wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print the
legend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read it
before. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to
sit on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word LIE)
in the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid
which marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her
plaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything
else to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken
reefs and were lost.
In those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near
there with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had
heard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very
deeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander to
the neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and "Express his
Longing in low Singing," as Garnham says. On one of these occasions,
"suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of
unequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles
thickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore.
"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let his Zither fall,
and with extended arms he called out the name of the enigmatical Being,
who seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly
manner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with
unutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delight
the youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth."
After that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinking
only of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. "The old
count saw with affliction this changement in his son," whose cause he
could not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels,
but to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded the
youth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnham
says:
"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to
visit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the
tones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time
accompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her
silvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appeared
in the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed
their Bra
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