ssesses a
remarkable echo which may partly account for the legend.

The Lorelei

Many are the legends which cluster round the name of the Lorelei. In
some of the earlier traditions she is represented as an undine, combing
her hair on the Lorelei-berg and singing bewitching strains wherewith
to lure mariners to their death, and one such legend relates how an old
soldier named Diether undertook to capture her.

Graf Ludwig, son of the Prince Palatine, had been caught in her toils,
his frail barque wrecked, and he himself caught in the whirlpool and
drowned. The prince, grievously stricken at the melancholy occurrence,
longed to avenge his son's death on the evil enchantress who had wrought
such havoc. Among his retainers there was but one who would undertake
the venture--a captain of the guard named Diether--and the sole reward
he craved was permission to cast the Lorelei into the depths she haunted
should he succeed in capturing her.

Diether and his little band of warriors ascended the Lorelei's rock in
such a way as to cut off all retreat on the landward side. Just as they
reached the summit the moon sailed out from behind a cloud, and behold,
the spirit of the whirlpool was seen sitting on the very verge of the
precipice, binding her wet hair with a band of gleaming jewels.

"What wouldst thou with me?" she cried, starting to her feet.

"To cast thee into the Rhine, sorceress," said Diether roughly, "where
thou hast drowned our prince."

"Nay," returned the maid, "I drowned him not. 'Twas his own folly which
cost him his life."

As she stood on the brink of the precipice, her lips smiling, her eyes
gleaming softly, her wet dark hair streaming over her shoulders, some
strange, unearthly quality in her beauty, a potent spell fell upon the
little company, so that even Diether himself could neither move nor
speak.

"And wouldst thou cast me in the Rhine, Diether?" she pursued, smiling
at the helpless warrior. "'Tis not I who go to the Rhine, but the Rhine
that will come to me."

Then loosening the jewelled band from her hair, she flung it on the
water and cried aloud: "Father, send me thy white steeds, that I may
cross the river in safety."

Instantly, as at her bidding, a wild storm arose, and the river,
overflowing its banks, foamed right up to the summit of the Lorelei
Rock. Three white-crested waves, resembling three white horses, mounted
the steep, and into the hollowed trough behind them the Lorelei st