The Life of the Moselle. Octavius Rooke
then, O reader, let us pause and contemplate the birth-place of our stream; leaving the world of stern reality, let us plunge together into the grateful spring of sweet romance; and while the only sounds of life that reach our ears are the rustling of the leaves, the buzz of the great flies, the murmur of the Moselle, and the distant ringing of the woodman’s axe, let us return with Memory into the past, and leaving even her behind, go back to those legendary days when spirits purer than ourselves lived and gloried in that beautifully created world which we are daily rendering all unfit for even the ideal habitation of such spirits.
And reverie is not idleness; in hours like these we seem to see before us, cleared from the mists of daily cares, the better path through life—the broad straight path, not thorny and difficult, as men are too prone to paint it, but strewed with those flowers and shaded with those trees given by a beneficent Creator to be enjoyed rightly by us earthly pilgrims.
Life is a pilgrimage indeed, but not a joyless one. While the whole earth and sky teem with glory and beauty, are we to believe that these things may not be enjoyed? Our conscience answers, No; rightly to enjoy, and rightly to perform our duties, with thankfulness, and praise, and love within our hearts, such is our part to perform, and such the lesson we are taught by the fairy of the sweet Moselle.
BIRTH OF THE MOSELLE.
The fair Colline slept in sunshine, when from the far horizon a rain-cloud saw her beauty, and with impetuous ardour rushing through the sky he sought the gentle Colline, wooed her with soft showers, and decked her with jewelled drops and bright fresh flowers.
She soon learnt to love the rugged cloud, and from their union sprang a bright streamlet which, cradled in its mother’s lap, reflected her sweet image. Then, as the time passed on, the little one increased in strength, and leapt and danced about its mother’s knee. Larger and stronger grew the streamlet until its tripping step became more firm, and then it passed into the valley, catching reflections from the things around. And onward went this fairy stream, her source watched over by a mother’s love; and her cloud-father fed her as she passed between her grassy banks.
Then girlhood came, and sister streams flowed in, and, whispering to her, told their little tales of life: so now, her mind enlarged, she onward flows, sometimes reflecting on the things of earth, but oftener expanding her pure bosom to catch the impress of the holy sky; and all the tenants of the sky loved to impart their infinite beauties and their glory to the pure stream.
The age of girlhood passes now away, and she becomes a fair maiden, to gaze on whose beauties towers and cities, castles, spires, and hills, come crowding, and line her path, each giving her the gift of its own being.
Now come the mountains, too, with their crowns of forest waving on their heads, and do homage to her beauty: she gives a sweet smile to all, lingering at every turn to look back upon her friends; but yet she tarries not, her duty leads her on—nor worldly pomp, or pride, or power, can keep her from her appointed path; she leaves them all behind, and swelling onwards through the level plain, receives the approving glance of heaven, and meets her noble husband Rhine, who, long expecting, folds her in his arms. And thus her pilgrimage complete, her duty ended, she calmly sleeps that happy sleep which wakes only in eternity.
Such is the history of the birth and life of the Moselle. We have now to wander from her birthplace here, in the Vosges mountains, to where she joins her glorious husband Rhine beneath the walls of Ehrenbreitstein. From time to time we shall linger by the roadside, to pluck a flower from legendary lore; from time to time we shall stop to secure a chip from the great rock of history: storing thus our herbal and our sack as well as our portfolio, we shall follow the many bendings of our graceful river, which, womanlike, moves gently and caressingly along, soothing and gladdening all things.
The fairy and the river are as one, life within life; ever flowing on, yet always present; ever young, and yet how old; ever springing freshly mid the hills and woods, yet ever ending the appointed course.
One life is material, earthly, but still sweet and beautiful; the other life is born of the first, but far exceeds it—it is the life poetic, whose other parent is the human mind: this life, which leaves the parent life behind, floats upwards on its glorious wings and reaches the highest realms of heaven, carrying with it the souls of those who read this life aright——
Lying here beneath the pines, we recall those old days of the past when, on the borders of our river, only forests waved, amid whose depths tribes of wild warriors dwelt apart—their only amusement hunting, their only business war, they scorned to cultivate the soil save for their actual necessities.
In this neighbourhood lived the Leuci, whose capital was Toul; lower down, the Mediomatrices had their chief city, Metz; and beyond these again came the Treviri, occupying the country about Trèves.
All these were members of that great German family which gave sea-kings to Norway, conquerors to imperial Rome, and at a later day that champion (Charles Martel) who stayed the tide of Moslem conquest near Poitiers; thus Christianising half Europe, and probably saving all earth from Mahomet’s false creed.
Rugged and strong were these old Germans—the huge pines well represent them; glorious in strength, stern in duty, upright, sombre, and picturesquely magnificent: they are recorded as having been of great size, with blue eyes and light hair, inured to every hardship, and never laving aside their arms.
Owning no superior, yet when once they had elected a chief, and raised him aloft upon their shields, they obeyed him implicitly; if unsuccessful in battle they would kill themselves rather than survive, believing that those who died on the battle-field were received by the Walkyren, or heavenly maidens, who hovered over the fight and chose lovers from the dying warriors.
What a picture of barbaric grandeur and indomitable will is given us in the last act of one of their more northern naval heroes! Being mortally wounded in a fight in which he had conquered his enemies, he caused himself to be placed on board his vessel with the bodies of his slain enemies around him, and all his plunder piled into a throne, on which he sat—then the sails were set, the pile was lighted, and the blazing vessel putting out to sea, he sought his heaven—Walhalla.
This Walhalla was supposed to contain a great battle-field, on which the warriors fought their foes all day, receiving no hurt; and at evening they returned to carouse and enjoy the caresses of the Walkyren.
Of these immediate tribes, however, Cæsar relates, that “they only worshipped the forms of the gods they could see and whose beneficence they felt, such as the sun, moon, and fire; of others they had never heard.” Doubtless, in after days, they adopted many of the Roman divinities, but at the time of which we speak they adored their Creator on the mountain tops; and when Christianity was introduced they built their churches on the tops of hills, and even now the sacred edifices are usually placed on eminences. Some remnant of the old hill-worship still remains, for the Mass is annually read to the Sens shepherds on the Alps; and not long ago the Saint John’s fire was yearly lit upon the hill-tops.
Christmas was their most holy time; for then, they said, the gods walked on earth.
The oak and the alder were objects of especial reverence; for from the former man was made, and woman from the latter.
They considered all trees, and flowers, and plants, and stones, and even animals, to be inhabited by beings of a superior order, who came from an intermediate heaven and hell.
Lakes, rivers, and springs, were held in special veneration; and Petrarch relates, that even in the fourteenth century the women at Cologne bathed in the Rhine to wash away their sins.
Strangely in their natures were intermixed the gentle and the savage, the cruel and the terrible, with the honourable and brave. Side by side we find human sacrifices and a festival in honour of the first violet; men who had been mutilated, and sickly children