THE GREYLOCK

By Georg Ebers

A fairy tale.

Once upon a time there was a country, more beautiful than all other lands and the castle of the Duke, its ruler, lay beside a lake that was bluer than the deepest indigo.  A long time ago the Knight Wendelin and his squire George chanced upon this lake, but they found nothing save waste fields and bleak rocks around it, yet the shores must formerly have borne a different aspect, for there were shattered columns and broken-nosed statues lying on the ground.  Against the hillside there were remains of ancient walls that once, undoubtedly, had supported terraces of vines, but the rains had long washed the soil from the rocks, and among the caves and crannies of the fallen stonework, and ruined cellars, foxes, bats, and other animals had found a home.

The knight was no antiquary, but as he looked about him his curiosity was excited:  “What can have happened here?” he said, and his squire wondered also, and followed his master.  The latter led his horse to the edge of the water to let him drink, for though he had seen many watercourses in the land, he had found nothing in them save stones, and boulders, and sand.

“What if this lake should be salt, like the Dead Sea in the Holy Land?” the knight asked, and the squire answered: 

“Ugh, that would be a thousand pities!” As the former raised his hand to his mouth to taste the water, wishing indeed that it were wine, he suddenly heard a strange noise.  It was mournful and complaining, but very soft and sweet.  It seemed to be the voice of an unhappy woman, and this pleased the knight, for he had ridden forth in search of adventures.  He had already been successful in several encounters, and from George’s saddle hung the tail-tips of seven dragons which his master had killed.  But a woman with a musical, appealing voice, in great danger, offered a rare opportunity to a knight.  Wendelin had not yet had any such experience.  The squire saw his master’s eyes sparkle with pleasure, and scratched his head thinking:  “Distress brings tears to most peoples’ eyes, but there is no knowing what will delight a knight like him!”

The waters of the lake proved to be not salt, but wonderfully sweet.

When Wendelin reached the grotto from which the complaining notes came, he found a beautiful young woman, more lovely than any one the grey-haired George had ever seen.  She was pale, but her lips shone moist and red like the pulp of strawberries, her eyes were as clear and blue as the sky over the Holy Land, and her hair glistened as if it had been spun of the sunbeams.  The knight’s heart beat fast at the sight of her loveliness; he could not speak, but he noticed that her hands and feet were bound with chains, and that her beautiful hair was entwined about a circle of emeralds that hung by a chain from the ceiling.  She marked neither the knight nor the squire, who stood shading his eyes with his hand in order to see her the better.