no. 131). This is told of Isang's castle near Seeburg, a similar story of Tilsburg near Dahlum (p. 774), and no doubt in other neighbourhoods as well. Another thing we come across is, that a good man who is sick sends his son out to observe the weather, and is told first of a clear sky, next of a tiny cloudlet on the mountain's edge, and by degrees of a cloud as big as a hat, as a washtub, as a barn-door; then the old man has himself carried in all haste up a hill, for the judgments of God are now let loose on the Suggenthal, Sunkenthal (Mone's Anz. 8, 535; conf. Schreiber's Tagb. for 1840, p. 271). That is a forcible description of the swift advance of an unforseen calamity. The same legend presents us with yet a third feature full of meaning. When the water had wrecked and swamped all the houses in Suggenthal, there remained alive only that old man and his son, and one small infant. This child, a boy, floated in his cradle all through the flood, and with him was a cat. Whenever the cradle tilted to one side, the cat jumped to the other, and restored the equilibrium; in this way the cradle safely arrived below Buchholz, and there stuck fast in the dold or crown of a tall oak. When the water had subsided, and the tree was accessible again, it was fetched down, and child and cat were found alive and unhurt. As nobody knew who the boy's parents had been, they named him after the tree-top Dold, and the name is borne by his descendants to this day (Mone's Anz. 6, 69 and more completely 8, 535). The story perfectly tallies with that Welsh one quoted p. 580, where, in spite of all difference of detail, the main thing, the child's being saved in the cradle, is related just as it is here; which also seems to me to confirm the sense I ascribed to the ON. lûðr p. 559n. A pretty adjunct is the companionship of the auxiliary cat, who together with cock and dog was required by simple-minded antiquity to give evidence (RA. 588). From the name of this foundling Dold (OHG. Toldo, i.e. summit-born) I understand now what the common people mean by being born on an oak or walnut-tree (p. 572n.); how exactly the myths of Creation and Deluge fit in together, is past doubting (see Suppl.).




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