Wagner seems to have been under the impression that there was an old book of folk-tales (a so-called Volksbuch) devoted to the story of Tannhauser and his adventure with Dame Venus.  This is a mistake.  The legend came down to modern times by way of popular ballads.  One of these, which was printed by Uhland, consists largely of the dialogue between Tannhauser and his enslaver, as does also the carnival play which Hans Sachs wrote on the subject.  The writer of the ballad was so energetic an enemy of the Papal power that he condemns Urban IV to eternal torment because of his severe judgment of the penitent sinner:—­

Do was er widrumb in den berg und het sein lieb erkoren, des muoss der vierde babst Urban auch ewig sein verloren.

A ballad which was sung in one Swiss district as late as the third decade of the nineteenth century gives the story of the knight and his temptress in fuller detail, though it knows as little of the episode of Elizabeth’s love as it does of the tournament of song.  In this ballad Tannhauser (or “Tanhuser”) is a goodly knight who goes out into the forest to seek adventures, or “see wonders.”  He finds a party of maidens engaged in a bewildering dance, and tarries to enjoy the spectacle.  Frau Frene, or, as we would write it now, Freya (the Norse Venus whose memory we perpetuate in our Friday), seeks to persuade him to remain with her, promising to give him her youngest daughter to wife.  The knight remains, but will not mate with the maiden, for he has seen the devil lurking in her brown eyes and learned that once in her toils he will be lost forever.  Lying under Frau Frene’s fig tree, at length, he dreams that he must quit his sinful life.  He tears himself loose from the enchantment and journeys to Rome, where he falls at the feet of the Pope and asks absolution.  The Pope holds in his hand a staff so dry that it has split.  “Your sins are as little likely to be forgiven as this staff is to green,” is his harsh judgment.  Tannhauser kneels before the altar, extends his arms, and asks mercy of Christ; then leaves the church in despair and is lost to view.  On the third day after this the Pope’s staff is found to be covered with fresh leaves.  He sends out messengers to find Tannhauser, but he has returned to Frau Frene.  Then comes the moral of the tale expressed with a naive forcefulness to which a translation cannot do justice:—­

  Drum soil kein Pfaff, kein Kardinal,
  Kein Sunder nie verdammen;
  Der Sunder mag sein so gross er will,
  Kann Gottes Gnad erlangen.

Two other sources supplied Wagner with material for as many effective scenes in his drama.  From E. T. A. Hofmann’s “Der Kampf der Sanger” he got the second scene of the first act, the hunt and the gathering in the valley below Wartburg; from Ludwig Tieck’s “Der getreue Eckhart und der Tannhauser” the narrative of the minstrel’s pilgrimage to Rome.