The dreaded year came and went, yet the world had not ceased; the sun still rose and set, life went on just the same.  So fear passed from the hearts of the people, and because they were happy again the young folk once more assembled to dance the Sundays away on the village green.  But the abbot was wroth at this.  When the music began he appeared among the villagers, commanding them to cease from their revels and bethink themselves of the House of God.  But the lads and lasses laughed, and the music went on as they footed it gaily.  Then the abbot was angered; he raised his hands to heaven and cursed the thoughtless crowd, condemning the villagers to dance there unceasingly for a year and a day.

As they heard the dreadful words the young folk tried to stop, but their feet must needs go on to the endless music.  Faster and faster in giddy round they went, day and night, rain and shine, throughout the changing seasons, until the last hours of the extra day, when they fell in a senseless heap in the hollow worn by their unresting feet.  When they awoke to consciousness all reason had passed from them.  To the day of their death they remained helpless idiots.  Henceforth the village green was deserted; no more were seen the lads and lasses dancing there on the Sabbath day.

The Loewenburg

Tradition asserts that on the summit of this mountain once stood a castle, of which, however, not the slightest trace can be found at the present day.  There is also a story of the lord who dwelt there, Hermann von Heinsberg, with whom, for his sins, the direct line of the family became extinct.

Graf Hermann was possessed by one overmastering passion, that of the chase.  The greater part of his life was spent in the dense forests which clothed the valleys and mountains about his castle.  Every other interest must, perforce, stand aside.  The cornfields, vineyards, and gardens of his vassals were oftentimes devastated in his sport, to the utter ruin of many.  If any dared complain he laughed at or reviled them; but if he were in angry mood he set his hounds on them and hunted his vassals as quarry, either killing them outright or leaving them terribly injured.  Needless to say, he was well hated by these people, also by his own class, for his character was too fierce and overbearing even for their tolerance.  To crown his unpopularity, he was under the ban of the all-powerful Church, for saints’ days and Lord’s Day alike he hunted to his heart’s content, and once, on receiving a remonstrance, had threatened to hunt the Abbot of Heisterbach himself.  So he lived, isolated, except for his troop of jaegers, from the rest of mankind.  The forest was his world, his only friends the hounds.