+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

therefore, account for the rottenness of the foundation
upon which that city stands; or, as
other legends say, he built part of it on
underground pillars, and built in the
vermin under the stairs of a certain tower,
so that they never troubled the houses or
the gardens. He established a mechanical
night police of iron men, who went about
with flails, and who would have broken the
bones of any one who stirred abroad at an
untimely hour. He built a bit of meat into
the wall of the shambles, so that all the meat
there sold was prevented from becoming
offensive to eyes, nose, or mouth. He made
a garden under a rock just outside the town,
in which he put a statue with a trumpet at
its mouth, facing the south; and whenever
the south wind blew into this, the statue
blew it back, and twisted the whole wind
round to the opposite quarter. The reason
of this was, that a mountain in the Terra di
Lavoro gave out smoke and ashes, it being
supposed to be an air-hole over the infernal
regions. In May the south wind used to
blow this smoke over Naples; and to drive
it away, Virgil made his statue. After a life
spent in this way, Virgil, a very old man,
was willing, for the sake of a lady, to become
young again; and, shutting himself up in his
castle, bade the lady and a pupil of his cut
him up into small pieces, put him into a tub
and salt him; a certain lamp was then to
hang over the tub, which should drop oil over
his remains for a given time, and other things
were to be done; I forget precisely what they
were, and how they came to be left undone.
The process certainly was interrupted, and
Virgil remained buried in the brine-tub.

There was a famous German conjuror
named Zytho, who lived in the time of the
Emperor Wenzel, about the end of the
fourteenth century. The most popular part of
his story is that which relates his introduction
to the Emperor. It was thus told and
believed in the year fifteen hundred and fifty-
five, by Hans Jacob Fugger, in his "Mirror of
Honour for the House of Austria."
Emperor Wenzel had married a second wife,
who brought with her certain adepts in the
black art. "As these were practising their
tricks in the open market-place, one of the
spectators, named Zytho, stepped forward,
with a mouth stretching from ear to ear, and
he swallowed the principal conjuror, just as
he was, clothes, skin, and hair, down to his
shoes, which he spat out because they were
dirty. Afterwards he went into the next
house and turned the big morsel out into a
cistern of water, so that he brought the poor
fellow back half drowned." Of course he won
by this feat the heart of the Emperor.

The great German enchanter was named
Klingesohr or Clinshor, and his name is
connected with the stories of the German
minnesingers, such as Wolfram of Eschenbach, and
that Henry of Ofterdingen upon whom poor
Novalis founded a romance. We must be
content with mentioning this wonder-worker,
and pass on to Albertus Magnusa learned
monk of the thirteenth century, of whom this
story is told in Lehmann's "Chronicles of
Spires," as one of the incidents of the year
twelve hundred and forty-eight. The
Emperor came to Cologne at the Feast of
the three Kings, and was invited by Albert
to come and dine with all his court in
a garden near the monastery to which he
belonged. The day was not only cold, but
much snow fell, and the courtiers thought the
monk unreasonable in asking them to dine
under the open sky. The Emperor, however,
went, and they all sat down to table among
the snow, enveloped in warm wrappers
speaking as moderns, we may say, in their
great coats and comforters. A splendid
dinner was then brought by beautiful and
courteous attendants, whom nobody knew;
and as the dinner came the snow went, the
day over-head grew clear and summery, grass
broke out of the ground and the trees burst
into leaf, flowers grew up and blossomed while
a plate was changing; the fruit trees also
blossomed, and directly afterwards went on
to fruit-bearing, the fruit ripened, and all
kinds of birds flocked in to feed upon it, and
these made the air ring with delicious singing.
The heat by that time had so much increased
that the diners took off all their wrappers
and such other clothes as they could properly
dispense with. After dinner, the servants
went away with the remnants and were no
more seen. The birds then flew away; then
the grass and the flowers perished out of
sight, the winter and the snow returned, so
that the guests were glad to put on their
great coats and go away. But the Emperor
William was so charmed with this little
dinner entertainment that he made rich grants
of land to the convent, and always held
Albertus Magnus in the best esteem. This
story, put into another form, was used, some
readers will remember, by Boccaccio.

I should not omit mention of Dr. Faustus,
a legendary person, founded on superstitions
associated with a real John Faust, who was
too clever for his neighbours in the first year
of the sixteenth century. He has been used
as a peg on which to hang nearly all the tales
of the magicians who had gone before him.
Much has been said and sung of him; here
let him rest in peace.

We must no longer rejoice in an escape
from the dark regions of practical superstitions;
for it is impossible to omit all mention of the
ugliest and most prominent of all the shapes
that peopled it, the master of the magicians,
the legendary Satan. The Satan or the devil
of old superstition was an imaginary being
quite of his own kind. He was not the Satan
of theology, though there were drawn
between the two a few strong lines of connection.
He was the builder of all castles, bridges, and
works of art that seemed to be beyond man's
strength, even of mountains and valleys, that