The Danube

The ghost—I am not quite clear whether of the murderer or of the murdered—haunts the place in consequence of a horrid crime said to have been perpetrated by an old-time owner of the place who, believing his wife to be guilty of some offence, killed her, apparently without any inquiry into the matter of her supposed crime. The story has been rendered into ballad form, and the following stanzas indicate the nature of the tragedy:

Beyond the chapel—with its model of Bethlehem—are the mountain sides, close-grown with maple, oak and other trees. All through the Wachau, roads may be followed close neighbouring the river along either bank—that on the left offering the greatest variety of places to be visited, that on the right passing for the most part through wilder scenery, but both affording ever-changing picturesque views.

Entering the narrowed valley, we soon see ahead of us, high on the rocky cliff and backed by dark trees, another of those common objects of this great river—a ruined castle. Shortly before reaching it, however, we have on the left the small market town of Aggsbach. A little place, more picturesque from the river than when entered in the dusk after long walking on a day of heavy rain, when its narrow ways are deep in mud and an eligible gasthaus seems difficult to find. Though a market town by description, it is to appearance but a small, quiet village. A river-side inn with external steps and deep stone balcony has quite an Oriental appearance. Klein Aggsbach, on the right bank shows that, comparatively, this town is not to be regarded as small. A place of call for the steamers, Aggsbach is the port of debarkation for those who would visit the dominating ruins ahead, which may be reached by ferry from a point somewhat further down-stream.

AGGSTEIN

The dominating ruins are those of Aggstein—once a dreaded name on the Danube, for the lordly owners of this castle were famous, even among the many robber knights of the river, for their pertinacity in preying upon travellers. Approached from either down or up-stream, Aggstein, perched on the summit of a thickly wooded hill about six hundred feet above the water, and backed by higher hills, also densely timbered, is strikingly impressive, while from its extensive ruins is to be obtained a view that for beauty will vie with any of those we have seen.

The ruins, which are attained by paths up through the wood, form—and justly—one of the most celebrated bits on the river; and it is only fitting that to such a place should be attached romantic and grim stories. The place must have been veritably impregnable in the days when its owners lorded it over this stretch of the Danube and took their toll of all passing boats. If all the strongholds of robber knights were “flourishing” contemporaneously, it is wonderful how any boat ever completed its journey.

Two at least of the lords of Aggstein seem to have come to a well-deserved end. One of these, Schreckenwald, who flourished in the fifteenth century is proverbially immortalized in an Austrian saying which describes those who are in a hopeless plight as being “in Schreckenwald’s rose-garden.”

The worthy whose name is thus remembered is said to have been not only the most expert but also the most unscrupulous robber-knight of his day, and to have been the terror of the surrounding country. When he had despoiled his prisoners of all that they possessed he would have them brought into his presence and dropped through a trap-door into what he playfully termed his “rose garden.” This was a dungeon, or enclosed ravine in the rock on which the castle was built, and those who were not killed by the fall were left to die of starvation or cold. How many victims he thus murdered is not recorded, but they are said to have been many—and of the number dropped into the “rose garden” but one escaped. A youthful knight of the neighbourhood, having been dismounted in a skirmish with some of Schreckenwald’s henchmen, was borne to the castle before the robber tyrant. It is said that to Schreckenwald’s enmity towards any captive was, in this case, added jealousy, for the knight had won favour in the eyes of a lady who had rejected the baron’s advances; the young man was therefore promptly sentenced to the “rose garden,” and the sentence as promptly carried out.

Conscious of a good deed accomplished in the removal of a rival, and grateful to his retainers, the baron gave up that day and the next to an orgy. At the close of the second day the inhabitants of the castle, deeming themselves in their usual state of security, retired to rest that they might be ready to start on some fresh foray in the morning. They little knew that retribution was nigh. Suddenly the blaring of bugles and the clashing of arms sounded, and the astonished baron found himself confronted in the torchlight by what he imagined must be the apparition of his latest victim. For a moment he was dumbfounded, but only for a moment; rushing forward sword in hand he shouted. “Wert thou the Archfiend himself, Schreckenwald shall still be lord of Aggstein.” The ferocity of despair availed him not; he was disarmed and promptly hanged in his own entrance hall, while his robber band of retainers was destroyed, some of the men being killed in the fighting and others driven over the battlements to destruction on the rocks below.

Another baron, seemingly a worthy predecessor of Schreckenwald, was Hadmar the “Hound of Kuenring,” who in the early part of the thirteenth century was lord of Aggstein (and of Durrenstein also). This robber-chief, in alliance with his brother, made Aggstein terrible, ravaging the country round, and being in all ways a law unto themselves. They became known as “The Hounds,” and long successfully defied all efforts to subdue them. At length, in 1231, a merchant who had already suffered much at the hands of the robbers, proposed to the Emperor that he should be permitted to employ a trick. “I will freight,” said he, “a vessel at Ratisbon, laden with the most costly merchandise: the tidings will soon reach the robbers at Aggstein. Thirty stout knights shall lie concealed in the vessel, and when Hadmar rushes down from his castle, and boards us with a few of his vassals, thinking to plunder some peaceable merchants, the knights shall rush out upon, and overpower him, while I push off from the shore.” Force having failed, the Emperor was quite willing that the stratagem should be tried, and the merchant duly set out as arranged. “Long before he had passed the Strudel, however, the welcome news of a very rich prize being on the water was told in the castle of Aggstein; and no sooner was the barge in sight, than the tower-bell, as usual, proclaimed the approach of booty. The baron, attended by a few choice vassals, pounced at once upon the expected prey, and was received on board with tokens of the most abject submission. ‘What is thy cargo, knave?’ said he to the merchant. ‘Silk, brocade, and wine,’ answered the merchant—‘with,’ but here he hesitated. ‘With what?’ interposed the baron sternly; ‘speak on thy life!’ ‘With a cask or two of specie for the Duke’s treasury,’ said the merchant in a half whisper. ‘Specie! the very thing we want,’ roared the baron. ‘Hand up the metal, instantly.’ ‘The metal for the baron—instantly!’ cried the merchant, and suddenly throwing back the canvas, thirty glittering lances were levelled at the baron’s breast. ‘There is thy metal, Herr Baron,’ said the skipper, pointing to the thirty mailed warriors who instantly surrounded him and his suite. The surprise and consternation of the tyrant may be imagined, but cannot be described. He was immediately secured and committed to the hold; and never did barge anchor under the walls of Vienna with more welcome news than when it was noised abroad that the Robber-Chief, Hadmar of Aggstein, was a prisoner on board.”

From the lofty ruins with their sinister memories we pass on through the continuously beautiful Wachau with its steep, wooded mountains on the right, its lower hills on the left, on the sides of which many vineyards soon become familiar. Several small villages are passed, and beyond Schwallenbach on the left we see an extraordinary piece of rocky formation running in wall-like fashion down the face of a hillside to the river. Softer rock has been worn away until the ridge remains very much like a roughly made wall built of irregular-sized blocks of stone—like one of our west-country stone field-walls exaggerated to a gigantic extent. It is little wonder that local lore has ascribed to this ridge a demoniac origin. It is known as the Teufelsmauer, or Devil’s Wall, but why the Devil concerned himself in erecting it I have not been able to ascertain further than the suggestion that he had taken it into his head to block up the Danube at this spot, but by some special intervention of Providence was stopped before the undertaking had got beyond the building of this wall. Where, for the new railway, a path has been blasted along the rock here, the lower end of the wall has been left intact by tunnelling through it. The first stopping place for the steamer after leaving Aggsbach is Spitz, a small town lying about the foot of a conical hill, scored to the top with vineyard lines, with vineyards extending also up the neighbouring hills, while on the mountain-side above it are the picturesque ruins of an old castle.

THE DEVIL’S WALL

Spitz is regarded as the most important centre of the Wachau wine district, and so closely is every available piece of ground utilized, that a local saying has it that the town is one in which the wine grows in the market place. The grape is not the only fruit grown here, for there are also many peach orchards, and quantities of this fruit are taken aboard before the boat continues its journey Vienna-wards. All along here the vineyards offer many pleasant pictures to the pedestrian who loiters about in October when the grape harvest is being gathered. From the narrow terraces on which the vines are grown along the steep hillsides barefooted men and women, boys and girls, are to be seen descending with long pottle-shaped wooden baskets on their backs, piled high with fruit. Many times, too, great vats stand by the road-side at the foot of the vineyard, into which the grapes are turned, and where they are pounded and squashed with great wooden clubs. Then a couple of oxen will come slowly along drawing a large barrel on a cart frame, and into this barrel a man “spoons” the juice from the great tub, much as our farm hands in country districts fill their water-carts from a pond.

Spitz is a beautifully situated little town, with a pleasant market place dominated by a square church tower with steep wedge-shaped roof of many-coloured tiles. On the opposite side of the river is one of the Arnsdorfs—a cluster of houses about a steep-roofed church—half a dozen striking poplars and the wooded hills beyond. The Spitz castle ruins upon the bare dark rock are among the most picturesque of those we see, and represent an ancient place that belonged at one time to those great territorial magnates the bishops of Passau and at another time to some of those robber knights whose fastnesses were dotted with what must have been disquieting frequency along the course of the Danube.

Beyond Spitz—about which it has opened out somewhat—the valley again contracts, and the road on the left is cut through rugged rock, which in places almost overhangs the way. Looking back we have a beautiful view of Spitz, the light green of its surrounding vineyards contrasting strikingly with the rock, the mountains and forests and the broad sweep of the green Danube, as seen under a cloudy sky with brilliant sunshine following on a heavy shower. A little beyond and we reach the small village of St. Michael with its old church, along the roof ridge of which are placed seven hares, to commemorate—so the local story runs—a time when the snowfall in the neighbourhood had been so heavy that the hares were seen playing on the church roof! The animal figures are as like deer, cows or horses as they are to hares! The open-topped square tower of this old Gothic church is notable as being quite unlike any other that we see in the neighbourhood.

Another story of this district, and of only little more than a hundred years ago, seems rather an incident of the Middle Ages than of the closing years of the eighteenth century. It is said that a poor lonely old woman had got the reputation among her neighbours of being a witch and, therefore, when she was feeding her goat upon a hillside she was shot with a glass bullet; a severe thunderstorm which had arisen having been caused by her, according to the belief of her superstitious murderers.

SPITZ VINEYARDS

The next point of special interest along this lovely bit of the river is Weissenkirchen, the villages of Wösendorf and Joching, with their orchards and vineyards, being pleasant little places without any special feature to call for a halt. Weissenkirchen, however, is a place that certainly does call for a halt owing to that which it has to show in itself and as being situated where the valley has widened somewhat at one of the most beautiful points in the Wachau.

Here, too, the vineyards penetrate close to the town, even further into it than they do at Spitz, for a low-sunk patch lies between the street by which the town is entered from the east and the railway station, the narrow paths or flights of steps that lead up from between the houses here and there lead us, too, inevitably into vineyards. On one side of the town the steep shingle-covered roofs of the houses are close to the vineyard terraces above. The large church which stands on the rock above the houses—its entrance on a level with their roofs—is approached by a long covered-in flight of steps from the corner of the market place. Near the foot of this stairway is a quaint figure of St. John, with a red painted metal canopy like a great umbrella close over the figure’s head.

The characteristic wedge-roofed tower with its clock-faces near the south-west angle forms a strikingly picturesque object as seen from many points, especially from some of the narrow by-ways. Then, too, there are glimpses to be had into cellars, with their great wine presses with oak beams that, it is said, have done duty for three or four hundred years, and some wonderful old court-yards—the finest being the old tilting-yard at the north-western corner of the market place—entering which we are at once taken to a past of centuries ago. It is a quadrangle of old buildings with deep, arched embrasures on the ground floor, and above, with smaller arches, a balcony, from which presumably “in days of old when knights were bold and barons held the sway” fair ladies looked down and encouraged the contestants below. Now more or less used as a store-yard for fuel and other things the “Turnierhof” or Tilting-yard is yet a place to be visited; and if it be as a German writer has it, that Weissenkirchen is a Mecca for artists, then we may well believe that this yard is for many of them the central shrine.

There are many delightful places within easy reach of the little town, and from the vineyards above a bird’s-eye view of the whole is to be had that is likely to be unforgettable if seen as I first saw it when, looking across it to the great river, the white mists of morning were clearing off and stretching like a silver girdle about the mountains on the further side.

Beyond Weissenkirchen, the Danube takes a southerly turn round abrupt, bare and sometimes precipitous rocks. On the right is soon seen a flat valley with the roofs of Rossatz; and directly ahead stands, from the sheer escarpment of the rock as it were, one of the places which most nearly in its traditions touches our English history, though even its name may not be known to any large proportion of those familiar with some details of the story it has to tell. This is Dürnstein or Dürrenstein, a small town between the face of the rocky cliffs and the river, with above it, striking from any point of view, the time-battered ruins of the castle in which it is said Richard Cœur de Lion passed fifteen months of weary imprisonment during the years 1192-4.

WEISSENKIRCHEN

Seen as we approach Dürrenstein down the river, the view is singularly fine. To the left of the town is a sheer mass of precipitous rock of all tones of yellow, where the cliff has been split away to cut the railroad. The crows wheeling about its jagged edge “show scarce so gross as beetles.” From the group of old red-and-white buildings other jagged lines of rock and wall slant upwards, leading the eye to the ruined castle where they meet. At the back of the town, even within these “walls” are seen the narrow vineyard terraces, sometimes on scraps of ground that seem scarcely accessible to the cultivator.

If I cannot claim to have felt the spirit of the place in that fashion, it may be because seventy years have reduced the ruins to a yet more ruinous state, and so the illusion that the king might still be here anxious for “tydings” is little likely to arise. Though the little town itself is attractive, it is of course the ruined fortress that makes the strongest appeal, historically and sentimentally, to the British visitor. Whether approached by way of the scattered rocks on the eastern side, or by the pathway which leads from near within the “ponderous gateway” (to the town, not to the castle) up to the ruins, we find ourselves on the conical summit of rugged rock standing out at the end of a mountain spur among the sadly battered remains of the old castle. Here and there are great pieces of wall still standing, but the whole is in a time-battered, broken state which makes it difficult to recall the plan of the place. One tall piece of wall looks afar off curiously like a gigantic figure, and near at hand but little imagination is necessary to see in it the figure of the great crusader himself!

The view from the castle ruins up the river towards Weissenkirchen across to the mountain-surrounded level on which Rossatz stands and down-stream across a hemmed-in vine-grown battlefield towards Vienna, with the great monastery of Gottweih on a conical hill in the distance, is a most attractive one; while between the ruins and the mountains is a narrow gorge, with beyond it the jagged edge of the extraordinary rock mass where a large part of it was blasted to make the railway which now runs though the hill on which Dürrenstein Castle stands. In the centre of the ruins is a gigantic, more or less roughly cubic, mass of granite out of which a windowless chamber has been roughly hewn, and here, says tradition, is the veritable prison in which Richard was confined by his implacable enemy, Duke Leopold of Austria.

It was when returning from crusading in the east that Richard, travelling disguised through Austria—the Duke of which he had offended at Ascalon—was recognized and so fell into the hands of his enemy and came to be imprisoned in this powerful castle, under the charge of Hadmar, the father of that Hadmar the Hound of Kuenring, of whom we learned at Aggstein. The romantic story runs, that the place of Richard’s imprisonment being unknown, his faithful minstrel Blondel de Nesle set out, wandering all over Europe to learn if he could the fate or whereabouts of the King of England. Accidentally he learned that in Dürrenstein Castle some distinguished person was confined and guarded with unusual vigilance. Not unnaturally he thought that this mysterious prisoner must be the royal master whom he sought. He reached Dürrenstein, but could get no news as to who the prisoner was, and the gates of the castle were shut against him. Blondel then bethought him of a chanson which he and King Richard had composed together, and getting as near within hearing of the prisoner’s place of concealment as he could, he sang his own part of the song:

The minstrel paused, and at once came the second part of the chanson sung from within and proving beyond doubt the identity of the prisoner with the king of whom the minstrel was in search:

The wonderful metrical romance dealing with the life of Richard Cœur de Lion does not—judging by so much of it as was given by Sir Henry Ellis—refer to the place of the king’s incarceration by name; therefore we may place here the wonderful incident of his wooing by Margery the daughter of the King of Almain—who should presumably be Duke of Austria—and of the way in which he won his nickname. Richard the prisoner and the King of Almain’s son had had a buffeting duel. Richard received the first blow which made him stagger, but when he gave his blow in return the prince’s “cheek bone was crushed ... he sank to the ground and instantly expired.”

“The offended monarch now sent in haste for his great council—

and explained to them his reasons for desiring the death of Richard, requesting them, if possible, to set aside the general law of Europe by which the persons of Kings were declared inviolable, and to order the immediate punishment of the traitor. The council took the matter into their serious consideration, debating during three days, and concluded by declaring themselves incompetent to pass judgment: but one of them complaisantly recommended to the king a certain judge named Sir Eldrys, whose ingenuity in condemning prisoners was thought to be unparalleled, and who would probably suggest to his majesty the means of vengeance.

“Sir Eldrys, recollecting that he had seen in the royal menagerie a lion of prodigious size and fierceness, advised that the animal should be kept during some days without food, and then introduced to the prisoner, whom he would be very likely to devour; so that his majesty, who could not be suspected of a secret intelligence with the lion, would obtain the gratification of his just revenge, without having infringed the law by passing sentence on a free and independent sovereign. This equitable project was of course adopted by the King; and immediate orders were issued for carrying it into execution.

“Margery, who had her spies in the council, being apprised of what had passed, instantly sent for her lover; warned him of his danger; proposed to him the means of escape from her father’s territories; and offered to accompany him in his flight,

“He then directed her to repair to the prison, with forty handkerchiefs of white silk, on the evening before the combat; to order her supper in his cell; to invite his two friends and the jailor to the entertainment, and afterwards to pass the night with him: and the princess, without staying to enquire how far this conduct was compatible with that scrupulous regard for her father’s peace of mind by which Richard professed to be actuated, punctually obeyed all his directions.

“In the morning, the tender Margery, ever trembling for her lover’s safety and always fearless for her own, was with great difficulty persuaded to tear herself from the prison; but having at length returned to her apartment, Richard bound round his arm the silken handkerchiefs, and recommending himself to God, calmly awaited the arrival of the lion.

“The animal, attended by two keepers, and followed by the jailor, was then led in; and, as soon as he was loosed, sprang forwards to seize his prey. Richard, starting aside, evaded the attack, and at the same time gave the monster such a blow on the breast with his fist as nearly felled him to the ground. The lion, lashing himself with his tail, and extending his dreadful paws, now uttered a most hideous roar, and prepared for a more violent assault; but the hero, seizing his opportunity when the monster’s jaws were extended, suddenly darted on him, drove his arm down the throat, and, grasping the heart, forcibly tore it out through the mouth together with a part of the entrails. Then, after piously returning thanks to Heaven for his miraculous victory, he snatched up the bleeding heart, and without meeting with any obstacle, marched with his trophy into the great hall of the palace.

DÜRRENSTEIN

If Richard was incarcerated in the chamber hollowed out of the great mass of granite, and that was at the time, as it was later, enclosed within walls, it is a little difficult to realize how the minstrel’s voice ever penetrated the monarch’s prison; but the legend is so pleasant a one that it would perhaps be a more gracious task to find out how it might have been true, rather than to show how it is probably a fiction. The theme is one that has inspired poets, painters, and musicians. When Gretry’s opera on the subject of “Richard Cœur de Lion,” was produced in Paris early in the nineteenth century, an artist was sent to Dürnstein to sketch the castle that the scenery might be true. Mrs. Hemans wrote a narrative poem on the subject of Blondel’s search for his captive master, and described the position of the king’s prison as though she had visited it:

The story of Blondel is merely legendary, and it was probably only a sordid matter of ransom by which Richard Cœur de Lion won to freedom, and not owing to the devotion of his faithful minstrel. When Planché visited Dürrenstein he described the castle keep as being “not unlike the fine ruin at Rochester.” Either his memory did scant justice to Rochester, or else the ruins of Dürrenstein have become greatly damaged during the past seventy years, for to-day there is nothing to suggest a comparison between the great grim Norman keep on low ground near the Medway at Rochester, and the battered ruin which seems, as it were, to grow out of the jagged pinnacled rocks high above the Danube.

From the neighbourhood of the castle run broken cliff edges south-easterly and south-westerly towards the Danube; these have at some period been built up into actual walls for defence, and in olden pre-artillery times must have rendered the town which they enclose on two sides—the third being formed by the Danube—a very formidable place. So formidable indeed that, even after the introduction of artillery, it is said that the citizens were able to give a good account of themselves. For, in 1741, a party of French and Bavarian cavalry having got across the Danube, thought to surprise Dürrenstein and make it an easy prey, believing it to be undefended. The citizens of the place were equal to the occasion, having prepared themselves for such an emergency. They barred up their gates as well as they could, laid bored logs of timber with their edges blackened, on the walls, in imitation of cannon, chalked the rims of their hats, to give them the appearance of being bound with white lace, according to the uniform of their troops at that time, and parading up and down the ramparts—taking care that their hats only should be seen above the walls—with much blowing of trumpets and beating of drums, absolutely induced the enemy to believe that the place was strongly garrisoned; and they accordingly wheeled to the right-about without firing a shot, to the infinite joy and amusement of the cunning inhabitants, who certainly well deserved their escape.

The small town, with its irregular white houses, its glimpses into great wine-pressing cellars, its thick-walled, low-arched, crypt-like inns, its men with long pipes ever pendant from their mouths, its generous archways—wide as the street itself—giving on to yards in which are seen great barrels, and the carts on which such barrels are carried, is quite an old-world place. Of the extent to which it is given over to wine I had an illustration during my stay, when I saw boys busy digging a large circular hole close to the footway at a point where the main street is widened by one house being set some distance back. The following morning I saw a great wine-pressing tub half sunk in the hole and presumably already filled with grapes, as its great cover was pressed down by a variety of heavy articles. Sometimes these wayside vats are not covered in at all, for I have seen them when heavy rain was adding its share of liquid to the juice of the grape. Possibly the fact that it was a very bad grape harvest may excuse the wine-growers’ winking at Nature’s attempt to make up the deficit!

Above the tunnel-like gateway on the east side of the town is a tiny cemetery with the remains of the old parish church, and a charnel-house with thousands of human skulls piled up in orderly array—a grim memento mori like that of the church at Hythe and some other places. The old abbey ruins, the ornate church near the river-side, and the modern château now apparently degenerated into tenements—are the most conspicuous buildings in this little town, the narrow main street of which has quite a mediæval appearance. On the front of one of the gasthauses is painted up the inscription:—

Frequently within a gasthaus we may see humorous wall paintings, or convivial and other inscriptions. In one that I recall there was on one wall a representation of an attenuated traveller (very like a distinguished English dramatist, paradox-monger, and Socialist), being welcomed by a portly Boniface; on another a couple, “with most expressive eyes,” in national costume dancing to the music of a remarkable quartet; while in the corner was a wife with a broom dragging home a drunken husband. Among the inscriptions I noted some to the following effect:—