Page:The Science of Fairy Tales.djvu/252

238 it without troubling in the least about the troops of spirits which followed him, when suddenly, as he drew near the churchyard, a hurricane arose and took his cap off. Forgetful of his promise, he looked round; and the maiden rose into the air, weeping and crying out that she could never be delivered now. A story told in Mecklenburg is more picturesque. It concerns the daughter of a lake-king, who leagued himself with other knights against a robber, the owner of a castle called the Glamburg, which was a place of some strength, being entirely surrounded by the water of the Lake of Glam. The confederates were defeated; and nine large round barrows were raised the next day over the slain, among whom was the lake-king. His daughter wept upon her father's grave, and her tears, as they touched the earth, became lovely blue flowers. These flowers still grow upon the loftiest of the nine barrows, while the others are quite destitute of them. The princess threw herself that night—it was St. John's night—into the lake; and now every year on St. John's night, between twelve and one o'clock, a bridge of copper rises out of the lake, and the princess appears upon it, sighing for her deliverance.

The typical form of the tale is as follows: In the Buchenberg by Doberan dwells an enchanted princess, who can only be released once in a hundred years, on St. John's Day between twelve and one. In the year 1818 a servant boy was watching sheep on the eastern side of the Buchenberg the day before St. John's day. About noon a white lady appeared to him and told him that he could deliver her, if he would, the next day at the same hour, kiss her. She would then come to him in the form of a toad with a red band round its neck. The shepherd promised; but the next day when he saw the toad he was so horrified that he ran away. A variant records the hour as between twelve and one at night, and the form of the lady as a snake which sought to twine round the