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Friedrich Halm: 'The Eye of God' (Novella, 1826)
Translated from the German, "Das Auge Gottes", by Dr. Tony Page (1999)
Chapter One
The House of Rossum
In the mountain fastnesses of Styria, there once lived an old family, called the Rossums. They have long since died out; their coat-of-arms now points downwards in testimony of their demise; their castles have crumbled away, and their extensive estates lie broken up and scattered amongst diverse and numerous owners.
Not far from Goess-on-the-Mur, facing the town of Leoben, there stood upon a cone-shaped mountain, named Steed Mount, mighty Castle Stallberg - the seat of the Rossum family, whose fame stretched far and wide. No other family could boast such mighty highland hunters, fleeter than mountain goats and more fearless than bears (at that time still resident in the wilds of Styria); nor did any other house number among its members such audacious and daring warriors, such fearfully precise archers, such highly experienced campaigners in all the arts of chivalry. And for another knightly skill, too, the sons of Rossum displayed not only an innate talent, but also a wholly unvanquishable passion - namely, that for the noble art of horsemanship.
The love of riding amongst the Rossums bequeathed itself like some precious family heirloom from father to son, down the generations and the centuries, never once faltering in its strength or intensity. And in truth the house of Rossum had good reason to revere and esteem the noble art of horsemanship above all else, since solely to skilful riding did the family owe its foundation, its power and its glory.
When Ottokar I, Count of Styria, still ruled the land, a great hunt was once held along the banks of the River Mur. The Count's daughter, Agnes, spurring on her Lithuanian colt too wildly in pursuit of a speckled stag, and carried off at the speed of the wind, lost all control over her animal as it reared higher and higher. All the beautiful rider could do was cling on to the horse's black mane for dear life, calling out for help, as the creature, in blind and uncontrollable fury, thundered towards the nearby banks of the Mur.
Twelve fathoms deep was the yawning chasm which seemed destined to devour both horse and rider - when suddenly Berchtold, a riding groom of Agnes's father, released the spare horse which until that moment he had been carefully leading by its reins and, in a flash like a shaft of light from the sun, shot ahead of all the eager knights and pages around him and managed to overtake the frightened, runaway horse just as it was nearing the dangerous edge of the precipice. Berchtold succeeded in swinging his own responsive steed around so skilfully that the bolting creature, his path cut off, took fright afresh and spun round, running back onto the green plain, from where he could finally be caught and stopped by those who were in pursuit of him.
Count Ottokar grasped hold of his half-swooning daughter in his arms, struck the Lithuanian colt down with a furious blow of his sword, and then turned to Berchtold, who had meanwhile caught up his spare horse once again and was now calmly riding up to the others, as though nothing whatsoever had occurred. It was as if he had not even been present at the scene of his own bravery.
"Kneel !" said the Count, and Berchtold swung himself out of his saddle, knelt down between his two horses - his own, with which he had carried out the rescue, steaming and foaming with sweat, the beast's noble head lowered; and the other animal, smooth, with snorting, proudly dilated nostrils - and, without letting go of the reins, said: "Lord! I kneel." Thereupon the Count touched Berchtold's shoulders with his sword and dubbed him a knight, saying:
"From this day forth you shall be known by the name of 'Rossum' - 'he of the steeds' - and your coat-of-arms shall be that of a kneeling knight restraining two horses by their reins, and you shall be my stable marshal and shall have charge over my stables."
With that, he embraced young Berchtold, kissed him on both cheeks, and richly enfeoffed him with land and property. In no time at all, Marshal Berchtold was a highly respected man in all of Styria, and after he had built a proud fortress for himself called Stallberg ("Steed Mountain"), not far from the place where he had earned his golden spurs, he married a Dolliner woman and propagated his family line with great fecundity.
His wealth expanded, his territory increased, and before long he had built another castle, "Weidenberg" ("Graze Mountain"), on the banks of the river Mur, and soon after that he erected "Wefels" ("Rock of Woe"), not far from Admont, bold as an eagle's eyrie perched on the crest of towering mountain tops, utterly impregnable.
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