Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
Last week we looked at one of the precursor tales to
Snow White. This week we look at a longer (much longer) tale that was
definitely an influence on the Brothers Grimm.
Johann Karl August Musäus
was a professor of Ancient Languages and History at the Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium
in Weimar as well as a popular German author and folklorist. He was one of the
first collectors of German folk tales. His most famous work was Volksmärchen der Deutschen (Folktales
of the Germans) which was a collection of German fairy tales retold as satires published in 1782.
To us today the title is misleading,
since what Musäus wrote were decidedly literary tales, more like short novels
or romances in terms of length, rational and satirical in tone, minimizing or
even excising everything to do with magic and the supernatural. We know from
his nephew, August von Kotzebue, that he listened to old people telling
folktales and used them as a basis for his own tales, but that is really the
only sense in which he can be said to have written folktales.
A collection of French translations of
German gothic tales was the book that Mary and Percy Shelley, Byron,
Polidori, and Clairemont read on the fateful summer night before they agreed to
each compose their own gothic tales, famously resulting in the composition
of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The
Vampyre (which was loosely based on the Musäus tale).
His story Richilda kept coming up in lists as
having an influence on the tale we know as Snow White. I found summaries and
articles written about it but found it very hard to find the actual story. When
I did find the actual story, it was in German and I had to figure out how to
translate it. After spending ages finding a way to translate it, I realised that I should have paid better
attention to the quote above. It was long. Really long. Over 20 pages long with
flowery language. Therefore I have edited the story and summarised long flowery bits of description, but
you can read the whole story of RICHILDA here.
The most interesting thing about the story is that it
begins with the complete backstory of the stepmother. Our title character Richilda
(Or Richilde as some translations say) is not our Snow White protagonist, but
the evil and vain stepmother. No, our beautiful Snow White is Blanca (which
means white.) We get the full backstory on Richilda and how she got the magic
mirror as a christening present and how it begins to increase her already vain and proud nature. We see her willing to break up someone’s marriage to marry the
handsomest man in the land (who cares if he is kind or smart? Looks are all she
cares about. And it shows. She is happy to marry a man who dumps his beloved
wife at the drop of a hat and sends his baby to be raised by a governess in a
far off castle just to marry someone better looking. They deserve each other.)
We see Blanca cared for by dwarf servants and all the
conventional attempts on her life that you would expect. However, it is not a
kiss that wakes Blanca up-- the Prince uses a relic he has brought with
him from the holy land. This is not as much of a surprise when you see how
religious the story starts, but it does make for a nice twist.
Lastly it ends the way I liked my fairy tales to end—with
the baddies getting what is coming to them.
Richilda
During the time of the Crusades, Gunderich
the Priest-ridden, Count of Brabant, led a life of such exemplary piety, that
he deserved the title of saint, as well as the Emperor Henry the Limper.
He was incredibly pious as well as frugal and kept his
house (and his soul) in perfect order. His only sadness was that his wife has
born him no children. But he blamed her for that.
He
considered the barrenness of his wife as a visitation of Heaven, because, in
his opinion, she was too much devoted to the pomps and vanities of this wicked
world.
She wasn’t really pious at all and rolled her eyes at
his devotion, but nonetheless tried fasting and prayer to get them a child
which was altogether the appropriate reward of female virtue. She
tried but the stricter her regimen, the slenderer still grew her waist.
They were visited by a priest and their hospitality
to the clergy knew no bounds. After paying 200 gold coins to the priest to
say mass and hear confession the priest prescribed
her and her husband a more liberal diet, and foretold, in the spirit of prophecy,
that she should soon be blessed with fruit of her body.
The next year
when the priest was passing through, he saw a charming little daughter at
the Countess’s breast, the very picture of her gracious mother, who was
thankful to God and all the saints that her reproach had passed away from her. The
father Gunderich would in truth have been better pleased with the arrival of an
heir male; but as the little creature was so pretty, and so loving, and smiled
upon him so innocently, he took it in his arms, and found great delight in
dandling it.
As Count Gunderich believed that the pious priest had
brough this blessing upon them he showered him with gifts and finer robes than
the Archbishop of Toledo wore. The Countess begged Albertus’s blessing on her
daughter, which he bestowed with such earnestness and heart-felt zeal, that the
court chronicle of scandal teemed with surmises, such as had a violent tendency
to mislead the genealogists concerning the girl’s parentage. Father Gunderich
let the gossips say on and took their prattle all in good part.
The priest was apparently a bit of a jokester and a
bit of a conjurer. Because of this people sometimes said he was a sorcerer and
practitioner of the black arts.
As soon as the reverend Dominican had
bestowed on the infant his spiritual benediction, and was about to take leave,
the Countess begged yet a keep-sake for her little daughter, some relick,
an agnus dei, an amulet, or a charm for the cholic and heart-ache.
Albertus struck his forehead, and said, ‘You do well to put me in mind, noble
lady; I had almost forgotten a gift for your daughter: but leave me now alone
and tell me exactly at what hour she was born.’ Albertus then shut himself up
for nine days in a solitary chamber, and laboured hard till he had brought to
bear a piece of workmanship, which might serve to put little Richilda in mind
of him.
When the master found his work perfect, he
brought it in private to the Countess, explained to her all the virtues and
properties of his performance, taught her exactly how to use it; and desiring
her to instruct her daughter, when she was grown up, in the art and manner of
employing it, took a friendly leave, mounted his horse, and rode homewards. The
Countess, overjoyed at the mystery, took the magic present, and concealed it in
the chest of drawers where she kept her pearls and jewels. Gunderich the Priest-ridden,
lived yet a few years in his castle, shut up from the world: he founded a
number of churches and religious houses, and nevertheless laid by a great part
of his revenues for his daughter’s portion, for the see was entailed upon a
relation.
As soon as he felt that he drew near his
latter end, he put on a monk’s habit and gave up the ghost in this dress, in
sure and certain hopes of being free of the masquerade of cowls in the next
world. The Countess chose a nunnery for her widow’s residence and employed
herself wholly in the education of her daughter, whom she intended to introduce
into the great world herself. But before she could accomplish this design, she
was overtaken by death, just as the young lady entered into her fifteenth year,
the May of female beauty.
The good mother strove hard against this
unseasonable parting from the beautiful Richilda, in whom she had hoped to
enjoy life over again: but observing that her hour was come, she firmly
submitted to the law of the old covenant and prepared for her departure. She
called her daughter to her bed-side apart, bid her dry up her affectionate
tears, and said, ‘I am quitting you, my dear Richilda, at a time when you most
want a mother’s countenance and support: but be not afflicted; the loss of a good
mother shall be made up to you by a true friend and counsellor, who, if you are
wise and prudent, will so guide your footsteps, that you shall never go astray.
There, in that chest of drawers, you will find a piece of art, which you shall
take into your own possession after I am gone. A learned philosopher, called
Albertus Magnus, who bore a great share in the joy occasioned by your birth,
contrived it under a certain conjunction of the stars, and gave me in charge to
instruct you in the use of it. The piece is a magic mirror, set in a
frame of virgin gold. For all else that look upon it, it has the quality
of a common mirror, to reflect faithfully the impression it receives; but for
you it has received another gift besides, to represent everything concerning
which you enquire in distinct speaking images, as soon as you repeat the words
which this tablet will teach you. Beware of consulting it from idle curiosity,
or an inconsiderate wish to know the future consequences of your life. Look up
to the wonderous mirror as a respectable friend, whom one avoids troubling with
frivolous enquiries, and in whom one finds, in the weightiest transactions of
life, a true adviser. Therefore be considerate and cautious in using it, and
walk in the paths of virtue, so the polished surface will never be dimmed
before your eyes by the poisonous breath of vice.’–When the dying mother had
ended her swan’s song, she embraced the weeping Richilda, was anointed with the
holy oil, quickly ended her last agonies, and departed.
Richilda buried herself in mourning, but eventually
her tears were dried up. She began to dislike the convent where she lived and
longed to be on the outside. Many knights came to profess their love to her
because she was so beautiful and so she finally left and took for appearance-sake a matronly
companion to chaperon her and entered with éclat into the great
world. The fame of her beauty and high breeding went abroad towards the four
quarters of heaven. She did not use the magic mirror that her mother had
left her.
Princes and nobles came from distant lands
to pay court to her. Anyone who said she was not the fairest
in the land was forced to joust with one who did espouse her beauty.
Hitherto she had not once thought of
consulting the magic mirror: she used it only, like a common glass, to examine
whether her maids had set off her head-dress to advantage. She had not as yet
allowed herself a single question, either because no critical situation had yet
called for the voice of an adviser, or because she was timid, and apprehended
lest her demand might be forward and inconsiderate, and the bright surface of
the mirror might grow dim. Meantime the voice of flattery continued to nourish
her vanity, and at least produced in her heart the desire to know whether what
rumour so loudly tinkled every day in her ear was fact; for she possessed, what
is uncommon in the great, penetration enough to consider the language of her
attendants with proper distrust. To a girl in the bloom of youth, of whatever
rank of station, the question concerning her personal charms is always the most
important problem that she can wish to have solved. It was then by no means
strange that the fair Richilda should desire information on a point so
interesting to her curiosity; and of whom could she expect a more certain and
definite answer, than from her uncorruptible friend, the mirror? On a little
consideration she found the question so just and reasonable, that she had no
longer hesitation in making the trial. She shut herself up accordingly one day
in her apartment, stepped close to the magic mirror, and pronounced the proper
words:
Mirror, let they burnish’d face
Give me instant here to trace
The fairest maid of Brabant’s race.
Trembling she drew the curtain, peeped in,
and to her great satisfaction beheld her own form, such as the mirror had often
shewn her unquestioned. She was no highly rejoiced in her soul, her cheeks
assumed a livelier tinge, and her eyes sparkled for joy; but her heart became
proud and arrogant like the heart of queen Vashti. The commendations of her
beauty, which she had before heard with modesty and maiden blushes, she now
exacted as a lawful tribute: she looked down with proud contempt on all the
daughters of the land; and as often as the conversation turned upon foreign
princesses, and any one happened to be praised on account of her beauty, it
went to her heart, she pursed up her mouth, and had an attack of the vapours.
The
courtiers, who were soon apprised of their mistress’s weakness, flattered her
in the grossest terms, threw abuse over the whole female world, and left not a
jot of honour to any lady, when the question was about beauty. No quarter was
allowed even to the illustrious fair of past ages, who have now so long been
withered; and everyone was obliged in her turn to pass the critical muster. The
beautiful Judith was too muscular and square set, at least according to the
tradition among painters, who have uniformly given her the robus make of a
butcher’s wife, as she is cutting off the shaggy-bearded captain Holofernes’s
head. the charming Esther was too revengeful, in causing the ten fine boys of
the ex-minister Haman, who had committed no crime, to be hanged. Of Helen, it
was said, that she was very well considering her red hair, but in all
probability, she must have been shockingly freckled. Queen Cleopatra’s small
mouth was commended, but the thick negro lips and high Egyptian ears, which Professor
Blumenbach has lately discovered on the mummies, were unanimously scouted.
Queen Thalestris was ordered to stand back, on account of the loss of her right
breast, which was cut off according to the fashion of the Amazons. None of the
courtiers could relish her wry shape; nor could they imagine any means of
concealing it, the stuffed jutting stays, that now hide so many female
blemishes, not being yet invented.
The fair Richilda passed at her own court
for the role and supreme pattern of woman’s beauty: and as in fact, by the
testimony of the mirror, she was the finest girl in Brabant, and moreover
possessed great wealth, besides castles and cities, she felt no want of
illustrious wooers. All she wanted was to be admired,
feasted, worshipped, to appear foremost among [her] companions, and to shine
amid the throng, as the lovely moon among the lesser stars; to have around them
an halo of adorers ready to offer up their lives for her sake, as the old
custom was, and to go forth, at her command, to seek adventures, or to catch
her giants and dwarfs; or, as the modern fashion is, to sigh, to coo, to whine,
to gaze in sentimental sorrow at the moon, to rave, to eat poison in a paroxysm
of love, to jump down the neck-breaking precipices, to drown, to hang, to cut
their throats, or, with more spirit skill, to drive a bullet through their
brain;–all these fancies of giddy-headed girls were realized in the café of the
Countess Richilda. Her charms had already cost many a youthful knight his life;
and a lively feeling of the secret torments of love still lingered between the
skin and bone of many an unfortunate prince. Basically, she just loved to
string men a long and watch them suffer. She had offers of marriage from
numerous men from all over the world.
Her governess warned that she was going to be thought
of as a coquette and a slut and lose her good name if she kept rejecting suitors
and toying with their affections and so had Richilda agree to choose a husband
in three days. All of the suitors rejoiced that she finally choose and agreed
not to be sore losers. Many of the men were of high birth had merit, riches, or
honours but she was shallow and only looked for the handsomest.
The lady was in great distress; her heart
still hesitated to decide, in spite of the urgent representations of the head.
Yet a way there must be through the wood: she jumped hastily up from her sofa,
and stepping before the mirror thus consulted it:
Mirror, let they burnish’d face
Give me instant here to trace
The fairest youth of Brabant’s race.
The mirror answered as it was asked. She
was shown a handsome knight she had never seen before as fair as young
Adonis with bright chestnut locks; his narrow thickset eyebrows rivalled
the form of the rain-bow; courage and heroic worth lightened from his eye; his
manly brown cheek, tinged with red, glowed with warmth and health; the gently
rising upper-lip of his purple mouth seemed to advance for a thrilling kiss;
his full calf was big with strength and manly vigour. She studied his
armour carefully in the mirror. Then she went out and told everyone that her
patron the Bishop had advised her in a dream who to marry, not that she had
consulted a magic mirror. She told everyone: ‘We have been betrothed to each
other in presence of the holy Virgin, and a number of heavenly witnesses.’
The palace was abuzz with speculation as to who she was to marry.
But the beautiful Richilda, having
mustered her spirits a little together, opened her mouth and said, ‘It is not
in my power to tell you the name of my husband, nor do I know where he lives:
he is not among the princes and nobles at my court, nor have my eyes every
beheld him, but his image is planted in my soul; and when he comes to carry me
home, I shall not fail to recognize him.’
The knights were a bit miffed as they felt she really
hadn’t kept her promise to marry one of them. She agreed to describe his looks
and his armour in case one of them might recognise him and prove she wasn’t
lying.
When she had done, the Count of Brabant,
the heir of the land, took up the word, and said, ‘We are not here, my dear
cousin, to argue with you; you have free power to act as you think proper: it
is enough for us to know that your pleasure is honourably to dismiss us, and no
longer to feed us with false hopes–for this you are entitled to our thanks. As
to the noble knight seen by you in a dream, and of whom you imagine that he is
destined by Heaven to be your wedded husband, I will not conceal from you
that I know him well, being, as he is, my vassal; for by your description,
and the marks of his armour, and the colour of his liver, he can be no other
than Earl Gornbald of Lowen; but he is already married, and so cannot by
yours.’ At these words the Countess turned pale, and was ready to sink: she had
not conceived that her mirror could play her so false as to exhibit a man whose
lawful love she could not enjoy; neither had she the smallest suspicion that
the handsomest man in the Brabant could wear any other fetters than her own.
The Countess however vindicated the honour
of her patron saint: she maintained that her vision might have a hidden
meaning; it seemed at least to warn her at present against entering into any
matrimonial engagement. The suitors therefore withdrew in a body, and then
separated various ways; and so the Countess’s court became at once deserted and
forlorn.
The Earl Gornbald was a wonderful man who had married
his childhood sweetheart who was also his first cousin (which had been the wish
of their parents) and was living in complete contentment. . They had already
lived three years in a state of contented wedlock, and continued the example of
their peaceful parents, when Earl Gornbald heard of the wonderful dream of the
beautiful Countess. Fame, which magnifies all things, added, that she was so
violently enamoured of him as to have vowed to take the veil, because she could
not enjoy his affection. Earl Gornbald had hitherto, in the bosom of a peaceful
family, and the arms of an amiable wife, tasted only the tranquil joys of
domestic happiness; no spark had yet fallen upon the tinder of his passions to
inflame them, but on a sudden there sprung up in his heart fierce desires:
repose and contentment vanished away; he gave scope to fond wishes, and
nourished them secretly with the shameful hope that death would perhaps make a
divorce between him and his lady, and restore his freedom. The idea of the
beautiful Richilda corrupted the heart of a man before good and virtuous, and
made it capable of every crime. Wherever he went or stood, the image of the
Countess of Brabant appeared before him: it flattered his pride, to be the only
man capable of subduing her scornful heart; his heated imagination painted the
possession of her in such glowing colours, that his own wife was thrown
entirely into the shade; all love and affection for her were extinguished, and
he wished but to be rid of her.
Basically he grew quarrelsome and ignored her without
explaining why he didn’t want to be with her. She, in turn, was confused at his
sudden coldness and tried to win him back. He was surprised upon finding her
sobbing and was annoyed rather than sympathetic. She begged him to explain how
she had inadvertently offended him. He explains (omitting the part about
wanting to marry someone else) that he is really worried that it is a sin that
cousins marry—‘we are brothers’ children; that is as bad as a marriage
between brother and sister; and for it there can neither be absolution nor
dispensation. this torments my conscience day and night and feels like hot
burning coals upon my soul.’
‘Ah, my dearest spouse,’ she said, ‘if you
have no longer any regard for your unfortunate wife, yet have some compassion
on the helpless pledge of your departed love, that now fills my womb: could I
but place it in your arms this moment, perhaps you would be moved at its
innocence, and give me back your averted heart.’ A stream of bitter tears
followed these words; but the husband’s heart of brass felt nothing of the
sevenfold sorrow of his wife: he quitted her abruptly, threw himself on his
horse, rode to Mecklenburg, to the archbishop; there he bought, with an heavy
purse of gold, a letter of divorce, and then cast his loving wife into a
nunnery; where she so pined and sorrowed, that her beauty soon faded away. As
soon as her hour approached, she brought forth a daughter, which she fondly
pressed against her maternal bosom: but the angel of death, who stood near,
quickly closed her eyes, so that she did not long enjoy the sight of her lovely
babe. Soon afterwards came the Earl and put the child into the hands of a
governess in one of his castles. he left a few maids and dwarfs to attend upon
her, and then equipped himself in the most sumptuous manner: for his heart was
solely bent upon gaining the beautiful Countess of Brabant.
So he arrived in high spirits and they were
deeply attracted to each other and had lots of sex (which is not the same as love)
but as time wore on both began to really hate the other.
Dame
Richilda, in virtue of her wavering disposition, was the first to perceive
these inconveniences: she became morose, haughty, cold, and at length grew
jealous. Neither did her lord and master any longer feel his former raptures: a
kind of spleen weighed heavy on his soul; the glance of love was dimmed in his
eyes: that conscience, with which he had heretofore hypocritically sported,
began now to remonstrate in a furious manner. Scruples for having murdered his
first wife arose; he often named her with regret, and sincere praise: And the
proverb says, that is a sign of ill blood in a second marriage, when the
virtues of the dear departed wife are too often brought forward. Disputes with
dame Richilda often came on the carpet; and he sometimes told her to her face,
that she was the author of all his calamities.
As this tale has a ribbon of religious fervour running
through it, it makes perfect sense that he would decide that he needed to go on
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to atone for his sins of being a really horrible husband
to his first wife whereupon he promptly died of the plague whilst in Syria. Richilda
received the news indifferently but played the widow and decked herself out in
black crepe and cried crocodile tears which only made her even more beautiful.
She was once again besieged by lots of nobles and knights all falling at her
feet and proclaiming her beauty which she lapped up like a cat who got the cream.
All this bustle of flattery gave great
satisfaction to the vain woman: bus as she would fain be certain that the
finger of time, in the course of fifteen years, had not rubbed out any of her
charms, she consulted her faithful adviser, the magic mirror. But what was her
horror and dismay, when, upon drawing up the silken curtain, a strange form
appeared before her eyes, beautiful as one of the Graces, full of softness and
innocence, the most lovely of female angels!–but of herself the image had not
one trait. The beautiful widow fell into a paroxysm of rage at this unexpected
answer; and the mirror was very near paying dear for its indiscretion;–neither
ought you to blame the lady too harshly, supposing she had taken severe
vengeance; for when a woman has no other talent except her beauty, she can
never be so deeply mortified, as when the unflattering friend on the toilette
announces the irrecoverable loss of that which constituted the sole value of
her existence.
Dame Richilda, inconsolable on account of
her new discovery, conceived a mortal hatred against the innocent beauty, whom
she found in possession of the prerogative she had arrogated to herself. She
impressed the lovely features deep on her memory and enquired with great
diligence after the possessor of them. The discovery cost but little trouble:
she soon found by the description that her step-daughter Blanca had carried off
from her the palm of beauty. Satan immediately insinuated into her hear the
idea of destroying this fair blossom, which might have adorned the garden of
Eden itself. With this purpose the cruel woman sent for Sambul, the court
physician: After giving him a preserved pomegranate apple, and counting fifty
pieces of gold into his hand, she said, ‘Prepare this apple for me in such a
way, that one half shall be perfectly harmless, while the other is so
impregnated with poison, that whosoever eats of it may die in a few moments.’
The Jew stroked his beard, and with great complacency stowed the gold in his
purse, promising to do as the bad woman had commanded him. He took a sharp
needle, bored three holes in the pomegranate apple, and poured a strong liquor
into them. As soon as the Countess had got the prepared apple into her
possession, she mounted her steed, and with few attendants trotted to the
remote castle where the virgin, her daughter Blanca, resided. On her way she
sent off a messenger before, to say that the Countess Richilda was on the road
to visit the young lady, and to weep with her over the loss of her father.
This message set the whole castle into an
uproar: Everyone cleaned it within an inch of their lives. Blanca modestly dressed herself in the colour of innocence, and when she heard
the horses trotting up to the gates, flew out to meet her mother, and received
her with great respect and affection.
At the very first sight the Countess found
the original seven times more beautiful than the copy in the mirror, and withal
so prudent, so sensible, and so accomplished! All this weighed heavy on her
heart: but the snake concealed her poison deep in her bosom, made a shew of
friendship, complained of the hard-hearted papa, for depriving her, during his
life-time, of the charming society of her daughter; and promised from this time
forth to treat her with true maternal affection. The dwarfs soon set the tables
and served up a sumptuous dinner. At the desert the housekeeper sent in the finest
fruit from the castle garden; nevertheless Richilda found it insipid, and
ordered her servants to bring her a pomegranate apple, a fruit with which, as
she said, she was accustomed to close every meal. The servant presented it on a
silver salver; she divided it with great grace, and offered half to the
beautiful Blanca, in token of her affection. As soon as the pomegranate apple
was eaten, the mother set out with her attendants, and rode homewards. Not long
after her departure, a pain came across the heart of the young lady, her rosy
cheeks grew pale, every limb of her delicate frame quivered, her nerves
twitched and started, her fair eyes became dim, and closed in the endless sleep
of death.
Alas! what sorrow and heart-breaking rent
the walls of the castle, upon the death of the beautiful Blanca, who had been
plucked in her fairest bloom by an audacious hand, like a rose with its hundred
leaves, merely because she was the ornament of the garden! The decent duenna
rained showers of tears, like a swollen sponge, when all its moisture is
pressed out by a violent squeeze. The joiner dwarfs made a coffin of deal, with
silver plates and handles; and, that they might not be at once deprived of the
sight of their beloved mistress, they fixed a glass window in the top; the
maids prepared a shroud of the finest Brabant linen, dressed the corpse in it,
placed the crown of virginity, a chaste garland of myrtles, on the head, and
with funereal pomp carried the bier into the chapel, where the father sacristan
took charge of the soul, and sounded the mournful muffled bell from morning
till the late hour of midnight.
Meantime Donna Richilda arrived
well-pleased at her place of residence. The first thing she did was to repeat
her question to the mirror: when she had drawn up the curtain with fear and
trembling, she beheld, with heartfelt satisfaction and a face of triumph, her
own image reinstated, but large spots of rust had settled on the burnished
surface, and deformed it, as the pits and seams of the small-pox deform a
virgin’s countenance. ‘Where is the harm of that?’–thought the Countess to
herself–‘better they should be on the mirror than my face: it may still serve
for a looking-glass and renders me secure of my prerogative.’ We commonly first
learn to value a good thing properly, when we are on the eve of losing it. The
beautiful Richilda had often suffered years to pass away without questioning
the mirror; now she did not omit a single day. She repeatedly enjoyed the
pleasure of offering a sacrifice to the idol of her own beauty; but one day, as
she drew the curtain for this very purpose, there appeared again–O wonder upon
wonders!–before her eyes; the form and features of the beautiful Blanca. At
this sight, a fainting fit came fast upon the envious woman; but she took out her
smelling-bottle just in time, and the qualm passed off by the help of the hawthorn.
She mustered all her strength, to look whether her fancy had deceived her, but
was soon satisfied that there was no illusion in the café.
She immediately set to hatch a new scheme
of villainy. Sambul, the court physician, was summoned, and thus addressed by
the Countess, in a tone of great anger: ‘Thou shameless deceiver! thou perverse
Jew! dost thou hold me so cheap as to dare to mock me? Did I not desire thee so
to prepare a pomegranate apple, that to eat it should be instant death? and
hast thou not charged it with balsam of life? For this they traitor’s beard and
Jew’s ears shall assuredly pay.’ Sambul the physician, much terrified at this
address from his mistress, thus answered and said: ‘Ah, woe is me! what evil
has befallen me? for I know not how I have incurred your displeasure, gracious
lady: what you ordered I have punctually performed; if my art has failed, I
myself am innocent of the cause.’
The lady seemed to be somewhat pleased by
this answer and proceeded: ‘For this time thy crime shall be forgiven thee,
under condition that thou prepares me an odoriferous soap, which shall
infallibly perform what the pomegranate apple has failed to do.’ The physician
promised his utmost, and she again counted out to him fifty pieces of gold and
dismissed him. In a few days he brought the Countess a deadly composition.
She immediately furnished out her nurse, a craft woman, with a box of pedlar’s
wares, fine yarn, thread, needles, scented pomatum, smelling-bottles, and
marbled soap-balls with red and blue veins, and bade her go to her daughter
Blanca forthwith, and try to pass the poisoned soap into her hands, for which
she promised her a great reward. The venal creature repaired to the young lady,
who, unsuspicious of fraud, suffered herself to be persuaded to buy the soap,
which, as the woman said, would preserve the beauty of the skin to extreme old
age. She ventured to make a trial of it without the knowledge of her duenna. Meantime
the base step-mother assiduously consulted the rusty mirror, and conjectured,
from its condition, that her plan must have succeeded, for the spots had spread
over the whole surface, just as if it had been corroded by aqua fortis; and
only an indistinct shadow, which could not be referred to any person, appeared
upon the dull face. The loss of the mirror went to her heart; but she did
not think it too dear a purchase for the reputation of being the first beauty
in the country.
The empty woman enjoyed for a time this
imaginary satisfaction, till a stranger knight arrived at her court, who,
during his journey, had stopped at the Countess Blanca’s castle, where he had
found her, not in the burying vault, but at her toilette, and was so charmed by
her beauty as to choose her for the lady of his heart. Desirous to amuse the
Countess of Brabant, and to shew himself off in the lists, and never imagining
that the mother could be jealous of her daughter, he threw his iron glove down
upon the table at a feast when he was warm with wine, adding, ‘Whoever refuses
to acknowledge Blanca of Lowen for the handsomest lady in Brabant, let him take
up the glove, in token that he will break a ferious lance to-morrow for the
honour of a knight.’ The whole court was highly scandalized at this inaccuracy
of the Gascon: each styled him secretly Sir Blockhead and Knight Gander.
Richilda turned pale, on hearing Blanca was come to life again: the challenge
was a mortal wound to her heart; yet she forced a gracious smile, and approved
the defiance, in hopes that the knights of her court would all eagerly snatch
at the glove. But no one advancing, for the stranger had a hardy look was firm
built and had large raw bones, she drew a dismal face, and all present could
perceive her secret vexation. This melted her faithful seneschal so that he
took up the iron glove: but at the morrow’s tilt the Gascon, after a hard
match, obtained the victory, and received his knightly recompense from the
hands of Richilda, who was on the point of dying with chagrin.
She first discharged her rage on the
physician Sambul: he was thrown into a tower and put in chains. Without further
hearing, the merciless woman had his reverend beard plucked out hair by hair,
and both his hears clipped close to his head. After the violence of her first
storm was over, and the step-mother had considered that her daughter Blanca
would nevertheless triumph over her, unless she should succeed in cutting her
off by fraud–for her father’s will had deprived her of all power over his
daughter–she wrote to the young lady in as tender a strain, and testified as
much maternal joy for her recovery, as if every letter had been dictated by the
heart. This letter she gave to her confidante the nurse, ordering her to carry
it to the imprisoned doctor, with a billet, wherein these words were written:
‘Enclose in this letter death and perdition for the person that first opens it. ‘As
thou valuest thy life, beware of deceiving me a third time.’ Sambul the Jew
hesitated what he should do, and for a while fingered the chain with a
thoughtful air, as if he was repeating his Jewish Pater Nosters link by link.
At last the love of life, though in a gloomy dungeon, with an head clipped of
ears, and a chin without a beard, seemed to outweigh all other considerations,
and he promised to obey. The Countess sent off the letter by a well-mounted
post, who made many grimaces at his arrival, as if to intimate that the letter
contained wonderful tidings, but he would not tell whence he came. The young
lady, eager to learn the contents, hastily broke the seal, read a few lines,
fell lifeless backwards upon the sofa, closed her azure eyes, and gave up the
ghost. The bloody step-mother afterwards heard no more of her daughter; and
though she often dispatched messengers to enquire, they constantly brought word
back that the young lady never more awaked out of her deadly sleep.
Thus had beautiful Blanca been thrice
destroyed, and thrice buried, in consequence of the snares of this odious woman.
After the dwarfs of her court had the first time laid her in her long home, and
the prayers and masses for her soul were appointed, they kept constant watch
along with the maids beside the vault, and often peeped through the window in
the coffin, in order to enjoy the sight of their beloved mistress, till
corruption should destroy her form: but to their astonishment they perceived
that in a few days the pale cheeks were tinged with gentle red, the withered
lips began to glow again, and soon afterwards the young lady opened her eyes.
As soon as the attendants perceived this, they joyfully removed the coffin-lid;
the beautiful Blanca arose, and silently wondered at seeing herself in a
burying vault, and her attendants in deep mourning. She hastily quitted the
dreary mansion, and like Eurydice tottered with trembling knees from the realm
of shadows the reviving light of day.
Doctor Sambul was in fact a pious
Isrealite, in whom was no guile, except when a sort of predilection for the
noble metals a little stretched the folds of his narrow conscience. The
pomegranate apple given him by the Countess brought to his mind Eve’s
unfortunate apple in Paradise, as also the golden apple from the garden of Hesperides,
which introduced contention between three goddesses, and proved the ruin of a
noble metropolis.–‘This,’ thinks he to himself, ‘is surely mischief enough to
be done in the world by a brace of apples; the third shall not increase the
guilt of the apple tribe.’ Instead therefore of the poison, which he was bid to
conceal in it, he only impregnated one half with a narcotic essence, that
benumbed the senses without destroying life. In the same manner he proceeded
the second time with the ball of soap, only increasing the quantity of opium;
so that as the lady did not awake so soon as at first, the dwarfs conceived she
was stone dead. They therefore carried her to the grave, and carefully watched
over her, till she revived, to the great joy of her household.
The fear of death caused the Doctor to wrestle with
his conscience but then decided to save his own life by really trying harder to
kill her. By virtue of his chemical skill, the Israelite reduced the
quintessence of the benumbing liquor into a volatile salt, which should be
immediately dissolved and absorbed by the open air, with this he besmeared the
letter to the beautiful Blanca: As she read it, the whole atmosphere around her
acquired a stupefying quality, so that she all the while inhaled the exalted
spirit of opium with her breath. The effect was so violent, that the apparent
death of the body remained longer than ever; and the impatient duenna, in total
despair of the resurrection of her young lady, performed her exequies a third
time.
A pilgrim appeared at church. His name was Godfrey
of Ardenne; he was of Teutebald the Bloodthirsty. Basically, he died under
a curse and was sent to purgatory but convinced an angel to let him go out and
visit his relatives which happened a lot more in the past than it does now.
Teutebald made the best possible use of
his furlough; he appeared three successive nights to his virtuous widow, waked
her out of a comfortable nap by touching the back of her hand with the tip of
his red-hot finger, and said, ‘My dear wife, have pity upon your poor departed
husband, who is enduring the pains of the antechamber of hell: reconcile me to
the holy church, and release my miserable soul, so shall mercy be shewn to you
hereafter.’ The widow took these words to heart, gave her son an account of the
vision, presented him with jewels and precious stones; and the dutiful youth
took the pilgrim’s staff in his hand, walked barefoot to Rome, and obtained a
dispensation for his father, under condition that he should hear mass at every
church on his way home. he took a wide circuit, in order to visit the greater
number of holy places, and so he passed through Brabant.
When the pious pilgrim had discharged his
vow, and dropped a charitable donation into the poor’s box, he asked the
brother sacristan why the chapel was hung in black, and what all this apparatus
of sorrow signified. The sacristan explained to him everything at length that
had happened to the beautiful Blanca, through the wicked snares of her
step-mother. Thereupon Godfrey marvelled greatly, and said, ‘If it be permitted
to see the lady’s corpse, lead me forthwith to the vault. With God’s leave, I
may perhaps recall her to life, if her soul be yet in her body. I have a relic
from the hands of the holy father,–it is a splinter from Elisha’s staff,–which
destroys sorcery, and repels every invasion of the right of nature.’ The
sacristan instantly brought him to the watchful dwarfs, and they rejoiced
exceedingly at the words of the pilgrim: they conducted him into the vault, and
Godfrey was charmed at the sight of the beautiful alabaster statue through the
glass window in the coffin. The lid being taken off,
he ordered all the mourners but the dwarfs to withdraw; pulled out his relic
and laid it on the heart of the then clay-cold damsel. In a few moments the
breath of life returned into the pale and wan body. The virgin wondered much at
seeing the youthful stranger before her; and the overjoyed dwarfs took the
wonder-working man for an angel of heaven. Godfrey declared to the awakened
Blanca who he was, and the reason of his pilgrimage: she in turn related
her misfortunes, and the persecutions of her relentless step-mother. ‘You will
never,’ said Godfrey, ‘escape the fangs of the venomous spider, unless you
follow my counsel:–Remain yet awhile in this vault that it may not be spread
abroad that you are alive. I will complete my pilgrimage, and return forthwith,
carry you to my mother at Ardenne, and, if God permit, take vengeance on your
murderess.’ The counsel was well-pleasing to the beautiful Blanca: the noble
pilgrim took his leave, and said in feigned words to the household that crowded
round him as he came forth, ‘The corpse of your mistress will never grow warm
again: the fountain of life is dried up–gone is gone, and dead is dead!’–The
faithful dwarfs, who were in the secret, kept close their lips: they provided
their lady with meat and drink in private, kept watch as before over the grave,
and waited anxiously for the return of the pilgrim.
Godfrey made haste to Ardenne, embraced
his mother, and feeling tired by his journey, went early to bed, and quickly
and lightly fell asleep, with his head full of the beautiful Blanca. His father
appeared to him in a dream, and said, with a cheerful countenance, that he was
released out of purgatory, and announced success in the undertaking he
meditated.
The next day he put on all his best knight gear and
went to the “funeral” for Blanca. When the priests had gone home from the cold church
to their warm beds she sat up and removed her shroud (much like Juliet in the
tomb.)
But when the
virtuous maiden found herself in the arms of a young man, fear and terror fell
upon her; and she said, with a bashful and blushing countenance, ‘Take
heed what you do, young man; question your heart whether it be upright, or a
deceiver: if you abuse the confidence I repose in your, Heave, be assured, will
pursue you with its vengeance.’ The knight modestly replied, ‘ I call the holy
Virgin to witness the purity of my intentions; and may the curse of God overtake
me, if one evil thought dwell in my soul!’ Thereupon Blanca mounted behind him
in confidence, and Godfrey conducted her to Ardenne to his mother, who received
her with the utmost tenderness, and watched over her as carefully as though she
had been her own daughter. The soft sympathetic feelings of love soon
awakened between the hearts of the youthful knight and the beautiful Blanca: the
affectionate mother and the whole court concurred in wishing to see the mutual
affection of the noble pair sealed, as soon as possible, by the holy sacrament
of marriage. But Godfrey remembered that he had promised his mistress
vengeance: he therefore left his residence amid the wedding preparations, and
repaired to Brabant to the Countess Richilda, who was still busied about her
second choice; but being no longer able to obtain the advice of the mirror, had
never come to a resolution.
As soon as Godfrey of Ardenne arrived at
court, his fine person drew upon him the Countess’s eyes, and she preferred him
to all the nobles. He styled himself the Knight of the Tomb, and this was all
she had to object to him: she wished him a more agreeable title; for life had
still so many charms for her, that the thought of the grave always threw her
into a fit of shuddering. She, however, contrived to interpret the appellation
of the knight of Ardenne as referring to the holy sepulchre: she supposed him
to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and so, without any further enquiry,
let him pass for Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.
She flirted madly with him and wore all her finest,
sexiest clothes to ensnare him. He pretended to be besotted but confessed ‘Your
kindness transports me: but you know not the vow by which I am bound, to
receive no wife but from my mother’s hand, and not even to quit this
affectionate parent till I have performed the last filial duties, and closed
her dying eyes. Can you not resolve, dear mistress of my heart, to leave your
court, and follow me to Ardenne, and make me the happiest of mankind?’ Even
though she wasn’t keen on her mother-in-law (a useless appendage) she wanted to
marry him because he was so good-looking, so she agreed to follow him home.
The bridal procession was got ready in
great haste; the persons to attend her were appointed, and Sambul the
physician, beardless and without ears as he was, paraded among the train. The
sly Richilda had taken off his fetters, and graciously restored him to the rank
of a favourite, for she hoped by his help, in good time, to make out a passport
for the worthy old lady to heaven, and then to return with her husband to
Brabant. The venerable matron received her son and supposed daughter with
courtly etiquette. She seemed highly to approve the choice of the Knight of the
Tomb, and every means to hasten the nuptials were put in practice.
The happy day arrived, and dame Richilda,
habited like the queen of the fairies, moved into the saloon where the ceremony
was to be performed, ardently wishing that hours had wings. Meantime a page
entered and whispered something into the bridegroom’s ear with a suspicious
air. Godfrey clapped his hands together in seeming horror, and said aloud,
‘Hapless youth! Who shall open the dance with thee on they nuptial day, now a
bloodthirsty hand has murdered they bride?’ He then turned to the Countess, and
said, ‘Know, beautiful Richilda, that I had given a dower to twelve virgins,
who were to advance to the wedding altar along with us; and the fairest among
them has been murdered, our of jealousy, by an unnatural mother: say what
punishment this shocking crime demands?’ Richilda, chagrined at an accident that
seemed to delay her wishes, or at least to cast a gloom over the auspicious
day, said with displeasure, ‘Oh, frightful deed! The cruel mother deserve, in
the place of her she has murdered, to open the bridal dance with the unhappy
youth in red-hot iron shoes. This would be balm for the wounds of his hear; for
revenge, like love, is sweet.’ ‘Amen! A righteous sentence,’ returned Godfrey,
‘so be it!’–The whole court applauded the Countess’s just judgment; and the
witlings presumed to declare, one and all, that the queen who went to Solomon
for a cargo of wisdom, could not have pronounced a better decree.
In a moment the lofty folding-doors of the
neighbouring apartment, where the altar was erected, flew open; there appeared
the female angel, the beautiful Blanca, attired in wedding robes; as she leaned
upon one of the twelve virgins, she looked at the terrible step-mother, but
cast down her eyes immediately. Richilda’s blood stopped in her veins;–she sank
to the ground, as it struck her sense–and then she lay motionless and stiff.
But the smelling-bottles of the ladies of the court quickly poured such a
shower of spirit of lavender over her, that her vital spirits collected
themselves again, sore against her will. Then the Knight of the Tomb addressed
a sermon to her, of which every word cut her to the soul; after which he led
the beautiful Blanca to the alter, where the bishop, in his lawn sleeves,
joined the charming pair, together with the twelve apportioned virgins and
their lovers.
The ceremony being ended, the whole bridal
train moved into the ball-room. The blacksmith dwarfs had in the meantime
forged, with great speed and dexterity, a pair of shoes of burnished steel:
they now carried them to the hearth, shovelled up the coals, and heated the
shining slippers to a bright cherry red. Then Gunzelin, the stout Gascon
knight, came forward to open the ball with the viper; and, though she earnestly
declined the honour, neither prayers nor struggles were of the least avail. He
took her up in his sinewy arms, the dwarfs fitted on the glowing shoes, and
Gunzelin skimmed her so rapidly along the floor, that the boards hissed as he
moved on, and her delicate feet were so well singed as never afterwards to be
troubled with corns; meantime the musicians blew so loud a blast with their
horns, that all her wailing and weeping was drowned by the boisterous tune.
After many a cut and caper, the nimble knight turned his partner, who had never
danced so warm a hornpipe before, clear out of the room downstairs, into a dark
dungeon, where the sinner had time and leisure enough to repent of her sins.
Sambul the physician quickly boiled a precious salve, which cured the blisters,
and eased her pain.
Godfrey of Ardenne and the beautiful
Blanca lived as happy as Adam and Eve in Paradise; they amply rewarded Sambul
the physician, who, contrary to the practice of his colleagues, refused to kill
where he safely might. Moreover, his integrity was recorded in heaven for a
blessing. His race flourishes still, after an hundred generations: one of his
posterity, the Jew Samuel Sambul, stands exalted, like a cedar of the house of
Israel, in the presence of his Majesty the Emperor of Morocco; and in the
character of prime minister he lives to this day, in happiness and honour,
bating a few bastinadoes on the soles of his feet.
That's all for this week. Stay tuned next week as we examine the Grimm's version of Snow White.
