The Singer of the Castle of Karneid
There lived a maiden singer fair in Castle Cornëid’s height; she sang like nightingales in air of love and sorrow’s plight.
It may have been more than a thousand years ago, when the lordship of Karneid had a single son, whom they called the “Green Knight,” because he always wore evergreen brushwood on his helmet and because he devoted himself almost solely to the hunt on the wooded heights of the mountain “Gumber”. There he felt at home, there he roamed constantly.
One evening, when he returned while daylight still remained, his mother sat on the broad west side of the castle at a window. „Sit down,” she said, „I must speak with you about important matters!” – and when he approached, she began to explain to him that he was now old enough to get married.
„You naturally know very well Castle Steinegg, and you will know that the lordship there has only one daughter, who will one day inherit everything. She is a very lovely girl and is now 16 years old, thus perfectly suitable for you with your 24.
Recently she came here with her mother and brought something beautiful upon which she is working: it is a large parchment book with strong and beautifully decorated covers, made by a bookbinder in Bozen with artistry and taste.
Ingildis – that’s her name – has now set out to inscribe into this splendid book, through much diligence and skill, the songs of an ancient, nearly forgotten singer.
I would advise you to visit Steinegg and at once let it be known that through me you have heard of that beautiful book.”
The son thought long on this, until suddenly something occurred that swiftly dashed all the expectations of the castle lady. That evening, when he returned home, he was so filled with what had happened that he had to immediately tell his mother. „Just imagine,” he said, „this morning at sunrise, riding slowly through the forest and just passing Streitmoos, I suddenly saw something white between the dark tree trunks; I looked more closely and recognized that it was a most beautiful maiden. I came nearer slowly; suddenly she turned her head, looked at me, and – vanished! She was gone as fast as lightning.
Then, when I emerged from the forest at Wiedenhof and again was in sunlight, I saw beside me a woman sitting. And I was so impressed that I stopped my horse and told the woman what at dawn in the forest at Streitmoos I had suddenly glimpsed and then lost sight of. The old woman knew immediately what that meant.
„This maiden,” she said, „is an elf, namely a blessed maiden, she wears a bright dress of birch bark and evergreen; her name is Eldo‑Mar; all blessed ones are very shy and timid, but she must have heard some news about you, and that prompted her to show herself.” – so said the old woman, smiling. I asked her at once whether a blessed one could become the wife of a mortal. „Yes, she can,” the old woman replied, „but there is a special condition: if she bears a child to her husband, she ages immediately and in half a year becomes a shriveled old woman. If you want to know more, go to the mountain Rosengarten to the sorceress Langwerda, who knows far more than I.”
After he had told this, the young knight looked anxiously at his mother. But she displayed great disappointment at his report.
He resolved early the next morning to ride to the Rosengarten and seek Langwerda. Though in foul mood, she listened when he explained that he wished to make the blessed maiden Eldo‑Mar his bride and that his burning desire was that she remain forever as young and beautiful as now in the Streitmoos.
Langwerda said she could do it, but she must cast a magic spell on the blessed maiden and then cause her to fall unexpectedly into the lake. Shortly thereafter she would stand fresh and lively again on the shore. And one more thing: „we shall say nothing to the bride about the spell or its effect; we will act as though it were all but a merry game.”
They then went through the forest down to the Streitmoos lake, and there they built a tiny bridge by laying a smooth, bark‑stripped tree trunk over a narrow inlet; at one end the knight stood. He had to promise to agree with everything Langwerda had told him and to be forever content. Then she disappeared into the reeds and brought Eldo‑Mar to the opposite end of the trunk, so that she stood facing the knight.
Here the sorceress asked the blessed maiden whether that knight would be pleasing to her as a husband. Eldo‑Mar blushed and only nodded. Then the sorceress commanded her to walk across the log toward the knight. Eldo‑Mar stepped onto the trunk, but at that moment, the sorceress made a joke that made the whole situation seem ridiculous. Eldo‑Mar startled, slipped off, and plunged into the lake; but though one did not see her swim, she immediately stood on the nearby shore. Then the sorceress said to the knight:
„And so you shall possess her now,
forever young and fair;
but your house’s ancient crest shall fade,
and vanish in the air!”
That very day the knight brought the blessed maiden to Karneid and introduced her to his parents. There she was thoroughly questioned by the lady of the castle about what happened, until she had related everything precisely. When that was done, the castle lady said: „This Langwerda is a witch, a dangerous person who will try somehow to take revenge upon us.”
Eldo‑Mar was put in a tower chamber from which one could gaze in horror into the Eggental ravine, and there she was kept captive. On a moonlit summer night, she began for the first time to sing at an open window. And gradually that became her habit.
When people in the surroundings walked by at night below, they said: „Listen – the singer of Karneid.”
Her chosen one rode across the wide world, seeking everywhere aid for a feud against Karneid. But he found no warriors who could become his companions.
Many years passed and the days succeeded each other in eternal monotony and emptiness. Then it came to pass that the lord of Karneid suddenly passed from life.
For many nights the lady of the castle lay sleepless, and at times she heard a faint singing around the castle from Eldo‑Mar.
In a night of boundless, dead stillness she climbed the stairs to the little tower chamber to visit the singer.
Eldo‑Mar was at first startled. But then she recognized the voice of the castle lady. The latter said: „Long ago I wished to come to you to speak of my son; but I feared you might be very bitter and inimical toward me.”
„No!” said Eldo‑Mar, „That’s not like me at all; at all, what am I to you? – I am only a child of the forest, but you are the mighty mistress of Karneid and the mother of my beloved!”
„Listen, Eldo‑Mar,” replied the lady of the castle, „I will now send messengers to distant lands to bring my son back, and if he still thinks as he once did – of that I have no doubt – then the two of you shall dwell beside me and be happy together; the lord of Karneid and the girl from the forest.”
A moment of silence followed, and then the two women, both longing for the same, embraced.
It was not long before one day the gatekeeper loudly announced the arrival of his new lord. The two women stood on the bridge, with some warriors near them. The knight leapt from his high steed and greeted first his mother, then his bride. „Long have I been gone,” he said, „but how many years it truly is, I do not know; to me it might even be more than a hundred.”
„It is sixteen years,” said the mother.
The knight was filled with sorrow when he heard his father was dead. He turned to his bride and quietly said: „I wished to wed at once, but now let us postpone it for a full year. Then we shall hold a wedding such as this land has never seen.”
When the year was fulfilled, all the dwellers of Karneid were busy for many days preparing the wedding, which was to be a festival for all. Meanwhile the knight invented the custom called the “Mit,” still practiced in many regions today. This “Mit” consists of giving to each guest, when he departs after the meal, a basket with all kinds of good things, so that he might share it with the elders and children at home. Likewise, one gives the “Mit” to those guests who arrive late and find no more place at the tables.
So it was in Karneid that the “Mit” was invented, and there was much to do. Even the old castle lady took part for days, drawing up the guest list and dispatching knights with invitations. She forgot no one who had any connection with Karneid. Only one noble lady, who had once been dear to her and whom she still held in friendship, she dared not invite: the book illustrator Ingildis of Steinegg.
The wedding feast in Karneid began splendidly; the large hall was already full of guests, for almost the entire nobility of the Etsch valley and Eisack valley appeared. As the festive tumult reached its peak, a horn sounded from outside: squires rushed out and soon announced that the noble lady Ingildis of Steinegg had arrived with splendid retinue and requested admission. The groom and other lords wished to spring up to greet her, but the old castle lady waved them back and went out alone. Ingildis would not let her speak, but asked modestly whether she might for a short time enter the great hall. The castle lady said nothing, but took her by the arm and slowly led her in solemnly. When Ingildis’s cloak was removed, all marvelled at her magnificent robe, richly sprinkled with small gemstones. A squire who had followed placed a large, gold‑ornamented book before her on a table; she leafed through it and said: „This is the book on which I have worked many years; it comprises the songs of a lost singer; at the end there is also a poem I composed; both – the book and the final poem – I have dedicated to you, the bridal pair, as a wedding gift, and I now ask the esteemed lady of the castle to read the concluding poem.” – She laid it before the castle lady, and she read:
The singer from the Castle high,
in night and darkness raised her cry;
through lonely hours her voice would tell
of wounds her sorrowed soul knew well.
Through wind and storm she ever stayed,
within the turret, unafraid,
where cold and danger twined their breath
beside a hearth as pale as death.
Until the Green Knight came one day,
and bore her in his flight away,
upon his steed so swift and bright,
with gesture wild in sheer delight
That is how the poem went. The guests applauded, and many women wished to copy it.
But Ingildis did not wish to stay long. She departed and was escorted out by the castle lady. Hardly had calm returned when Lord Ysenpant of Rottenburg, an old friend of the house of Karneid, stood and said: “Noble lady of the castle, honored guests! You have now seen Ingildis of Steinegg, the richest heiress in the Eisack Valley; if one observes her bearing, one might believe she is all haughtiness and vanity, but the opposite is true, for she has eyes like a fearful child, and her heart knows nothing but compassion, gentleness, and humility.
A few weeks ago, she visited me and handed me a document especially concerning the bridal pair. It is her last will; first various gifts to her people, then it states: „All the remainder of what I own, especially my castle and other properties, I bequeath to the lord of Karneid, and I wish that already on the day of my death on the highest gable of Steinegg the Karneid banner be raised!”
Astonishment seized all the guests, and the bridal couple were warmly congratulated.
A few years passed, and the old lady of the castle was no more alive. The morning sun shone on the walls of Karneid, and the knightly pair sat on the gallery above the gate bridge. A forester was just returning from the mountains when a few children ran toward him from the castle.
„So I have often imagined it, when the gatekeeper would announce the return from the hunt; that our children might run to meet you,” said Eldo‑Mar. „Dear Eldo,” replied the man, „that will never happen.” And he made a grave face. The wife was startled and looked at him in disbelief… Since he remained silent, she asked: „What do you mean?”
He hesitated a moment, then continued: „You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen; so lovely you already were as a girl at Streitmoos, and so you remain today and forever; that you should never lose that beauty, I had you enchanted by Langwerda; in doing so I had to forgo offspring for my house. That, however, can never be undone.”
The wife regarded him with disturbed eyes, then pressed her hands to her face and sighed softly: „Ah, what have you done?”
The years rolled on, and they rolled ever faster. One morning the castle lady rose and said to her husband: „Today is the fiftieth year since the day of our wedding.”
The woman looked out the window and said: „Now the days will grow ever more beautiful;
the sun already shines on the gate bridge; will you not come down to the bench? I go before.”
„Quite right,” he said, „I’ll come immediately.”
He seated himself beside her and gazed fixedly downward. She suddenly noticed and asked: „Are you unwell?”
Then he thought he could no longer conceal it, and so he began to describe his condition. Eldo‑Mar understood at once that the situation was dire. She sprang up, and he suddenly asked: „Are you frightened – ah, why?”
Eldo‑Mar drew near to him and placed her arm about his shoulders. She saw that his eyes stared into the sun. And as she tried to draw him close, his head fell forward, because he was dead.
The roses bloomed in bright array,
both red and golden fair;
but in her arms she softly lay
her love who breathed no air.
Now fate had come upon her, what Eldo‑Mar had long trembled in fear and anxiety: she stood alone in the world; the chapter of her life was closed, and she must return to the elfin beings from whom she came. She thought of the other widows, who might soon follow their husbands into death if they had lost them; but she would go on living and mourning, and it was also destined that every three hundred years she should come to Karneid to pass there a time of sorrow. – So, she spoke to some women of the neighborhood, and then departed for three hundred years.
But the people of the Karneid region never forgot her: Eldo‑Mar, the singer who came from the green wood, in her bright elfin dress of birch bark and evergreen. There were also songs referring to her, such as a song of the soldiery, which I dare imagine as follows:
No more shall his white banner gleam
beneath the summer sun;
no more from tower or balcony
shall greet him wife or one.
No knight of Karneid e’er again
across that bridge shall ride,
in armour rich with golden chain,
toward the gate in pride.
Deserted now, the fortress lies,
once proud, now cold and drear;
no Karneid blade shall ever rise
to win a fight or cheer.
For once there fell, in magic lake,
a maiden pure and fair—
and from that spell her fate did make
the doom all Karneids share.
The Castle Karneid was abandoned and fell to ruin. There were no more Karneiders, and for a long time no one tended the splendid fortress.
New noble houses came, rebuilt the castle, and ruled it. It is certain that in time the Counts of Liechtenstein moved in and governed powerfully for centuries. In that era of the Liechtenstein the singer of Castle Karneid came again and, in some nights, sang from the old tower.
And again, three hundred years later a wealthy nobleman from Bavaria arrived and had the crumbling castle rebuilt. Then suddenly the singer appeared again, lived long at Karneid, and there composed and sang.
And when people in Karneid and in the valley below heard the mysterious singing, they would say:
„The singer still in Castle high
sings ever of her misery;
once love and longing filled her song,
now sorrow’s voice it weaves along.”
After the last turn of the century, however, she departed – to where, nobody knows – either into the woods of Streitmoos or into the high Rosengarten or into distant lands. But after approximately three hundred years she would return…
according to J. A. Heyl
