SOURCE: "Alcuin's 'Harmlose Fabel' in C. F. Meyer's Die Richterin" in German Life and Letters, Vol. 32, No. 4, July, 1979, pp. 318-26.

In the following essay, Plater explores the function of Alcuin's fable within Die Richterin, asserting that Meyer succeeded in "suggesting not only an important scene later in the narrative but also the general background of the story and the basic plight and motivation of the main characters."

Little has been written about the passage near the beginning of Die Richterin that describes the region in which the title character lives. Yet with this passage Conrad Ferdinand Meyer provides, as he frequently does in his novellas, a comprehensive prefiguration of the story that follows. In response to Charlemagne's question about the region of Rhaetia, Alcuin, the director of the famous Palace School, speaks first of the roads and paths that lead across the mountainous region and the bewildering network...