The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy Read online

  Like Coleridge before him Lytton was strongly infected by the aesthetic theories of the German Romantic philosophers, and he became an enthusiastic champion of a theory of art which exalted the supernatural and derided conventional realism, claiming that literary works require some kind of metaphysical framework if they are to be deemed whole and complete. Whether these theories (laid out in a series of articles in Blackwood’s in mid-century) functioned as an inspiration to others it is difficult to judge, but Lytton was an important defender of fantastic elements in literature in a period when the more fashionable view derided their use.

  THE NYMPH OF THE LURLEI BERG - A TALE

  by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  O Syrens, beware of a fair young Knight,

  He loves and he rides away.

  A group of armed men were sitting cheerlessly round a naked and ill-furnished board in one of those rugged castles that overhang the Rhine - they looked at the empty bowl, and they looked at the untempting platter - then they shrugged their shoulders, and looked foolishly at each other. A young Knight, of a better presence than the rest, stalked gloomily into the hall.

  “Well, comrades,” said he, pausing in the centre of the room, and leaning on his sword, “I grieve to entertain ye no better - my father’s gold is long gone - it bought your services while it lasted, and with these services, I, Rupert the Fearnought, won this castle from its Lord - levied tolls on the river - plundered the Burgesses of Bingen - and played the chieftain as nobly as a robber may. But alas! wealth flies - luck deserts us - we can no longer extract a doit from traveller or citizen. We must separate.”

  The armed men muttered something unintelligible - then they looked again at the dishes - then they shook their heads very dismally, and Rupert the Fearnought continued -

  “For my part I love every thing wealth purchases - I cannot live in poverty, and when you have all gone, I propose to drown myself in the Rhine.”

  The armed men shouted out very noisily their notions on the folly of such a project of relief; but Rupert sank on a stone seat, folded his arms, and scarcely listened to them.

  “Ah, if one could get some of the wealth that lies in the Rhine!” said an old marauder, “that would be worth diving for!”

  “There cannot be much gold among the fishes I fancy,” growled out another marauder, as he played with his dagger.

  “Thou art a fool,” quoth the old man; “gold there is, for I heard my father say so, and it may be won too by a handsome man, if he be brave enough.”:

  Rupert lifted his head - “And how?” said he.

  “The Water Spirits have the key to the treasure, and he who wins their love, may perhaps win their gold.”

  Rupert rose and took the old robber aside; they conversed long and secretly, and Rupert, returning to the hall, called for the last hogshead of wine the cellar contained.

  “Comrades,” said he, as he quaffed off a bumper, “Comrades, pledge to my safe return; I shall leave ye for a single month, since one element can yield no more, to try the beings of another; I may perish - I may return not. Tarry for me, therefore, but the time I have mentioned, if ye then see me not, depart in peace. Meanwhile, ye may manage to starve on, and if the worst comes to the worst, ye can eat one another.”

  So saying, the young spendthrift (by birth a Knight, by necessity a Robber, and by name and nature, Rupert the Fearnought) threw down the cup, and walking forth from the hall, left his companions to digest his last words with what appetite they might.

  Among the Spirits of the Water, none were like Lurline; she was gentle as the gentlest breeze that floats from the realms of Spring over the bosom of the Rhine, and wherever at night she glided along the waves, there the beams of the love-star lingered, and lit up her path with their tenderest ray. Her eyes were of the softest azure of a southern heaven, and her hair like its setting sun. But above all her charms was the melody of her voice, and often when she sat upon the Lurlei Rock by the lonely moonlight, and sent her wild song above the silent waters, the nightingale paused from her wail to listen, and the winds crept humbled round her feet, as at a Sorcerer’s spell.

  One night as she thus sat, and poured forth her charmed strains, she saw a boat put from the opposite shore, and as it approached nearer and nearer towards her, she perceived it was guided by one solitary mariner; the moonlight rested upon his upward face, and it was the face of manhood’s first dawn - beautiful, yet stern, and daring in its beauty - the light curls, surmounted by a plumed semi-casque, danced above a brow that was already marked by thought; and something keen and proud in the mien and air of the stranger, designated one who had learnt to act no less than to meditate. The Water Spirit paused as he approached, and gazed admiringly upon the fairest form that had ever yet chanced upon her solitude; she noted that the stranger too kept his eyes fixed upon her, and steered his boat to the rock on which she sat. And the shoals then as now were fraught with danger, but she laid her spell upon the wave and upon the rock, and the boat glided securely over them, - and the bold stranger was within but a few paces of her seat, when she forbade the waters to admit his nearer approach. The stranger stood erect in the boat, as it rocked tremulously to and fro, and still gazing upon the Water Nymph, he said -

  “Who art thou, O beautiful maiden! and whence is thine art? Night after night I have kept watch among the wild rocks that tenanted the sacred Goar, and listened enamoured to thy lay. Never before on earth was such minstrelsy heard. Art thou a daughter of the river? and dost thou - as the greybeards say - lure us to destruction? Behold, I render myself up to thee! Sweet is Death if it cradle me in thine arms! Welcome the whirlpool, if it entomb me in thy home!”

  “Thou art bold, young mortal,” - said the Water Spirit, with trembling tones, for she felt already the power of Love. “And wherefore say thy tribe such harsh legends of my song? Who ever perished by my art? Do I not rather allay the wind and smooth the mirror of the waves? Return to thine home safely and in peace, and vindicate, when thou hearest it maligned, the name of the Water Spirit of the Rhine.”

  “Return!” - said the Stranger haughtily - “never, until I have touched thee - knelt to thee - felt that thy beauty is not a dream. Even now my heart bounds as I gaze on thee! Even now I feel that thou shalt be mine! Behold! I trust myself to thine element! I fear nothing but the loss of thee!”

  So saying the young man leapt into the water, and in a minute more he knelt by the side of Lurline.

  It was the stillest hour of night; the stars were motionless in the heavens: the moonlight lay hushed on the rippling tide:-from cliff to vale, no living thing was visible, save them, the Spirit and her human wooer.

  “Oh!” - said he, passionately, - “never did I believe that thy voice was aught but some bodily music from another world; - in madness, and without hope, I tracked its sound homeward, and I have found thee. I touch thee! - thou livest! - the blood flows in thy form! thou art as woman, but more lovely! Take me to thy blue caverns and be my bride!”

  As a dream from the sleeper, as a vapour from the valley, Lurline glided from the arms of the stranger, and sunk into the waters; the wave closed over her, but, beneath its surface, he saw her form gliding along to the more shadowy depths; he saw, and plunged into the waves!

  The morning came, and the boat still tossed by the Lurlei Berg - without a hand to steer it. The Rhine rolled bright to the dewy sun, but the stranger had returned not to its shores.

  The cavern of the Water Spirit stretches in many chambers beneath the courses of the river, and in its inmost recess - several days after the stranger’s disappearance - Lurline sat during the summer noon; but not alone. Love lighted up those everlasting spars, and even beneath the waters and beneath the earth held his temple and his throne.

  “And tell me, my stranger bridegroom,” - said Lurline, as the stranger lay at her feet, listening to the dash of the waters against the cavern - “tell me of what country and parentage art thou? Art thou one of the many chiefs whose castles frown from the o
pposite cliffs? - or a wanderer from some distant land? What is thy mortal name?”

  “Men call me Rupert the Fearnought,” - answered the stranger. “A penniless chief am I, and a cheerless castle do I hold; my sword is my heritage; - and as for gold, the gold which my Sire bequeathed me, alas! on the land, beautiful Lurline, there are many more ways of getting rid of such dross than in thy peaceful dominions beneath the river. Yet, Lurline,” - and the countenance of Rupert became more anxious and more earnest -” Is it not true that the Spirits of thy race hoard vast treasures of gems and buried gold within their caves? Do ye not gather all that the wind and tempest have sunk beneath the waves in your rocky coffers? And have ye not the power to endow a mortal with the forgotten wealth of ages?”

  “Ah, yes!” - answered the enamoured Water Spirit. “These chambers contain enough of such idle treasures, dull and useless, my beloved, to those who love.”

  “Eh - em!” - quoth the mortal - “what thou sayest has certainly a great deal of truth in it; but - but just to pass away the next hour or two - suppose thou showest me, dearest Lurline, some of these curiosities of thine. Certes I am childishly fond of looking at coins and jewels.”

  “As thou wilt, my stranger,” answer Lurline, and, rising, she led the way through the basalt arches that swept in long defiles through her palace, singing with the light heart of contented love to the waves that dashed around. The stranger followed wondering - but not fearing - with his hand every now and then, as they made some abrupt turning, mechanically wandering to his sword, and his long plume waving lightly to the rushing air, that at times with a hollow roar swept through their mighty prison. At length the Water Spirit came to a door, before which lay an enormous shell, and, as the stranger looked admiringly upon its gigantic size, a monstrous face gradually rose from the aperture of the shell, and with glaring eyes and glistening teeth gloated out upon the mortal.

  Three steps backward did Rupert the Fearnought make, and three times did he cross himself with unwonted devotion, and very irreverently, and not in exact keeping with the ceremony, blurted he forth a northern seafarer’s oath. Then outflashed his sword; and he asked Lurline if he were to prepare against a foe. The Water Spirit smiled, and murmuring some words in a language unknown to Rupert, the monster slowly wound itself from the cavities of the shell; and, carrying the shell itself upon its back, crept with a long hiss and a trailing slime from the door, circuitously approaching Rupert the Fearnought by the rear. “Christe beate! ” ejaculated the lover, veering round with extreme celerity, and presenting the point of the sword to the monster, “What singular shell-fish there are at the bottom of the Rhine!” Then, gazing more attentively on the monster, he perceived that it was in the shape of a dragon, substituting only the shell for wings.

  “The dragon-race,” said the Water Spirit, “are the guardians of all treasure, whether in the water or in the land. And deep in the very centre of the earth, the hugest of the tribe lies coiled around the load-stone of the world.”

  The door now opened. They entered a vast vault. Heavens! how wondrous was the treasure that greeted the Fearnought’s eyes! All the various wrecks that, from the earliest ages of the world, had enriched the Rhine or its tributary streams, contributed their burthen to this mighty treasury: there was the first rude coin ever known in the North, cumbrous and massive, teaching betimes the moral that money is inseparable from the embarrassment of taking care of it. There were Roman vases and jewels in abundance; rings, and chains, and great necklaces of pearl: there, too, were immense fragments of silver that, from time to time, had been washed into the river, and hurried down into this universal recipient. And, looking up, the Fearnought saw that the only roof above was the waters, which rolled black and sullenly overhead, but were prevented either by a magic charm, or the wonderful resistance of the pent air, from penetrating farther. But wild, and loud, and hoarse was the roar above, and the Water Spirit told him, that they were then below the Gewirre or Whirlpool which howls along the bank opposite to the Lurlei Berg.

  “I see,” - quoth the bold stranger, as he grasped at a heap of jewels, - “that wherever there is treasure below the surface, there is peril above!”

  “ Rather say,” - answered the Water Spirit - “that the whirlpool betokens the vexation and strife which are the guardians and parents of riches.”

  The Fearnought made no answer; but he filled his garments with the most costly gems he could find, in order, doubtless, to examine them more attentively at his leisure.

  And that evening as his head lay upon the lap of the Water Spirit, and she played with his wreathy hair, Rupert said, “Ah, Lurline! ah, that thou wouldst accompany me to the land. Thou knowest not in these caves (certainly pretty in their way, but, thou must confess, placed in a prodigiously dull neighbourhood); - thou knowest not, I say, dear Lurline, how charming a life it is to live in a beautiful castle on the land.” And with that Rupert began to paint in the most eloquent terms the mode of existence then most approvedly in fashion. He dwelt with a singular flow of words on the pleasures of the chase: he dressed the water-nymph in green - mounted her on a snow-white courser - supposed her the admiration of all who flocked through the green wood to behold her. Then he painted the gorgeous banquet, the Lords and Dames that, glittering in jewels and cloth of gold, would fill the hall over which Lurline should preside - all confessing her beauty, and obedient to her sway; harps were for ever to sound her praises; Minstrels to sing and Knights to contest for it; and, above all, he, Rupert himself, was to be eternally at her feet -” Not, dearest Love,” (added he, gently rubbing his knees,) “on these rocky stones, but upon the softest velvets - or, at least, upon the greenest mosses.”

  The Water Spirit was moved, for the love of change and the dream of Ambition can pierce even below the deepest beds of the stream; and the voice of Flattery is more persuasive than were the melodies of the Syren herself.

  By degrees she allowed herself to participate in Rupert’s desire for land; and, as she most tenderly loved him, his evident and growing ennui, his long silences, and his frequent yawns, made her anxious to meet his wishes, and fearful lest otherwise he should grow utterly wearied of her society. It was settled then that they should go to the land.

  “But, oh my beloved,” said Rupert the Fearnought, “I am but a poor and mortgaged Knight, and in my hall the winds whistle through dismantled casements, and over a wineless board. Shall I not go first to the shore, and with some of the baubles thou keepest all uselessly below, refit my castle among yonder vine-clad mountains, so that it shall be a worthy tenement for the Daughter of the Rhine? then I shall hasten back for thee, and we will be wedded with all the pomp that befits thy station.”

  The poor Water Spirit, having lived at the bottom of the Rhine all her life, was not so well read in the world as might have been expected from a singer of her celebrity. She yielded to the proposition of Rupert; and that very night the moon beheld the beautiful Lurline assisting Rupert to fill his boat (that lay still by the feet of the Lurlei Berg) with all the largest jewels in her treasury. Rupert filled and filled till he began to fear the boat would hold no more without sinking; and then, reluctantly ceasing, he seized the oars, and every now and then kissing his hand at Lurline with a melancholy expression of fondness, he rowed away to the town of St. Goar.

  As soon as he had moored his boat in a little creek, overshadowed at that time by thick brambles, he sprang lightly on land, and seizing a hunting-horn that he wore round his neck, sounded a long blast. Five times was that blast echoed from the rock of the Lurlei Berg by the sympathising Dwarf who dwelt there, and who, wiser than Lurline, knew that her mortal lover had parted from her for ever. Rupert started in dismay, but soon recovered his native daring. “Come fiend, sprite or dragon,” said he, “I will not give back the treasure I have won!” He looked defyingly to the stream, but no shape rose from its depths - the moonlight slept on the water - all was still, and without sign of life, as the echo died mournfully away. He looked wistf
ully to the land, and now crashing through the boughs came the armed tread of men - plumes waved - corslets glittered, and Rupert the Fearnought was surrounded by his marauding comrades. He stood with one foot on his boat, and pointed exultingly to the treasure. “Behold,” he cried, to the old robber who had suggested the emprize, “I have redeemed my pledge, and plundered the coffer of the Spirits of the Deep!”

  Then loud broke the robbers’ voices over the still stream, and mailed hands grasped the heavy gems, and fierce eyes gloated on their splendour.

  “And how didst’ thou win the treasure? - with thy good sword, we’ll warrant,” cried the robbers.

  “Nay,” answered Rupert, “there is a weapon more dangerous to female, whether spirit or flesh, than the sword - a soft tongue and flattering words! - Away; take each what he can carry, - and away, I say, to our castle!”

  Days and weeks rolled on but the Mortal returned not to the Maiden of the Waters; and night after night Lurline sat alone on the moonlight rock, and mourned for her love in such wild and melancholy strains, as now at times the fisherman starts to hear. The Dwarf of the Lurlei Berg sometimes put forth his shagged head, from the little door in his rock, and sought to solace her with wise aphorisms on human inconstancy; but the soft Lurline was not the more consoled by his wisdom, and still not the less she clung to the vain hope that Rupert the Flatterer would return.

  And Rupert said to his comrades, as they quaffed the wine, and carved the meat at his castle board -

  “I hear there is a maiden in the castle of Lörchausen, amidst the valleys, on the other side the Rhine, fair to see, and rich to wed. She shall be the Bride of the Fearnought.”

  The robbers shouted at the proposal, and the next day, in their sheenest armour, they accompanied their beautiful chief in his wooing to the Lady of Lörchausen. But Rupert took care not to cross by the Lurlei Berg; for Fearnought as he was, he thought a defrauded dragon and a betrayed sprite were hard odds for a mortal chief. They arrived at the castle, and Rupert wooed with the same flattery and the same success as before. But as one female generally avenges the wrongs of another, so Rupert was caught by the arts he practised, and loved no less ardently than he was loved. The Chief of Lörchausen consented to the wedding, and the next week he promised to bring the bride and her dowry to the Fearnought’s castle.