Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/71

 56 smell and colour of stable refuse, is said to proceed from their horses, standing in a row, along a wall of rock. The knights, clad in full armour, and with their weapons at hand, are all sleeping in various postures, either on the ground or on benches round the cavern; some are stretched at full length; some are sitting, with their heads supported by their swords; and others are mounted, with their heads resting on their horses’ necks. A shepherd, who once entered the cavern, found them in this condition, and saw them awaken, when they asked whether the hour for their exit had come. Upon which the leader, who slept in an elevated seat, in the centre of the hall, replied,—“It is not yet time to destroy the enemies of Bohemia.” On hearing this, they all resumed their sleep. The shepherd, when he at last got out, learnt that he had been shut up for a year.

A similar adventure happened to a blacksmith, who possessed a meadow close to the Blanick mountain; and went there one morning, with a labourer, to make hay. His serving-maid brought breakfast, and the smith, with his portion, sat him down at the foot of the mountain. He had hardly finished, when a man, wrapped in a mantle, came to him, and said,—

“Follow me, friend!”

The smith obeyed, and both entered the mountain, where the stranger, turning round, said,—

“I have brought you here to shoe our horses.”

“That is impossible,” said the smith, “for I have no tools.”

“Be not uneasy about that,” returned the knight, who then brought what was required and told him to begin, but warned him not to jostle against any of the sleeping cavaliers. The smith, however, in shoeing the last horse, did, by chance, shove against the knight who sat upon it; and who, awakening instantly, cried,—

“Is it time?”

“Not yet; sleep on!” replied the smith’s employer, who reproved him for his negligence, but, for all that, paid him for his trouble by giving him the old horseshoes.

When the smith came out again into his meadow, he found all these horseshoes converted into gold; and he found, also, two labourers making hay, where he had left but one; and, on inquiry, he learnt that a year had passed since he had gone away and been given up for lost.

A nail-smith once bartered with a knight of Blanick a sack of nails for a heap of stable-sweepings, which afterwards changed to gold. The same change took place with some dung, which a hind had swept out of their stable; both events taking place on St. John’s Day. The peasants affirm that strange noises are often heard within the mountain, at such times as the knights are furbishing their arms for battle; but their outburst is not expected till the dry pond near Blanick is filled with blood, and the withered trees on the banks of the rivulet put forth fresh blossoms; and then the knights will come forth, with Duke Venceslas at their head, mounted on a white horse, and bearing in his hand the standard of Bohemia.

The Bohemians entertain many amiable fancies associated with the native fruit—the strawberry. The first handful gathered, and those which may slip through the fingers in gathering, are reserved for the poor, for whom they are placed on a tree-stump or other conspicuous spot.

A mother who has lost her infant in the previous part of the year must gather no strawberries before St. John’s Day; for, if she does, her child will not be permitted to join the blessed children when they go with the Virgin Mary to gather strawberries in the groves of Heaven. According to another version, the child will indeed get some strawberries, but not so many as the others; for the Virgin will say,—

“See, darling, your share is small, because your mother has eaten the rest.”

Cherries are, in like manner, forbidden to the bereaved mother.

In the valley at Tetschen, it is believed that a certain crag, resembling a human bust, and called “The Stone Strawberry-Lass,” which projects from a mountain, may become animated on St. John’s Day, provided a pure and pious youth, who, from his seventh year of age, has never missed or neglected the Sunday church-service, nor, during it, looked at a maiden, should strike it three times on the breast while High Mass is being performed. The tradition states that the crag was once a giddy maid, called Petronella, who lived with her pious grandmother, in a cottage lying far away in the valley.

On St. John’s Day, in 1614, which fell upon a Sunday, Petronella, disobeying her grandmother, instead of going to High Mass, went to dance and sport among the strawberry-grounds; and, as she saw her grandmother returning from church, she made game of her. The grandmother was angry, and said she would rather see Petronella a stone than as wicked as she was; and the wish was no sooner spoken than Petronella, with her strawberry-pot, was transformed into stone, as she appears now. W.