Chiara C. Rizzarda's Blog, page 24

#Spooktober 26: The Corpse-Rider

The body was cold as ice; the heart had long ceased to beat, yet there were no other signs of death. Nobody even spoke of burying the woman. She had died of grief and anger at having been divorced. It would have been useless to bury her,—because the last undying wish of a dying person for vengeance can burst asunder any tomb and rift the heaviest graveyard stone. People who lived near the house in which she was lying fled from their homes. They knew that she was only waiting for the return of the man who had divorced her.

At the time of her death, he was on a journey. When he came back and was told what had happened, terror seized him. “If I can find no help before dark,” he thought to himself, “she will tear me to pieces.” It was yet only the Hour of [Pg 34]the Dragon, but he knew that he had no time to lose.

He went at once to an inyōshi and begged for succour. The inyōshi knew the story of the dead woman, and he had seen the body. He said to the supplicant:—”A very great danger threatens you. I will try to save you. But you must promise to do whatever I shall tell you to do. There is only one way by which you can be saved. It is a fearful way. But she will tear you limb from limb unless you find the courage to attempt it. If you can be brave, come to me again in the evening before sunset.” The man shuddered, but he promised to do whatever should be required of him.

At sunset the inyōshi went with him to the house where the body was lying. The inyōshi pushed open the sliding-doors, and told his client to enter. It was rapidly growing dark. “I dare not!” gasped the man, quaking from head to foot;—”I dare not even look at her!” “You will have to do much more than look at her,” declared the inyōshi;—”and you promised to obey. Go in!” He forced the trembler into the house and led him to the side of the corpse.

The dead woman was lying on her face. “Now you must get astride upon her,” said the inyōshi, “and sit firmly on her back, as if you were riding a horse… Come!—you must do it!” The man shivered so that the inyōshi had to support him—shivered horribly; but he obeyed. “Now take her hair in your hands,” commanded the inyōshi,—”half in the right hand, half in the left…. So!… You must grip it like a bridle. Twist your hands in it—both hands—tightly. That is the way!… Listen to me! You must stay like that till morning. You will have reason to be afraid in the night—plenty of reason. But whatever may happen, never let go of her hair. If you let go,—even for one second,—she will tear you into gobbets!”

The inyōshi then whispered some mysterious words into the ear of the body, and said to its [Pg 36]rider:—”Now, for my own sake, I must leave you alone with her…. Remain as you are!… Above all things, remember that you must not let go of her hair.” And he went away,—closing the doors behind him.

Hour after hour the man sat upon the corpse in black fear;—and the hush of the night deepened and deepened about him till he screamed to break it. Instantly the body sprang beneath him, as to cast him off; and the dead woman cried out loudly, “Oh, how heavy it is! Yet I shall bring that fellow here now!”

Then tall she rose, and leaped to the doors, and flung them open, and rushed into the night,—always bearing the weight of the man. But he, shutting his eyes, kept his hands twisted in her long hair,—tightly, tightly,—though fearing with such a fear that he could not even moan. How far she went, he never knew. He saw nothing: he heard only the sound of her naked feet in the dark,—picha-picha, picha-picha,—and the hiss of her breathing as she ran.

At last she turned, and ran back into the house, and lay down upon the floor exactly as at first. Under the man she panted and moaned till the cocks began to crow. Thereafter she lay still.

But the man, with chattering teeth, sat upon her until the inyōshi came at sunrise. “So you did not let go of her hair!”—observed the inyōshi, greatly pleased. “That is well … Now you can stand up.” He whispered again into the ear of the corpse, and then said to the man:—”You must have passed a fearful night; but nothing else could have saved you. Hereafter you may feel secure from her vengeance.”

The conclusion of this story I do not think to be morally satisfying. It is not recorded that the corpse-rider became insane, or that his hair turned white: we are told only that “he worshipped the inyōshi with tears of gratitude.” A note appended to the recital is equally disappointing. “It is reported,” the Japanese author says, “that a grandchild of the man [who rode the corpse] still survives, and that a grandson of the inyōshi is at this very time living in a village called Otokunoi-mura [probably pronounced Otonoi-mura].”

This village-name does not appear in any Japanese directory of to-day. But the names of many towns and villages have been changed since the foregoing story was written.

This weird tale is a retelling by Lafcadio Hearn of a tale he took from the Konséki-Monogatari.

#Spooktober 25: The Ghostly Kiss

The theatre was full. I cannot remember what they were playing. I did not have time to observe the actors. I only remember how vast the building seemed. Looking back, I saw an ocean of faces stretching away almost beyond the eye’s power of definition to the far circles where the seats rose tier above tier in lines of illumination. The ceiling was blue, and in the midst a great mellow lamp hung suspended like a moon, at a height so lofty that I could not see the suspending chain. All the seats were black. I fancied that the theatre was hung with hangings of black velvet, bordered with a silver fringe that glimmered like tears. The audience were all in white.

All in white!—I asked myself whether I was not in some theatre of some tropical city—why all in white? I could not guess. I fancied at moments that I could perceive a moonlit landscape through far distant oriel windows, and the crests of palms casting moving shadows like gigantic spiders. The air was sweet with a strange and a new perfume; it was a drowsy air—a poppied air, in which the waving of innumerable white fans made no rustle, no sound.

There was a strange stillness and a strange silence. All eyes were turned toward the stage, except my own. I gazed in every direction but that of the stage! I cannot imagine why it was that I rarely looked toward the stage. No one noticed me; no one appeared to perceive that I was the only person in all that vast assembly clad in black—a tiny dark speck in a sea of white light.

Gradually the voices of the actors seemed to me to become fainter and fainter—thin sounds like whispers from another world—a world of ghosts!—and the music seemed not music, but only an echo in the mind of the hearer, like a memory of songs heard and forgotten in forgotten years.

There were faces that I thought strangely familiar—faces I fancied I had seen somewhere else in some other time. But none recognized me.

 

A woman sat before me—a fair woman with hair as brightly golden as the locks of Aphrodite. I asked my heart why it beat so strangely when I turned my eyes upon her. I felt as if it sought to leap from my breast and fling itself all palpitating under her feet. I watched the delicate movements of her neck, where a few loose bright curls were straying, like strands of gold clinging to a column of ivory;—the soft curve of the cheek flushed by a faint ruddiness like the velvet surface of a half -ripe peach;—the grace of the curving lips—lips sweet as those of the Cnidian Venus, which even after two thousand years still seem humid, as with the kisses of the last lover. But the eyes I could not see.

And a strange desire rose within me—an intense wish to kiss those lips. My heart said. Yes;—my reason whispered, No. I thought of the ten thousand thousand eyes that might suddenly be tiumed upon me. I looked back; and it seemed to me as if the whole theatre had grown vaster! The circles of seats had receded;—the great centre lamp seemed to have mounted higher;—the audience seemed vast as that we dream of in visions of the Last Judgment. And my heart beat so violently that I heard its passionate pulsation, louder than the voices of the actors and I feared lest it should betray me to all the host of white-clad men and women above me. But none seemed to hear or to see me. I trembled as I thought of the consequences of obeying the mad impulse that became every moment more overpowering and uncontrollable.

And my heart answered, “One kiss of those lips were worth the pain of ten thousand deaths.”

I do not remember that I arose. I only remember finding myself beside her, close to her, breathing her perfumed breath, and gazing into eyes deep as the amethystine heaven of a tropical night. I pressed my lips passionately to hers;—I felt a thrill of inexpressible delight and triumph;—I felt the warm soft lips curl back to meet mine, and give me back my kiss!

And a great fear suddenly came upon me. And all the multitude of white-clad men and women arose in silence; and ten thousand thousand eyes looked upon me.

 

I heard a voice, faint, sweet,—such a voice as we hear when dead loves visit us in dreams.

“Thou hast kissed me: the compact is sealed forever.”

And raising my eyes once more I saw that all the seats were graves and all the white dresses shrouds. Above me a light still shone in the blue roof, but only the light of a white moon in the eternal azure of heaven. White tombs stretched away in weird file to the verge of the horizon;—where it had seemed to me that I beheld a play, I saw only a lofty mausoleum; —and I knew that the perfume of the night was but the breath of flowers dying upon the tombs!

Story by Lafcadio Hearn, July 24, 1880.

#Spooktober 24: The Fateful Hands

The daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,—the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought of her husband’s various concubines,—especially the Lady Yukiko, nineteen years old.

“My dear wife,” said the daimyō, “you have suffered very much for three long years. We have done all that we could to get you well,—watching beside you night and day, praying for you, and often fasting for your sake. But in spite of our loving care, and in spite of the skill of our best physicians, it would now seem that the end of your life is not far off. Probably we shall sorrow more than you will sorrow because of your having to leave what the Buddha so truly termed ‘this burning-house of the world.’ I shall order to be performed—no matter what the cost—every religious rite that can serve you in regard to your next rebirth; and all of us will pray without ceasing for you, that you may not have to wander in the Black Space, but may quickly enter Paradise, and attain to Buddhahood.”

He spoke with the utmost tenderness, caressing her the while. Then, with eyelids closed, she answered him in a voice thin as the voice of an insect:—

“I am grateful—most grateful—for your kind words… Yes, it is true, as you say, that I have been sick for three long years, and that I have been treated with all possible care and affection… Why, indeed, should I turn away from the one true Path at the very moment of my death? Perhaps to think of worldly matters at such a time is not right;—but I have one last request to make,—only one… Call here to me the Lady Yukiko;—you know that I love her like a sister. I want to speak to her about the affairs of this household.”

Yukiko came at the summons of the lord, and, in obedience to a sign from him, knelt down beside the couch. The daimyō’s wife opened her eyes, and looked at Yukiko, and spoke:—

“Ah, here is Yukiko! … I am so pleased to see you, Yukiko! … Come a little closer,—so that you can hear me well: I am not able to speak loud… Yukiko, I am going to die. I hope that you will be faithful in all things to our dear lord;—for I want you to take my place when I am gone… I hope that you will always be loved by him,—yes, even a hundred times more than I have been,—and that you will very soon be promoted to a higher rank, and become his honored wife… And I beg of you always to cherish our dear lord: never allow another woman to rob you of his affection… This is what I wanted to say to you, dear Yukiko… Have you been able to understand?”

“Oh, my dear Lady,” protested Yukiko, “do not, I entreat you, say such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and mean condition:—how could I ever dare to aspire to become the wife of our lord!”

“Nay, nay!” returned the wife, huskily,—“this is not a time for words of ceremony: let us speak only the truth to each other. After my death, you will certainly be promoted to a higher place; and I now assure you again that I wish you to become the wife of our lord—yes, I wish this, Yukiko, even more than I wish to become a Buddha! … Ah, I had almost forgotten!—I want you to do something for me, Yukiko. You know that in the garden there is a yaë-zakura, which was brought here, the year before last, from Mount Yoshino in Yamato. I have been told that it is now in full bloom;—and I wanted so much to see it in flower! In a little while I shall be dead;—I must see that tree before I die. Now I wish you to carry me info the garden—at once, Yukiko,—so that I can see it… Yes, upon your back, Yukiko;—take me upon your back…”

While thus asking, her voice had gradually become clear and strong,—as if the intensity of the wish had given her new force: then she suddenly burst into tears. Yukiko knelt motionless, not knowing what to do; but the lord nodded assent.

“It is her last wish in this world,” he said. “She always loved cherry-flowers; and I know that she wanted very much to see that Yamato-tree in blossom. Come, my dear Yukiko, let her have her will.”

As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:—

“Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you.”

“Why, this way!”—responded the dying woman, lifting herself with an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko’s shoulders. But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl, and burst into a wicked laugh.

“I have my wish!” she cried—“I have my wish for the cherry-bloom, —but not the cherry-bloom of the garden! I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!—oh, what a delight!”

And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died.

The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko’s shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But—strange to say!—this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl,—appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain.

Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim;—they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts!

At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner,—a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up,—like the hands of a person long dead.

Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.

Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir—stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly therafter,—beginning always at the Hour of the Ox, —they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.

Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun,—taking the religious name of Dassetsu. She had an ihai (mortuary tablet) made, bearing the kaimyō of her dead mistress,—“Myō-Kō-In-Den Chizan-Ryō-Fu Daishi”;—and this she carried about with her in all her wanderings; and every day before it she humbly besought the dead for pardon, and performed a Buddhist service in order that the jealous spirit might find rest. But the evil karma that had rendered such an affliction possible could not soon be exhausted. Every night at the Hour of the Ox, the hands never failed to torture her, during more than seventeen years,—according to the testimony of those persons to whom she last told her story, when she stopped for one evening at the house of Noguchi Dengozayémon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuké. This was in the third year of Kōkwa (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her.

 

From In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn.

#Spooktober 23: the Unkept Promise

“I am not afraid to die,” said the dying wife; — “there is only one thing that troubles me now. I wish that I could know who will take my place in this house.”
“My dear one,” answered the sorrowing husband, “nobody shall ever take your place in my home. I will never, never marry again.”
At the time that he said this he was speaking out of his heart; for he loved the woman whom he was about to lose.
“On the faith of a samurai?” she questioned, with a feeble smile.
“On the faith of a samurai,” he responded, — stroking the pale thin face.
“Then, my dear one,” she said, “you will let me be buried in the garden, — will you not? — near those plum-trees that we planted at the further end? I wanted long ago to ask this; but I thought, that if you were to marry again, you would not like to have my grave so near you. Now you have promised that no other woman shall take my place; — so I need not hesitate to speak of my wish. . . . I want so much to be buried in the garden! I think that in the garden I should sometimes hear your voice, and that I should still be able to see the flowers in the spring.”
“It shall be as you wish,” he answered. “But do not now speak of burial: you are not so ill that we have lost all hope.”
“I have,” she returned; — “I shall die this morning. . . . But you will bury me in the garden?”
“Yes,” he said, — “under the shade of the plum-trees that we planted; — and you shall have a beautiful tomb there.”
“And will you give me a little bell?”
“Bell — ?”
“Yes: I want you to put a little bell in the coffin, — such a little bell as the Buddhist pilgrims carry. Shall I have it?”
“You shall have the little bell, — and anything else that you wish.”
“I do not wish for anything else,” she said. . . . “My dear one, you have been very good to me always. Now I can die happy.”
Then she closed her eyes and died — as easily as a tired child falls asleep. She looked beautiful when she was dead; and there was a smile upon her face.

She was buried in the garden, under the shade of the trees that she loved; and a small bell was buried with her. Above the grave was erected a handsome monument, decorated with the family crest, and bearing the kaimyô: — “Great Elder Sister, Luminous-Shadow-of-the-Plum-Flower-Chamber, dwelling in the Mansion of the Great Sea of Compassion.”

But, within a twelve-month after the death of his wife, the relatives and friends of the samurai began to insist that he should marry again. “You are still a young man,” they said, “and an only son; and you have no children. It is the duty of a samurai to marry. If you die childless, who will there be to make the offerings and to remember the ancestors?”
By many such representations he was at last persuaded to marry again. The bride was only seventeen years old; and he found that he could love her dearly, notwithstanding the dumb reproach of the tomb in the garden.

II

Nothing took place to disturb the happiness of the young wife until the seventh day after the wedding, — when her husband was ordered to undertake certain duties requiring his presence at the castle by night. On the first evening that he was obliged to leave her alone, she felt uneasy in a way that she could not explain, — vaguely afraid without knowing why. When she went to bed she could not sleep. There was a strange oppression in the air, — an indefinable heaviness like that which sometimes precedes the coming of a storm.
About the Hour of the Ox she heard, outside in the night, the clanging of a bell, — a Buddhist pilgrim’s bell; — and she wondered what pilgrim could be passing through the samurai quarter at such a time. Presently, after a pause, the bell sounded much nearer. Evidently the pilgrim was approaching the house; — but why approaching from the rear, where no road was? Suddenly the dogs began to whine and howl in an unusual and horrible way; — and a fear came upon her like the fear of dreams. That ringing was certainly in the garden. She tried to get up to waken a servant. But she found that she could not rise, — could not move, — could not call. And nearer, and still more near, came the clang of the bell; — and oh! how the dogs howled! Then, lightly as a shadow steals, there glided into the room a Woman, — though every door stood fast, and every screen unmoved, — a Woman robed in a grave-robe, and carrying a pilgrim’s bell. Eyeless she came, — because she had long been dead; — and her loosened hair streamed down about her face; — and she looked without eyes through the tangle of it, and spoke without a tongue: —

“Not in this house, — not in this house shall you stay! Here I am mistress still. You shall go; and you shall tell to none the reason of your going. If you tell HIM, I will tear you into pieces!”

So speaking, the haunter vanished. The bride became senseless with fear. Until the dawn she so remained.

Nevertheless, in the cheery light of day, she doubted the reality of what she had seen and heard. The memory of the warning still weighed upon her so heavily that she did not dare to speak of the vision, either to her husband or to any one else; but she was almost able to persuade herself that she had only dreamed an ugly dream, which had made her ill.
On the following night, however, she could not doubt. Again, at the Hour of the Ox, the dogs began to howl and whine; — again the bell resounded, — approaching slowly from the garden; — again the listener vainly strove to rise and call; — again the dead came into the room, and hissed, —

“You shall go; and you shall tell to no one why you must go! If you even whisper it to HIM, I will tear you in pieces!”

This time the haunter came close to the couch, — and bent and muttered and mowed above it.
Next morning, when the samurai returned from the castle, his young wife prostrated herself before him in supplication: —
“I beseech you,” she said, “to pardon my ingratitude and my great rudeness in thus addressing you: but I want to go home; — I want to go away at once.”
“Are you not happy here?” he asked, in sincere surprise. “Has any one dared to be unkind to you during my absence?”
“It is not that — ” she answered, sobbing. “Everybody here has been only too good to me. But I cannot continue to be your wife; — I must go away.”
“My dear,” he exclaimed, in great astonishment, “it is very painful to know that you have had any cause for unhappiness in this house. But I cannot even imagine why you should want to go away — unless somebody has been very unkind to you. Surely you do not mean that you wish for a divorce?”
She responded, trembling and weeping, —
“If you do not give me a divorce, I shall die!”
He remained for a little while silent, — vainly trying to think of some cause for this amazing declaration. Then, without betraying any emotion, he made answer: —
“To send you back now to your people, without any fault on your part, would seem a shameful act. If you will tell me a good reason for your wish, — any reason that will enable me to explain matters honorably, — I can write you a divorce. But unless you give me a reason, a good reason, I will not divorce you, — for the honor of our house must be kept above reproach.”
And then she felt obliged to speak; and she told him everything, — adding, in an agony of terror, —
“Now that I have let you know, she will kill me! — she will kill me!”
Although a brave man, and little inclined to believe in phantoms, the samurai was more than startled for the moment. But a simple and natural explanation of the matter soon presented itself to his mind.
“My dear,” he said, “you are now very nervous; and I fear that some one has been telling you foolish stories. I cannot give you a divorce merely because you have had a bad dream in this house. But I am very sorry indeed that you should have been suffering in such a way during my absence. To-night, also, I must be at the castle; but you shall not be alone. I will order two of the retainers to keep watch in your room; and you will be able to sleep in peace. They are good men; and they will take all possible care of you.”
Then he spoke to her so considerately and so affectionately that she became almost ashamed of her terrors, and resolved to remain in the house.

III

The two retainers left in charge of the young wife were big, brave, simple-hearted men, — experienced guardians of women and children. They told the bride pleasant stories to keep her cheerful. She talked with them a long time, laughed at their good-humored fun, and almost forgot her fears. When at last she lay down to sleep, the men-at-arms took their places in a corner of the room, behind a screen, and began a game of go, — speaking only in whispers, that she might not be disturbed. She slept like an infant.
But again at the Hour of the Ox she awoke with a moan of terror, — for she heard the bell! It was already near, and was coming nearer. She started up; she screamed; — but in the room there was no stir, — only a silence as of death, — a silence growing, — a silence thickening. She rushed to the men-at-arms: they sat before their checker-table, — motionless, — each staring at the other with fixed eyes. She shrieked to them: she shook them: they remained as if frozen.

Afterwards they said that they had heard the bell, — heard also the cry of the bride, — even felt her try to shake them into wakefulness; — and that, nevertheless, they had not been able to move or speak. From the same moment they had ceased to hear or to see: a black sleep had seized upon them.

Entering his bridal-chamber at dawn, the samurai beheld, by the light of a dying lamp, the headless body of his young wife, lying in a pool of blood. Still squatting before their unfinished game, the two retainers slept. At their master’s cry they sprang up, and stupidly stared at the horror on the floor.
The head was nowhere to be seen; — and the hideous wound showed that it had not been cut off, but torn off. A trail of blood led from the chamber to an angle of the outer gallery, where the storm-doors appeared to have been riven apart. The three men followed that trail into the garden, — over reaches of grass, — over spaces of sand, — along the bank of an iris-bordered pond, — under heavy shadowings of cedar and bamboo. And suddenly, at a turn, they found themselves face to face with a nightmare-thing that chippered like a bat: the figure of the long-buried woman, erect before her tomb, — in one hand clutching a bell, in the other the dripping head. For a moment the three stood numbed. Then one of the men-at-arms, uttering a Buddhist invocation, drew, and struck at the shape. Instantly it crumbled down upon the soil, — an empty scattering of grave-rags, bones, and hair; — and the bell rolled clanking out of the ruin. But the fleshless right hand, though parted from the wrist, still writhed; — and its fingers still gripped at the bleeding head, — and tore, and mangled, — as the claws of the yellow crab cling fast to a fallen fruit.

[“That is a wicked story,” I said to the friend who had related it. “The vengeance of the dead — if taken at all — should have been taken upon the man.”
“Men think so,” he made answer. “But that is not the way that a woman feels…”
He was right.]

 

The story is a lesser-known piece of folklore collected by Lafcadio Hearn

#Spooktober 22: The Spectre Barber

Today’s reading on my Patreon is “The Spectre Barber” by Johann Karl August Musäus translated and collected by Helen Smith in The Decameron of the West (1839).

#Spooktober 21: The Hour and the Ghost

Christina Rossetti wrote “The Hour and the Ghost” in 1856. It was later published in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems. Here it is.

BRIDE.

O LOVE, love, hold me fast,
He draws me away from thee;
I cannot stem the blast,
Nor the cold strong sea:
Far away a light shines
Beyond the hills and pines;
It is lit for me.

BRIDEGROOM.

I have thee close, my dear,
No terror can come near;
Only far off the northern light shines clear.

GHOST.

Come with me, fair and false,
To our home, come home.
It is my voice that calls:
Once thou wast not afraid
When I woo’d, and said,
“Come, our nest is newly made”—
Now cross the tossing foam.

BRIDE.

Hold me one moment longer,
He taunts me with the past,
His clutch is waxing stronger,
Hold me fast, hold me fast.
He draws me from thy heart,
And I cannot withhold:
He bids my spirit depart
With him into the cold:—
Oh bitter vows of old!

BRIDEGROOM.

Lean on me, hide thine eyes:
Only ourselves, earth and skies,
Are present here: be wise.

GHOST.

Lean on me, come away,
I will guide and steady:
Come, for I will not stay:
Come, for house and bed are ready.
Ah, sure bed and house,
For better and worse, for life and death:
Goal won with shortened breath;
Come, crown our vows.

BRIDE.

One moment, one more word,
While my heart beats still,
While my breath is stirred
By my fainting will.
O friend forsake me not,
Forget not as I forgot:
But keep thy heart for me,
Keep thy faith true and bright;
Through the lone cold winter night
Perhaps I may come to thee.

BRIDEGROOM.

Nay peace, my darling, peace:
Let these dreams and terrors cease:
Who spoke of death or change or aught but ease?

GHOST.

O fair frail sin, poor harvest gathered in!
Thou shalt visit him again
To watch his heart grow cold:
To know the gnawing pain
I knew of old;
To see one much more fair
Fill up the vacant chair,
Fill his heart, his children bear:
While thou and I together,
In the outcast weather,
Toss and howl and spin.

#Spooktober 20: The Storm

by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson in Tales of the Dead (1813)

“Of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer’s bed.”

Pleasures of Imagination.

On the evening of the 12th of June 17—, a joyous party was assembled at Monsieur de Montbrun’s château to celebrate the marriage of his nephew, who had, in the morn of that day, led to the altar the long-sought object of his fond attachment. The mansion, which was on this occasion the scene of merriment, was situated in the province of Gascony, at no very great distance from the town of ——.

It was a venerable building, erected during the war of the League, and consequently discovered in its exterior some traces of that species of architecture which endeavoured to unite strength and massiveness with domestic comfort. Situated in a romantic, but thinly peopled district, the family of Monsieur de Montbrun was compelled principally to rely on itself for amusement and society. This family consisted of the chevalier, an old soldier of blunt but hospitable manners; his nephew the bridegroom, whom (having no male children) he had adopted as his son, and Mademoiselle Emily, his only daughter: the latter was amiable, frank, and generous; warm in her attachments, but rather romantic in forming them. Employed in rural sports and occupations, and particularly attached to botany, for which the country around afforded an inexhaustible field, the chevalier and his inmates had not much cultivated the intimacy of the few families which disgust to the world or other motives had planted in this retired spot. Occasional visits exchanged with the nearest of their neighbours sometimes enlivened their small circle; with the greater part of those who lived at a distance, they were scarcely acquainted even by name.

 

…read the rest on my Patreon.

The Autodesk University Journal – Day 3

Ok, so, my phone died after the last day of Autodesk University, which means I lack some of the resources to craft this post properly, but I don’t want to leave some awesome things unmentioned, so you’ll get this for now and then I’ll do something better as soon as I’m back.
What was my third day at AU about? Here it is.

1. Design Thinking

I hadn’t selected anything for Thursday morning ‘cause I had the spectre of a meetin circling around over my head, but I could enroll last-minute in a design thinking workshop. As you might remember, I’m very fond of the sets of tricks and methods falling under the term’s umbrella and this turned out to be a good session on the future of work, mostly focused around learning. I couldn’t have asked for anything more relevant and it gave me a lot of ideas. It was facilitated by a very Canadian guy who knew how Canadian he was.

2. Landscape Information Modelling

David Fink, Digital Manager at Henning Larsen Architects under the Ramboll umbrella, and his colleague Diana C. Binciu talked about how it’s time for landscape to “step up the digital game” and explained their transition from traditional methods to Landscape Information Modelling and Artificial Intelligence. The Fælledby project in Copenhagen was used as a case study.

Rhino is the primary tool of choice for 3d sketching and rapid production of iteration, and Environment as the modelling tool to bring the right concepts into Revit alongside Dynamo and Grasshopper. Training and standardization happens through whitepapers and sample models.

Specifically, Rhino is used for the competition and concept stage, while Revit is taken up during schematic design. Speckle, custom graphs and other tools are used to facilitate this admittedly painful transition. Revit is kept all the way through the design process.

The class got into detail of coordinates, how to create a topography in Revit, the challenges in using topography (because of the lack of stratigraphy, obviously) and other challenges related to graaphics, data, integration with GIS data.

Regarding Artificial Intelligence, the topic was mostly explored in relation to generative AI for the creation of renderings, which is not my favorite application, and I won’t get into that. Their future focus is about usig AI for optimization and efficiency, which I think it’s way more intesting.

3. ISO 19650

Yes, you heard me right. A class on ISO 19650 on Autodesk University, and on a very big stage too. Victor Lima, Director of Digital Practice at Diamond Schmitt Architects, bravely tried to explain to the Americans concepts like the delivery phase of the asset, the OIR and the EIR, the tendering phase. I am grateful for the opportunity to see the faces around me and to spur some discussion around the popularity of the norm in the US (or lack thereof).

4. Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

More accurately, the class was titled “Ethics in Computational Design: Infusing Equity into AI and Generative Design for Building Design Processes”, and it was delivered by Yael Netser and Michal Burshtein (it was one of the classes I mentioned in my preliminary selection).

The class took a bold, highly interactive approach, with polls being thrown to the audience and live results being collected, only to be confronted with results from broader polls. It touched in topics such as trust in order to build up a discourse on the ethical and unethical uses of Artificial Intelligence in architecture and ask the ultimate question:

What may society lose when architects rely on AI?

That’s all for now! Expect a proper wrap up, with more materials, by the beginning of next week. Now I’m off to enjoy California.

#Spooktober 19: After Death

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say:
“Poor child, poor child:” and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold.

— Christina Rossetti, 1862.

#Spooktober 18: The Dance of the Dead

Today’s reading on my Patreon comes from Tales of Terror (1899) by James Edward Preston Muddock.

 

Neisse is a small town in Silesia. At the period of this story it lay somewhat out of the beaten track, and its inhabitants led a simple, primitive sort of life, although bickerings and wranglings, cheating and knavery were not altogether unknown among them. On the whole, however, they were a fairly virtuous people, and the town earned an enviable reputation for hospitality, in spite of the fact that the mayor was far from being hospitable himself, but he did not hesitate to dispense hospitality with a lavish hand when he could do so out of the town funds.

This mayor, whose name was Hertzstein, was an exceedingly proud and ambitious man. He had been born in very humble circumstances indeed, his father having been a charcoal burner; but Rupert Hertzstein was endowed with more than average intelligence, though even as a lad he displayed a grasping, covetous disposition that made him many youthful enemies. As he grew in years he by no means changed, but he managed to make his way. Before he was fifteen he went to Saxony and apprenticed himself to a worker in precious metals, and showed so much intelligence that before he had completed the term of his apprenticeship he was master of his trade.

He was twenty-two when he returned to his native town, with a little money and a young wife. A daughter was born to him, and grew to be the most beautiful girl in Neisse. Her father prospered, made money, and became mayor. Indeed, he was a little king in his own way, but was tyrannical and exacting, and while everybody adored Brunhelda, his pretty daughter, he was far from being respected. When any of the young men of the village tried to win his favour in the hope of gaining the daughter’s hand, he ordered them off with a peremptoriness that left no doubt about his determination.

‘My girl,’ he used to boast, ‘shall marry a lord. My father was a charcoal burner, and in my youth I knew the curse of poverty. Now I am going to be the founder of a family, and rather than let Brunhelda marry a humble person I would carry her to her grave.’

Although he expressed himself thus forcibly and emphatically, he did not explain how he hoped to get a lord as a son-in-law, but that was a detail; and, being a deep, designing, and crafty man, he probably had some matured plan in his own mind.

Now it chanced that when Brunhelda was two-and-twenty a young artist came to Neisse, which was famed for a very ancient church and for marvellous views, which were to be obtained from different parts of the town, for it stood on an eminence in a very beautiful and fertile country. It was, therefore, no uncommon thing for artists to visit the place. This particular one became known as Robert Kuno, and he took up his quarters at the village inn. One day he was in the ancient church sketching a very picturesque archway, when Brunhelda entered with a number of other girls, laden with flowers, as they were going to decorate the church in honour of some festival.

Robert was at once attracted by Brunhelda’s beauty, and, getting into conversation with her, he begged that she would pose for him while he made a drawing. She was by no means loth to do this. Indeed, she felt flattered, for she knew she was good-looking, and she would have been a strange woman if she had had no vanity. Robert placed her in the position he wanted near the archway, and produced a sketch, which he promised to turn into a painting, and he asked her to favour him again on the morrow, which she did, and the next day, and the day after that, and as a natural result the young artist began to talk to her in a way which by no means displeased her, although she knew that her father would be furious if he came to hear of it. And sure enough he did hear of it. Some envious jade went to him, and told him that Brunhelda was going day after day to the church to meet the artist.

The day following the mayor repaired to the church, and screened himself behind a pillar and witnessed the flirtation between Brunhelda and the artist, until at length, losing his self-control, he suddenly presented himself before them, and there was a scene. He used some very harsh terms to the young man, and, seizing the sketch he had been making of the girl, he stamped on it, and vowed if Robert did not leave Neisse within twelve hours he would have him arrested as a vagabond and confined in the stocks. Then he took his daughter home and lectured her on the monstrous wickedness of her conduct in allowing a ‘vulgar, common artist fellow’ to talk love to her.

As Robert failed to comply with the order to clear off, the mayor, true to his word, had him arrested as a vagabond, having no visible means of subsistence, and he was placed in the stocks which stood on the green opposite the mayor’s house. The tyrannical magistrate thought that when his daughter saw her admirer in such an undignified position she would be disgusted, and think no more of him. But herein he was mistaken, for he caught her kissing her hand to him from her window, and manifesting every sign of sympathy. So Robert was at once set at liberty, on condition that he immediately left the place, which he consented to do, much to the joy and comfort of the mayor.

It was nearly a year after that an old bag-piper one day entered the town of Neisse. He was a strange, weird-looking old man, with great masses of white hair hanging about his shoulders, and heavy, beetling eyebrows screening his keen, grey eyes. His pipes, which seemed older than himself, were unlike any that had been seen before, and when the old piper tuned them up he awoke the most marvellous melody. Whence he came and whither he was going no one knew, and being by no means communicative, they were left in ignorance. But one thing he made clear—he did not lack money, and as there happened to be a very pretty little cottage to let, whose owner had recently died, the piper bargained for it and bought it, and soon after a young man came to live with him, and rumour soon had it that this young man was the strange piper’s foster-son. Apparently the son was nearly blind, for he wore large blue goggle glasses, and always went about with a stick.

The son was very reserved and would not mix with the people, but the old piper became such a favourite owing to the sweet music he was able to discourse, that he was invited every evening, when the weather was fine, to repair to the village green, where the people were wont to dance. He was so wonderfully well-informed, too, and seemed to have travelled so extensively, that the old citizens invited him to their dinners, and he was petted and flattered. He played his pipes at christenings and wedding feasts, as well as pathetic and solemn airs when the dead were committed to the earth.

One marvellous tune that he played was known as ‘Grandfather’s Dance,’ and so inspiriting was this, such a wild, mad, rhythmical jingle, that even the oldest of men and women who could move their limbs at all could not resist its strains, and fell to dancing. Indeed, the strains, it was averred, restored youth to the old, and even the paralytic and the rheumatic threw away their crutches when they heard them.

Now, strangely enough, the effect of the old man’s art on his foster son was nil. He remained silent and mournful at the most mirth-inspiring tunes the piper played to him; and at the balls, to which he was often invited, he rarely mingled with the gay, but would retire into a corner, and fix his eyes on the loveliest fair one that graced the room, neither daring to address, nor to offer her his hand. This one was Brunhelda, and occasionally he managed to get speech with her, and it was noted that she was by no means averse to talk to him. And at such times she easily read in his brightening face the eloquent gratitude of his heart; and although she turned blushingly away, the fire on her cheeks, and the sparkling in her eyes, kindled new flames of love and hope in her lover’s bosom, for this young man was none other than the artist who had resorted to this stratagem to woo her. And he was neither blind nor near sighted, but the goggles afforded him a disguise.

Willibald, such was the name of the piper, had for a long time promised to assist the love-sick youth in obtaining his soul’s dearest object. Sometimes he intended, like the wizards of yore, to torment the mayor with an enchanted dance, and compel him by exhaustion to grant everything; sometimes, like a second Orpheus, he proposed to carry away, by the power of his harmony, the sweet bride from the Tartarian abode of her father. But Robert always had objections: he never would allow the parent of his fair one to be harmed by the slightest offence, and hoped to win him by perseverance and complacency.

Willibald said to him one day, ‘You are an idiot, if you hope to win, by an open and honourable sentiment, the approbation of a rich and proud old fool. He will not surrender without some of the plagues of Egypt are put in force against him. When once Brunhelda is yours, and he no more can change what has happened, then you will find him friendly and kind. He will bow to the inevitable. I blame myself for having promised to do nothing against your will, but death acquits every death, and still I shall help you in my own way.’

Poor Robert was not the only one on the path of whose life the mayor strewed thorns and briars. The whole town had very little affection for their chief, and delighted to oppose him at every opportunity; for he was harsh and cruel, and punished severely the citizens for trifling and innocent mirth, unless they purchased pardon by the means of heavy penalties and bribes. After the yearly wine-fair in the month of January he was in the habit of obliging them to pay all their earnings into his treasury, to make amends for their past merriments. One day the tyrant of Neisse had put their patience to too hard a trial, and broken the last tie of obedience from his oppressed townsmen. The malcontents had created a riot, and filled their persecutor with deadly fear; for they threatened nothing less than to set fire to his house, and to burn him, together with all the riches he had gathered by oppressing them.

At this critical moment, Robert went to Willibald, and said to him, ‘Now, my old friend, is the time when you may help me with your art, as you frequently have offered to do. If your music be really so powerful as you say it is, go then and deliver the mayor by softening the enraged mob. As a reward he certainly will grant you anything you may request. Speak then a word for me and my love, and demand my beloved Brunhelda as the price of your assistance.’

The bag-piper laughed at this speech, and replied:

‘We must satisfy the follies of children in order to prevent them crying.’ And so he took his bag-pipe and walked slowly down to the town-house square, where the rioters, armed with pikes, lances, and lighted torches, were laying waste the mansion of the worshipful head of the town.

Willibald placed himself near a pillar, and began to play his ‘Grandfather’s Dance.’ Scarcely were the first notes of this favourite tune heard, when the rage-distorted countenances became smiling and cheerful, the frowning brows lost their dark expression, pikes and torches fell out of the threatening fists, and the enraged assailants moved about marking with their steps the measure of the music. At last, the whole multitude began to dance, and the square, that was lately the scene of riot and confusion, bore now the appearance of a gay dancing assembly. The piper, with his magic bag-pipe, led on through the streets, all the people danced behind him, and each citizen returned jumping to his home, which shortly before he had left with very different feelings.

The mayor, saved from this imminent danger, knew not how to express his gratitude; he promised to Willibald everything he might demand, even were it half his property. But the bag-piper replied, smiling, saying his expectations were not so lofty, and that for himself he wanted no temporal goods whatever; but since his lordship, the mayor, had pledged his word to grant to him everything he might demand, so he beseeched him, with due respect, to grant fair Brunhelda’s hand for his foster-son.

The haughty mayor was highly displeased at this proposal. He made every possible excuse; and as Willibald repeatedly reminded him of his promise, he did what the despots of those dark times were in the habit of doing, and which those of our enlightened days still practise, he declared his dignity offended, pronounced Willibald to be a disturber of the peace, an enemy of the public security, and allowed him to forget in a prison the promises of his lord, the mayor. Not satisfied herewith, he accused him of witchcraft, caused him to be tried by pretending he was the very bag-piper and rat-catcher of Hameln, who was, at that time, and is still in so bad a repute in the German provinces, for having carried off by his infernal art all the children of that ill-fated town.

‘The only difference,’ said the wise mayor, between the two cases was, that at Hameln only the children had been made to dance to his pipe, but here young and old seemed under the same magical influence. By such artful delusions, the mayor turned every merciful heart from the prisoner. The dread of necromancy, and the example of the children of Hameln, worked so strongly, that sheriffs and clerks were writing day and night. The secretary calculated already the expense of the funeral pile, for necromancers, witches and wizards were burnt in those days; the sexton petitioned for a new rope to toll the dead-bell for the poor sinner; the carpenters prepared scaffolds for the spectators of the expected execution; and the judges rehearsed the grand scene, which they prepared to play at the condemnation of the famous bag-piper. But although justice was sharp, Willibald was still sharper; for as he laughed very heartily over the important preparations for his end, he now laid himself down upon his straw and died!

Shortly before his death, he sent for his beloved Robert, and addressed him for the last time.

‘Young man,’ said he, ‘you seest that in your way of viewing mankind and the world I can render you no assistance. I am tired of the whims your folly has obliged me to perform. You have now acquired experience enough fully to comprehend that nobody should calculate, or at least ground, his designs on the goodness of human nature, even if he himself should be too good to lose entirely his belief in the goodness of others. I, for my own part, would not rely upon the fulfilment of my last request to you, if your own interest would not induce you to its performance. When I am dead, be careful to see that my old bag-pipe is buried with me. To detain it would be of no use to you, but it may be the cause of your happiness, if it is laid under ground with me.’

Robert promised to observe strictly the last commands of his old friend, who shortly after closed his eyes. Scarcely had the report of Willibald’s sudden death spread, when old and young came to ascertain the truth. The mayor was more pleased with this turn of the affair than any other; for the indifference with which the prisoner had received the news of his approaching promotion to the funeral pile, induced his worship to suppose the old bag-piper might some fine day be found invisible in his prison, or rather be found not there at all; or the cunning wizard, being at the stake, might have caused a wisp of straw to burn instead of his person, to the eternal shame of the court of Neisse. He therefore ordered the corpse to be buried as speedily as possible, as no sentence to burn the body had yet been pronounced. An unhallowed corner of the churchyard, close to the wall, was the place assigned for poor Willibald’s resting-place. The jailor, as the lawful heir of the deceased prisoner, having examined his property, asked what should become of the bag-pipe, as a corpus delicti.

Robert, who was present, was on the point to make his request, when the mayor, full of zeal, thus pronounced his sentence:

‘To avoid every possible mischief, this wicked, worthless tool shall be buried together with its master.’ So they put it into the coffin at the side of the corpse, and early in the morning pipe and piper were carried away and buried.

But strange things happened in the following night. The watchmen on the tower were looking out, according to the custom of the age, to give the alarm in case of fire in the surrounding country, when about midnight they saw, by the light of the moon, Willibald rising out of his tomb near the churchyard wall. He held his bag-pipe under his arm, and leaning against a high tombstone upon which the moon shed her brightest rays he began to blow, and fingered the pipes just as he was accustomed to do when he was alive.

While the watchmen, astonished at this sight, gazed wisely on one another, many other graves opened; their skeleton-inhabitants peeped out with their bare skulls, looked about, nodded to the measure, rose afterwards wholly out of their coffins, and moved their rattling limbs into a nimble dance. At the church windows, and the grates of the vaults, other empty eye-holes stared on the dancing place: the withered arms began to shake the iron gates, till locks and bolts sprung off, and out came the skeletons, eager to mingle in the dance of the dead. Now the light dancers stilted about, over the hillocks and tombstones, and whirled around in a merry waltz, that the shrouds waved in the wind about the fleshless limbs, until the church clock struck twelve, when all the dancers, great and small, returned to their narrow cells; the player took his bag-pipe under his arm, and likewise returned to his vacant coffin.

Long before the dawn of the day, the watchmen awoke the mayor, and made to him, with trembling lips and knocking knees, the awful report of the horrid night scene. He enjoined strict secrecy on them, and promised to watch with them the following night on the tower. Nevertheless, the news soon spread through the town, and at the close of the evening, all the surrounding windows and roofs were lined with virtuosi and cognoscenti of the dark fine arts, who all beforehand were engaged in discussions on the possibility or impossibility of the events they expected to witness before midnight.

The bag-piper was not behind his time. At the first sound of the bell announcing the eleventh hour, he rose slowly, leaned against the tombstone, and began his tune. The ball guests seemed to have been waiting for the music, for at the very first notes they rushed forth out of the graves and vaults, through grass hills and heavy stones. Corpses and skeletons shrouded and bare, tall and small, men and women, all running to and fro, dancing and turning, wheedling and whirling round the player, quicker or more slowly according to the measure he played, till the clock tolled the hour of midnight. Then dancers and piper withdrew again to rest.

The living spectators, at their windows and on their roofs, now confessed that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’ The mayor had no sooner retired from the tower, than he ordered Robert to be cast into prison that very night, hoping to learn from his examination, or perhaps by putting him to the torture, how the magic nuisance of his foster-father might be removed.

Robert did not fail to remind the mayor of his ingratitude towards Willibald, and maintained that the deceased troubled the town, bereft the dead of their rest and the living of their sleep, only because he had received, instead of the promised reward for the liberation of the mayor, a scornful refusal, and moreover had been thrown into prison most unjustly, and buried in a degrading manner. This speech made a very deep impression upon the minds of the magistrates; they instantly ordered the body of Willibald to taken out of his tomb, and laid in a more respectable place.

The sexton, to show his penetration on the occasion, took the bag-pipe out of the coffin, and hung it over his bed. For he reasoned thus: if the enchanting or enchanted musician could not help following his profession even in the tomb, he at least would not be able to play to the dancers without his instrument.

But at night, after the clock had struck eleven, he heard distinctly a knock at his door; and when he opened it, with the expectation of some deadly and lucrative accident requiring his skill, he beheld the buried Willibald in propriâ persona.

‘My bag-pipe,’ said he, very composedly, and passing by the trembling sexton, he took it from the wall where it was hung up; then he returned to his tombstone, and began to blow. The guests, invited by the tune, came like the preceding night, and were preparing for their midnight dance in the churchyard. But this time the musician began to march forward, and proceeded with his numerous and ghastly suite through the gate of the churchyard to the town, and led his nightly parade through all the streets, till the clock struck twelve, when all returned again to their dark abodes.

The inhabitants of Neisse now began to fear lest the awful night wanderers might shortly enter their own houses. Some of the chief magistrates earnestly entreated the mayor to lay the charm by making good his word to the bag-piper. But the mayor would not listen to it; he even pretended that Robert shared in the infernal arts of the old piper, and added, ‘The son deserves rather the funeral pile than the bridal bed.’

But in the following night the dancing spectres came again into the town, and although no music was heard, yet it was easily seen by their motions that the dancers went through the figure of the ‘Grandfather’s Dance.’ This night they behaved much worse than before, for they stopped at the house wherein a betrothed damsel lived, and here they turned in a wild whirling dance round a shadow, which resembled perfectly the spinster in whose honour they moved the nightly bridal dance. Next day the whole town was filled with mourning, for all the damsels whose shadows were seen dancing with the spectres had died suddenly. The same thing happened again the following night. The dancing skeletons turned before the houses, and wherever they had been, there was, next morning, a dead bride lying on the bier.

The citizens were determined no longer to expose their daughters and mistresses to such an imminent danger. They threatened the mayor to carry Brunhelda away by force and to lead her to Robert, unless the mayor would permit their union to be celebrated before the beginning of the night. The choice was a difficult one, for the mayor disliked the one just as much as the other, but as he found himself in the uncommon situation where a man may choose with perfect freedom, he, as a free being, declared freely his daughter to be Robert’s bride.

Long before the spectre hour the guests sat at the wedding table. The first stroke of the bell sounded, and immediately the favourite tune of the well-known bridal dance was heard. The guests, frightened to death, and fearing the spell might still continue to work, hastened to the windows, and beheld the bag-piper, followed by a long row of figures in white shrouds, moving to the wedding-house. He remained at the door and played, but the procession went on slowly, and proceeded even to the festive hall. Here the strange pale guests rubbed their eyes, and looked about them full of astonishment, like sleep walkers just awakened. The wedding guests fled behind the chairs and tables; but soon the cheeks of the phantoms began to colour, their white lips became blooming like young rosebuds; they gazed at each other full of wonder and joy, and well-known voices called friendly names. They were soon known as revived corpses, now blooming in all the brightness of youth and health: and who should they be but the brides whose sudden death had filled the whole town with mourning, and who, now recovered from their enchanted slumber, had been led by Willibald with his magic pipe out of their graves to the merry wedding feast. The wonderful old man blew a last and cheerful farewell tune, and disappeared. He was never seen again.

Robert was of opinion, the bag-piper was no other than the famous Spirit of the Silesian Mountains.[1] The young painter had originally met him once when he travelled through the hills, and acquired his goodwill by rendering him some service, for the old man was, or pretended to be, in great distress, and Robert gave him wine and food, and housed him for many days. Then suddenly the strange piper disappeared, but shortly returned and promised the youth he would grant him anything he wished if he could, and he declared that with his magic pipes he could subdue anyone to his will. Then it was that Robert beseeched him to help him to win the consent of the Mayor of Neisse to wed his daughter. Willibald promised the youth to assist him in his love-suit, and he kept his word, although after his own jesting fashion.

Robert remained all his lifetime a favourite with the Spirit of the Mountains. He grew rich, and became celebrated. His dear wife brought him every year a handsome child, his pictures were sought after even in Italy and England; and the ‘Dance of the Dead,’ of which Basil, Antwerp, Dresden, Lubeck, and many other places boast, are only copies or imitations of Robert’s original painting, which he had executed in memory of the real ‘Dance of the Dead at Neisse!’ But, alas! this picture is lost, and no collector of paintings has yet been able to discover it, for the gratification of the cognoscenti, and the benefit of the history of the art.