The Obscure Library
Translation of "Das Grundlos", by Johann Konrad Christoph Nachtigal
The translation of the chapter "Das Grundlos" of the book "Volcks-Sagen" by Johann Konrad Christoph Nachtigal was made and is copyrighted by Victoria Fattore. If you wish to publish this translation elsewhere, please contact me at theobscurelibrary@gmail.com.
The Bottomless
"Near the northern point of the Hakel a great sinkhole can be seen on the slopes of the mountain. It is partially filled with water and covered with tall reeds, and in its centre even the longest rod is unable to reach its bottom. Therefore it is rightly called the Bottomless."
Once, many hundreds of years ago, when the whole land was covered with forests, amidst the thicket there stood a castle, which was the meeting-ground of robber knights, who rendered the whole region unsafe. Here they shared their spoils and the harvests of the few inhabitants of the land, whom they forced to work until they bled, especially in times of feasting. To this place they brought their captives, who they abducted to work in the castle.
There the knights-errant revelled, caroused and danced for long days and nights. Amidst the clamour of cymbals and trumpets, distant wanderers frequently heard the frightful muffled wailing of those who were murdered in underground caves. Rendering any human help was impossible, for powerful allied knights protected the castle with their mercenaries. Thus the screams of violence arose to the heavens, and the day of revenge drew nearer!
Once, on a foggy autumn day, a knight from distant Welshland got lost in the Harz mountains with his squire and came upon the castle, which was hidden from view in the thick forest beyond the road commonly used by travellers. Night had fallen, and around the castle walls neither man nor beast could be seen. From inside the castle, however, they heard wild shrieking as of drunken, carousing men, and the sound of horns and trumpets, accompanied by the howls of great dogs. The travellers knocked and called at one of the back gates in the thicket, but luckily no-one heard their knocking and calling, for a storm raged through the night and rain was pelting onto the roofs.
Tired of shouting, the squire started looking for shelter. Groping and squeezing through the bushes, he finally found a vaulted depression near the entrance to the castle, where an emaciated horse stood eating at a manger. Happy about this discovery, he led his lord and their horses to this place, letting the horses feast upon the feed that filled the manger.
The foreign knight, tired from the long and arduous journey, soon fell asleep on a small haystack which he found on a corner of the cave. The distant sound of music and the monotonous drumming of the rain rocked him into a deep sleep.
Things did not go so well for the squire. He was kept awake with concern for the horses and his empty stomach, which was not allayed by the music and his thoughts on the feast which precededed the dance. With each passing minute his fear grew in the dark cave. He felt blindly around the spacious domed stables in which he was lodging with his lord, but he found nothing besides the copious amount of feed. The stables easily had enough space to hold twenty horses. - "Who lives here?" - "To whom does the gaunt horse belong, and the feed which you gave to your horses?" - "What happens if the servants of the revelers return, or perhaps awake from their slumber in the hay?" - "Could this be the dwelling of robbers and murderers?" - Thus a thousand thoughts tormented his soul, and he could not sleep.
His growing terror made him approach his sleeping lord. Finally he threw himself listlessly on the hay, but he fell into the depths. A few rotten beams broke under him and he fell a few feet down into an underground cave. His face and hands touched - oh horror! - human skulls and bones, which lay strewn on the ground.
Screaming he got back on his feet in this accursed place, crawled trembling out of the cave and stumbled towards the door of the stable, forgetting his lord and horses. There he sat down in front of the bushes which surrounded the entrance and was whipped by the wind and soaked by the rain, with his teeth chattering.
Slowly the sound of the horns and trumpets died down, and soon all around the squire there was a deadly silence, which he found even more frightening. - Now the tower clock struck twelve and every hair on his head stood on end, for every moment now he expected to see the ghosts of the murdered. Thus he did not dare to look neither up, nor ahead, nor behind him. He remained crouched down, sitting with his fingers covering his eyes.
Suddenly a few rays of light fell on the bushes as if a torch had been lighted - but in an instant they disappeared. Frequently the squire thought he heard the distant rattling of chains and muffled groans; he listened attentively - and suddenly everything was quiet again. He expected to die of fear at any moment, but he survived all of these frightful occurrences.
Finally, after a long futile wait, the tower clock struck one. The clouds parted and singular moonrays fell upon him through the bushes, restoring hope and the will to live in his heart. Soon the moon was visible in its full majesty in the cheerful and unclouded sky. Now the squire dared to take a few steps to see where he was.
Soon he discovered a high wall, upon which stood a number of small towers, and not far from the stable he saw an iron portcullis covered by great oaks, which blocked the entrance to the castle courtyard. With increasing courage (for the ghost hour had passed and the moon lit his way) he silently approached the portcullis and looked into the courtyard. On the further side he saw a tower, which led upwards into the knights' hall.
In the middle of the courtyard stood a Roland statue with outstretched arms. Suddenly, a strange and wonderful spectacle unfolded before him. Three large roosters descended majestically from the round roof of the castle dungeon and slowly paced across the courtyard, in the direction of the swordbearer. The biggest one, taller and more heavily plumed than an eagle, sat on the top of the head of the Roland statue, and the others took their place on its elbows. All three crowed together thrice, their cries echoing through the courtyard and the nearby forest. Then all was quiet. Suddenly a lament resounded as if it came from a muffled distance: "Woe! Woe! Woe!" - Seven times the roosters crowed even louder, and "Woe! Woe! Woe!" rang out again. - Nine times the roosters cried out again with increasing volume, and the greatest among them took flight, crying out: "Woe! Woe! Woe! Today the robber's castle shall fall!"
Shivering, the squire staggered back to the covered stable and shook his lord, who was lying as if dead, until he awoke, and trembling like a leaf told him of the incredible occurrence while he saddled the horses. The knight shook his head and accused the squire of lying despite believing in his tale, shuddering at the cries of "Woe! Woe! Woe!". - With haste both flew through the bushes and hedges until they found the road.
Now the long-awaited sun rose, but it was darkened, as if it were covered by a mourning veil. In the distance they saw the glittering spires of Magdeburg. Suddenly they heard a dull crash very far behind them, akin to the sound of distant thunder. They looked back and saw as a great pillar of thick smoke arose, as if from a fire-spitting mountain. - "Ha!", cried out the squire, "Surely the wicked castle has fallen! Yonder vapours are exhaled from the brimstone pit into which those fiends were cast!"
"Come," said his lord, "Let us return thither and witness this wondrous spectacle; I left my gloves behind in the stable, which were a parting gift from my beloved." - The squire, however, loudly refused to follow his lord. Furiously uttering imprecations, the knight of Welshland rode towards the rising pillar of vapour. After a while the trembling squire followed him from a long distance.
After a few hours they arrived at the origin of the vapour. The knight ordered his squire to ride into the cloud of vapour to recover his gloves. The squire recoiled in fear. Viciously the knight pulled his sword from his scabbard and thrust it through the squire's chest. - Even now you can see, not far from the Bottomless, the stone where the knight killed his reluctant squire, and, when the sun is eclipsed, the scattered blood-drops that cover the stone are made visible.
The knight waited until the sun shone higher in the sky and the vapour-column only occluded the centre of this frightful place. Now he saw before him a lake, which grew ever wider as the fog in its centre increased, and finally on the shore he found the manger where his warhorse stood during the night, and in it - oh wonder! - the gloves which his beloved had given to him.
The foreign knight of Welshland stared fixedly at his gloves, immersed in deep thought.
Soon a clamour woke him from his reverie. He looked up. The sun had reached the middle of the sky and had extinguished the whole cloud of vapour. - He saw that the roof of the sinking castle was covered with terrified people climbing ever higher as they were approached by the rising waters of the lake. By their clothes he could distinguish eight knights and twelve squires.
The one whose cries of "Woe is me!" echoed loudest was a corpulent and ill-favoured woman with fire-red hair and eyes. In order to keep her hands free, in her terror she had slung a large key ring around her neck, for this scoundrel had been trusted with the keys to the cellars, vaults and underground chambers of the castle, where she had cast the hapless victims that were slain by the thieving knights.
Then a hideous scene came into view. One after the other, countless corpses of the slain climbed onto the opposite side of the roof, where they looked snarling on the scoundrels, who in mortal fear did not dare to look up or down. Then the corpses started to strike their tormentors with their bony hands and the chains which they bore.
The first to fall into the torrent was the woman with the key ring around her neck, and in an instant she was transformed into a monstrous crucian carp. Then the villanous knights were thrown down. When they hit the water, they were immediately transformed into six-legged pikes. Lastly, the squires fell screaming into the water and were turned into carps without losing any of their weight and size.
Thus, for centuries until the present day, the famished pikes have been chasing the carps and the great crucian carp in the Bottomless, without peace or rest. When exhaustion becomes greater than their hunger, the corpses in the depths hunt them down.
Even now, on the surface of the lake , the inhabitants of the region can sometimes see the moss-covered carps, who resemble small floating islands, and the massive crucian carp with fiery red eyes and the large keyring around her neck. But in an instant they dive down again, afraid of their pursuers.