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back the sound. Her cry was not unheeded. A young knight was now visible, galloping rapidly up the steep hill on which stood the tower where she was confined. She waved a white kerchief from the grating :-his speed was redoubled; the noble steed which he bestrode seemed to partake of the impatience of bis rider;- a few bounds, and they were on the bit of green sward before her dungeon door.

"Ottmar!"
"Williswind!"

Need it be told that it was her beloved brother, whom Heaven had thus almost miraculously sent to her rescue ?

At this interesting moment a third party made his appearance. It was the ruffian stranger. A few words sufficed to tell to Ottmar the tale of his atrocity: a few moments more were all the time he had to live on this earth. Ottmar attacked him with all the ardour which a good cause inspires: and the stranger defended himself as though he were paralysed by fate. He fell, cloven to the chine, by the heavy glaive of the enraged brother.

As he lay on the earth, the sky immediately over him became on a sudden completely darkened. Ottmar involuntarily looked up. Wondrous to behold, he recognised Williswind's pet raven at the head of a host of other birds, hovering over the prostrate villain. In another moment they had descended on the corpse, and attacked it at all points some picked out his eyes, others lapped his warm blood; some mangled his hands and face with their sharp beaks; while others,

again, pulled his garments to pieces to get at his bare body.

to

Ottmar tore the keys of the tower from the girdle of the dead ruffian, and at once liberated his sister and her maiden. Then, setting them side hy side on his steed, he led them in safety over crag and cliff, through dell and valley, Stolzenfels. There was great rejoicing made for her happy deliverance and his fortunate arrival. Williswind was not left much longer without an efficient protector; for, with her beloved brother's consent, she shortly after espoused one of the most powerful barons on the shores of the Rhine.

Her pet raven was honoured

with an effigy

over the gateway of the castle; and his memory is held in grateful remembrance to this day by the simple peasantry of the adjacent district.

Stolzenfels is celebrated, in subsequent tradition, as the scene of an alchymical cheat practised upon Werner, archbishop of Triers, who resided in it for a considerable period of his reign (A.D. 1388-1418). Werner was a poor man and a superstitious; he was " moreover, very much addicted to studies then denounced as magical. The expensive wars carried on by his predecessor, Kuno of Falkenstein, had exhausted the archiepiscopal treasury; and the witless prelate set about replenishing it by occult means. To this end he invited to Triers the most celebrated alchymists of the age; and spent all his time, and much of his remaining treasure, in making experiments

on the production of gold, and the production of

The result was ruin to The pope, at the instance

the philosopher's stone. the fatuous ecclesiastic. of the canons of Triers, silenced him, and appointed a coadjutor to perform his clerical duties. He died, it is said, in Stolzenfels: and the rumour ran that he left immense sums of money buried in its dungeons.

That this rumour was very prevalent, and not at all discredited, even by those who should have known better, is proved by one remarkable fact. John of Baden, Archbishop of Triers (A.D. 1456-1503), who re-edified Ehrenbreitstein, and proved himself one of the ablest princes that ever sat on the throne of that diocess, permitted himself to be persuaded of it by an Italian priest from Apulia, and, accordingly, set about excavating the vaults of the castle. He found nothing, however; and had only his expense and pains for his reward. This prelate, too, was addicted to alchymy: and he maintained a cheating Croat, for twelve years, for the purpose of discovering the mode of making gold and of perpetuating existence.

Stolzenfels is now undergoing the process of re-edification; and, perhaps, before these sheets are published, it will be completed as a residence.

LAHNECK.

On the right bank of the Rhine, a little inward from the river, and overlooking the Lahn, which flows at its foot, stands the ruined castle of

Lahneck. This formidable structure was erected in the year of our Lord 900; and it was presented to Hatto, archbishop of Mentz, a few years afterwards, by Oda, the wife of Arnulf, then emperor of Germany (A.D. 900-913). Hatto, of whom there is much to be said in a future part of the work, made it the boundary fortress of his diocess; and the gift of the empress to the see of Mentz was confirmed by a decree of Otto the Second, dated A.D. 978. The ancient edifice, however, fell into decay; and it became necessary to erect a new one in its stead. This was done by Dietrich, or Theodoric of Erbach, archbishop of Mentz (A.D. 1424-1459). The ruins of that structure are those which now strike the eye of the voyager on the Rhine.

Lahnstein, Braubach, Rhens, and Capellen, were the boundary points where the archdiocesses of Mentz, Treves, Cologne, and the palatinate of the Rhine, met together. Braubach appertained to the palatinate, as will be shewn further on in these pages; Rhens was in the archdiocess of Cologne; Capellen belonged to Treves; and Lahnstein was, as it has been above stated, from time immemorial in the possession of Mentz. Between these four places in the middle of the Rhine, a spot was, well known in the middle ages, by means of admeasurement from the respective shores, where each of these princes, sitting in their own boats, could hold converse with another without stirring out of his own

one

dominions.

It, however, appears that Lahneck passed out of the power of the Archbishop of Mentz, by what process is not known in the lapse of ages.

If the following tale be true, there can no doubt exist of the fact.

THE LAST OF THE TEMPLARS OF LANECK.

Popular tradition states that the proud castle of Laneck was once a fortress of the powerful Order of the Temple; and there is a story connected with it at this period of its history which is not altogether without interest. Before it is related, however, it may not be amiss to say a word or two of that famous order and its fearful fate.

There are few readers of history wholly unacquainted with the rise and progress of that celebrated fraternity of nobles and gentlemen, once the bulwark of Christendom: but the sad tale of their fate-their decline and fall-seems, generally speaking, to be almost entirely forgotten, or wholly unknown.

--

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From the period of the fall of Acre (A.D. 1290), it is stated, by an industrious historian of the Crusades:** "The Holy Land had become place of vice and debauchery, as well as a theatre for the display of great deeds and noble resolution. And we find," he continues, "that, however orderly and regular any army was on its departure from Europe, it soon acquired all the habits of immorality and improvidence, which seemed some inherent quality of that unhappy climate. This was peculiarly apparent in the two orders of the Hospital and the Temple, the rules of which were particularly calculated to guard against luxury of every kind: yet the one till its extinction, and both during their sojourn James's Hist. of Chivalry. Cap. XV., p. 312; supra.

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