On returning the wedding procession was obliged to cross a bridge, and as they approached it a great storm arose so that the waters of the stream washed over the feet of the bridegroom’s horse, making it prance and rear.  The knight was stricken with deadly terror, for he knew that the doom of which the water-nymph had spoken was about to overtake him.  Without a word he plunged into the torrent and was nevermore seen.

At the very hour of this tragedy a great storm raged round the castle of Staufenberg, and when it abated the mother and child had disappeared for ever.  Yet even now on a stormy night she can still be heard among the tree-tops weeping passionately, and the sound is accompanied by the whimpering of a child.

Trifels and Richard Coeur-de-Lion

As a troop of horsemen rode through Annweiler toward the castle of Trifels, in which Richard Coeur-de-Lion was imprisoned by the Archduke of Austria, his deadly enemy, the plaintive notes of a familiar lay fell on their ears.  The singer was a young shepherd, and one of the knights, a troubadour, asked him to repeat his ditty.  The youth complied, and the knight accompanied him as he sang, their voices blending tunefully together.

Giving him generous largess, the knight asked the minstrel who had taught him that song.  The shepherd replied that he had heard it sung in the castle of Trifels.  At this intelligence the stranger appeared highly gratified, and, turning to his companions, ejaculated:  “The King is found!”

It was evident to the shepherd that the new-comers were friends of Richard, and he warned them earnestly that danger lay before them.  Only by guile could they hope to succour their King.  The warning was heeded, and the tuneful knight rode forward alone, disguised in a minstrel’s tunic, in which he was welcomed at the castle.  His courtly bearing soon won him the favour of the castellan’s pretty niece, who persuaded her uncle to listen to his songs.  During one of their stolen interviews the girl betrayed the place where the King of England was imprisoned, and that night, from beneath a window, the minstrel heard his King’s well-remembered voice breathing a prayer for freedom.  His hopes being thus confirmed, he took his harp and played the melody which he himself had composed for Richard.  The King immediately joined in the familiar lay.  When its strains had ended, “Blondel!” cried the captive excitedly.  The minstrel cautiously replied by singing another song, telling how he was pledged to liberate his master.

But suspicion was aroused, and Blondel was requested to depart on the following day.  Deeming it prudent to make no demur, he mounted his horse, after having arranged with the castellan’s niece to return secretly at nightfall.  He rode no further than an inn near Annweiler, which commanded a view of the castle.  There his host informed him that the Emperor was presently to be crowned at Frankfort, and that on the evening of that day the garrison would celebrate the event by drinking his health.