The Devil's Path of Falkenstein
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| Geographic Coordinates: 50° 11' 25.00" N, 8° 28' 36.00" E |
From mossy rocks, at a green groves,
The Falkenstein, with stout walls,
Gazes into the river meadows from up high
And surrounded by dark dread;
With astonishment, the wanderer beholds it,
While briskly traveling along the road to Homburg.
For high up rises the defiant castle
Into the air on steep cliffs;
The valley shakes from the hooves of the steeds,
And the crevices echo dully;
Only one path filled with toil
Leads up to the dizzy heights of the mountain.
Once, a knight of dark mood and rough character inhabited this almost inaccessible castle. But his sole daughter was as beautiful as she was friendly, and if the father could be compared to an inhospitable rock in the desert, the lovely maiden was the evening star shimmering above the desolate stone. The heart of everyone who beheld the gentle Irmengard was opened in trust and love. This also happened to the young knight Kuno von Sayn, who once had business on the high-rising Falkenstein Castle. Her friendly eye and her friendly words quickly put his heart aflame, and when he went out of the castle gate again, he said to himself: “I want to ask for her hand.”
With this intention, he made a second visit to Falkenstein after several weeks. The lord of the castle gave him a cold reception. They stood next to an arrow slit, and looked out into the wide, splendid landscape. “No castle lies in such beautiful surroundings as yours,” said Kuno, “but the path to it is far too onerous.”
“Nobody has forced you to tread on it,” countered the old master of Falkenstein with pointed unfriendliness.
“No, my heart has forced me,” responded Kuno. “Your Irmengard is to my liking, and I have come to ask for her hand from you.”
“Lord Kuno,” said the old one with a malicious smile, “you shall have my daughter, but under one condition.”
“I accept it in advance!” shouted the smitten young man.
Then the old knight spoke:
“You know the narrow climb,
Hardly wild enough for single steeds;
You shall widen it to an open road
Which is comfortable for the ascent to the castle.
If all of this can occur tonight,
I will grant my daughter to you.”
Kuno was startled by the request of this magnitude. But as he was in love, its execution did not seem impossible to him. He went home and called for his old, faithful mine foreman whom he told of the situation. But the latter shook his head, and said: “I know that accursed rock hideout. Even if you put three hundred miners there, they would not be able to accomplish this task within six nights, much less in one.”
With a sad mood, Kuno then sat down at the entrance of his mine shaft, and still sat there when the fog of the evening rose on the forest meadows. When, by chance, he lifted his eyes, he saw before him
A tiny little man of a strange manner,
In a dark cowl, with white beard.
“Knight of Sayn,” said the mountain spirit, “I have heard what you have talked about with your foreman. While he is an honest man, I understand this trade better than he does.”
“Who are you?” asked Kuno. But the little mountain man replied:
“Many spirits dwell in the blaze of the fire,
And some rule within the wind,
Many too inhabit the realm of the flood,
But we live in the caves and depths.
We call ourselves gnomes, the lords of the deep,
And we gladly serve the goodly and the brave.”
“If you could do this and are willing!” shouted the knight as he was overwhelmed by joy.
“I can and I will”, the gnome interjected, “but I want a gratification from your side. End the mining at the St. Margaret’s Shaft here. For if your people continue to go through here, they will get into my territory, and I and my kin will have to leave the mountain. You shall not be shortened with this deal. The mountain to your left has riches aplenty, and I shall give you a dowsing rod with which you will find the seams of ore.”
Kuno vouchsafed that he would give away all gold and silver mines of the world in exchange for possession of Irmengard, and the little man promised him the fulfillment of this wish for the next morning. He then vanished with the promise,
“To clear the path to the castle over there,
For us this is child’s play, the work of scant hours.”
Meanwhile, the fair Irmengard sat mournfully at a high window of Falkenstein Castle. For her harsh father had told her how the Knight of Sayn had asked for her hand, and how he had rejected her suitor. It was already late in the night, and no sleep wanted to arrive in her eyes. The bells of the castle struck eleven — when
Suddenly, a wild storm roared,
And rushed through pines and oaks;
It warbled, like owls from a high tower,
It could be heard passing through the air:
Laughter, hissing, and tooting echoes
Over heights, in crevices, through field and forest.
Now the father stepped into the chamber, as he had been woken from slumber by the racket. “I think the Knight of Sayn has become mad,” he said, “and now he ruins even my small, rocky path so that we shall have to travel up and down in baskets.” But the mighty whirlwind outside continued to howl, and all trees of the forest shook their tops. Anxious, Irmengard cuddled up to her father, who made the sign of the cross and started to pray a psalm. Gradually it became silent again, and no breeze moved in the woods surrounding the castle.
Now the old knight was able to breathe more freely again, and sought to calm his daughter. He assured her that this had been the Wild Huntsman who had passed by. Irmengard believed it, and no longer seemed to be afraid. But the old one was still disturbed, and only when the birds began to twitter at the crack of dawn did he fall asleep in his armchair.
The sun had barely cast its first rays across the castle yard when the Knight of Sayn burst across the drawbridge on a proud sorrel horse. The old lord of the castle was woken by the patter and whinnying of the steed. Shocked, he rose up and rushed to the window. Kuno bade him a good morning, and laughed: “It is a comfortable ride up to your home, Lord of Falkenstein!”
The old one was not yet sure whether he was awake or dreaming, for from his window he now beheld a part of the new path, which had been hewn into the rock in a zig-zag pattern.
“I will keep my word,” said the Lord of Falkenstein after he had recovered from his astonishment and listened to Kuno’s account of this event, “here is Irmengard’s hand and my blessings.”
Even today, the path which has been created by the mountain spirits leads up to the ruins of the castle, and the people of the surrounding area call it the “Teufelsweg” — “The Devil’s Path”.
Even today the debris of Falkenstein rises
Next to Kronberg’s flowering meadows,
On the rocks of the Taunus, at green groves,
High up in gloomy dread;
Only rock thrushes dwell in this wasteland,
Singers escaped from alpine pastures.(*)
(*) The verses have been lifted from the poem “Falkenstein” by Karl Geib (in “Cornelia”, issue 1825).