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xii Konrad in Marienbourg. Wallenrod died suddenly in the year 1394; strange events were said to have accompanied his death. 'Er starb,' says the chronicle; 'in Raserei ohne letzte Oehlung, ohne Priestersegen, kurz vor seinem Tode wütheten Stürme, Regensgüsse, Wasserfluthen; die Weichsel und die Nogat durchwühlten ihre Damme; hingegen wühlten die gewässer sich eine neue Tiefe da, wo jetzt Pilau steht!' Halban, or, as the chroniclers call him, Doctor Leander von Albanus, a monk, the solitary and inseparable companion of Wallenrod, though he assumed the appearance of piety, was according to the chroniclers a heretic, a pagan, and perhaps a wizard. Concerning Halban's death, there are no certain accounts. Some write that he was drowned, others that he disappeared secretly, or was carried away by demons. I have drawn the chronicles chiefly from the works of Kotzebue, Treussens Geschichte, Belege und Erläuterungen.' Hartknoch, in calling Wallenrod 'unsinnig,' gives a very short account of him."

As to the conditions under which the poem was written, it is perhaps needful to state that it was composed by Mickiewicz, during the term of his banishment into Russia, and was flrst published at St. Petersburg in the year 1828. In the character of