Guntram was quite overcome by the horror of his situation, and seemed for a time bereft of his senses.  Then he had his horse saddled, and galloped as hard as he was able to Falkenburg.  Liba greeted him solicitously.  She could see that he was sorely troubled, but forbore to question him, preferring to wait until he should confide in her of his own accord.  He was anxious that their wedding should be hastened, for he thought that his union with the virtuous Liba might break the dreadful spell.

When at length the wedding day arrived everything seemed propitious, and there was nothing to indicate the misfortune which threatened the bridegroom.  The couple approached the altar and the priest joined their hands.  Suddenly Guntram fell to the ground, foaming and gasping, and was carried thence to his home.  The faithful Liba stayed by his side, and when he had partially recovered the knight told her the story of the spectre, and added that when the priest had joined their hands he had imagined that the ghost had put her cold hand in his.  Liba attempted to soothe her repentant lover, and sent for a priest to finish the interrupted wedding ceremony.  This concluded, Guntram embraced his wife, received absolution, and expired.

Liba entered a convent, and a few years later she herself passed away, and was buried by the side of her husband.

The Mouse Tower

Bishop Hatto is a figure equally well known to history and tradition, though, curiously enough, receiving a much rougher handling from the latter than the former.  History relates that Hatto was Archbishop of Mainz in the tenth century, being the second of his name to occupy that see.  As a ruler he was firm, zealous, and upright, if somewhat ambitious and high-handed, and his term of office was marked by a civic peace not always experienced in those times.  So much for history.  According to tradition, Hatto was a stony-hearted oppressor of the poor, permitting nothing to stand in the way of the attainment of his own selfish ends, and several wild legends exhibit him in a peculiarly unfavourable light.

By far the most popular of these traditions is that which deals with the Maeuseturm, or ‘Mouse Tower,’ situated on a small island in the Rhine near Bingen.  It has never been quite decided whether the name was bestowed because of the legend, or whether the legend arose on account of the name, and it seems at least probable that the tale is of considerably later date than the tenth century.  Some authorities regard the word Maeuseturm as a corruption of Mauth-turm, a ‘toll-tower,’ a probable but prosaic interpretation.  Much more interesting is the name ‘Mouse Tower,’ which gives point to the tragic tale of Bishop Hatto’s fate.  The story cannot be better told than in the words of Southey, who has immortalized it in the following ballad: 

     The tradition of bishop Hatto

     The summer and autumn had been so wet,
     That in winter the corn was growing yet;
     ’Twas a piteous sight to see all around
     The grain lie rotting on the ground.