The Rain Maiden
There had not been such a hot summer, not for a hundred years. Almost no green was to be seen; domestic and wild animals lay languishing in the fields.
It was on a morning. The village streets were empty; whoever could, fled into the interior of the houses. Even the yapping dog had hidden himself. Only the fat meadow farmer stood imperiously in the gateway to his stately house and smoked in the sweat of his brow from the bowl of his large Meerschaum pipe. He looked smiling at a mighty load of hay that his servants had brought into the entry. – He had acquired a significant expanse of marshy meadowland years ago at a low price, and the recent dry years, which scorched the grass in the fields of his neighbors, supplied his barns with fragrant hay and filled his chests with Kronentalers.
He stood now and figured what, with the ever-rising prices, the excess crop might bring him. “They all get nothing,” he muttered as he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked between the neighboring farmsteads in the shimmering distance. “There is no more rain in the world.” Then he went to the wagon that was just being unloaded, pulled out a handful of hay, raised it to his broad nose, and smiled slyly, as if he could smell some of the coins from its strong fragrance.
At the same moment a woman around fifty years old stepped in the house. She looked pale and ill, and with the black silk handkerchief that she placed around her neck the troubled expression on her face stood out even more. “Good day, neighbor,” she said as she reached out her hand to the meadow farmer’s, “It is so hot that the hairs catch fire on one’s head!”
“Let it burn, Mother Stine, let it burn,” he replied. “Just look at the load of hay! For me it can not be too bad!”
“Yes, yes, meadow farmer, you can really laugh, but what should become of us if this keeps continuing!”
The farmer pressed with his thumbs the ashes in his pipe bowl and expelled a couple of clouds of enormous smoke into the air. “You see,” said he, “it comes from overthinking. I always said it, but your late husband wanted to better understand everything. Why did he need to exchange all his lowland! Now you’re sitting there with the high fields where your seeds withered and your cattle wasted away.”
The woman sighed.
The fat man was suddenly condescending. “But, Mother Stine,” he said, “I notice already you didn’t come hither by chance in particular; fire away what you have on your mind!”
The widow looked down at the ground. “You know well,” she said, “the fifty talers you loaned me to pay back John, the due date is approaching.”
The farmer put his meaty hand on her shoulder. “Now you need not worry, woman! I don’t need the money; I’m not a man who lives from hand to mouth. You can pledge your land to me; it is not among the best, but for now it should be good enough for me. On Saturday you can go with me to the court administrator.”
The distressed woman sighed. “It will mean more expenses,” she said, “but thank you for that anyway.”
The meadow farmer did not let his little shrewd eyes leave from her. “And,” he continued, “since we are here together again, I also want to tell you that Andrew, your boy, is pursuing my daughter!”
“Dear God, neighbor, the kids grew up together!”
“That may be, woman, but if the chap thinks that he can marry himself into the whole farm business here he’s made his reckoning without me!”
The poor woman sat up a little and looked at him with almost angry eyes. “What fault do you find with my Andrew?”
“I to your Andrew, Frau Stine? – Nothing in the world! But,” and he ran his hand over the silver buttons of his red waistcoat, “my daughter is only my daughter, and the meadow farmer’s daughter could do better.”
“Don’t be so obstinate,” the woman said mildly, “before the hot years came --!”
“But they came and are still here, and for this year there is no chance you’ll get a crop into the barn. And so your farm business is going further and further backwards.”
The woman sank deep in thought; she seemed to scarcely hear the last words. “Yes,” she said, “you might be right, the Rain Maiden must have fallen asleep, but – she can be awoken!”
“The Rain Maiden?” repeated the farmer stiffly. “Do you believe in that drivel?”
“No drivel, neighbor!” she replied mysteriously. “My great grandmother, when she was young, once woke her up. She still knew the spell and would often tell it to me, but I have since forgotten it.”
The fat man laughed so that the silver buttons on his belly danced. “Now, Mother Stine, so sit down and focus on your little spell. I rely on my weather barometer, and it has been continuing fine for eight weeks!”
“That weather glass is a dead thing, neighbor; it can not make the weather.”
“And your Rain Maiden is a haunted thing, a pipe dream, a nothing!”
“Well, meadow farmer,” said the woman shyly, “you are one of the new believers!”
But the man became more and more zealous. “New – or old belief!” he shouted, “go in search of your rain woman and speak your little spell, if you can get it together. And if you make rain within a day and twenty-four hours, then--!” He paused and puffed a few thick clouds of smoke before himself.
“What then, neighbor?” asked the woman.
“Then – then – to the devil, yes, your son Andrew and my Maren shall marry!”
At this moment the door to the living room opened, and a beautiful, slim girl with fawn-colored eyes stepped out to him on the passage way. “Agreed, father” she said, “that should do!” And turning to an elderly man who had just entered a house from the street, she added, “You heard it, Cousin Mayor!”
“Now, now, Maren,” said the meadow farmer, “you don’t need to call up a witness against your father, from my mouth to you, a mouse could not bite off a small fragment.”
The mayor looked out into the open daylight, meanwhile, leaning on his long cane; and his sharp eye saw a white dot floating in the depths of the glowing sky, or he wished it only and therefore believed he had seen it, and smiled guilefully and said, “May it do you good, dear meadow farmer, that Andrew is always a hearty lad!”
Soon thereafter, while the meadow farmer and the mayor were sitting together in the former’s living room over bills, Maren walked to the other side of the village street with Mother Stine into her little chamber.
“But child,” said the widow as she took her spinning wheel out of the corner, “do you know the spell for the Rain Maiden?”
“Me?” asked the girl, throwing her head back in astonishment.
“Well, I only thought because you so boldly confronted your father.”
“Not yet, Mother Stine, only it was in my heart, and I also thought you yourself would get it still together. Tidy up a bit in your head; I’m sure it must be lying cast aside somewhere!”
Mrs. Stine shook her head. “My great-grandmother died when I was young. But this I remember well, when we had the great drought, like now, and disaster struck us with the seeds or the livestock, then they would all certainly used to secretly say, ‘What the Fire Man is doing to us is a hoax, because I at once woke the Rain Maiden!”
“The Fire Man?” asked the girl. “Who is that again?” But before she could get an answer, she already sprang to the window and shouted, “Oh God, Mother, here comes Andrew; only look, how downcast he appears!”
The widow rose from her spinning wheel, “Of course, child,” she said disheartened. “Don’t you see what he’s carrying on his back? It is already one of the sheep dead from thirst.”
So the young farmer came into the room and laid the dead animal on the floor in front of the women. “There you have it,” he said grimly as he stroked the sweat from his hot forehead with his hand.
The women looked more at his face than at the dead creature. “Don’t take it to heart, Andrew!” said Maren. “We will wake the Rain Maiden, and then all will become good again.”
“The Rain M
aiden!” he repeated flatly. “Yeah, Maren, who could wake her! – But it’s not just this alone; something else happened to me outside.”
The mother tenderly clutched his hand. “So tell me, dear son,” she urged, “so it doesn’t make you faint!”
“So listen then!” he replied. “I wanted to see after our sheep and whether the water that I carried up to them yesterday evening had not yet evaporated. But when I came to the pasture I saw at once that something was not right. The water tub was not where I put it, and the sheep were not to be seen. I went down the ridge up to the giant hill. When I reached the other side I saw them all lying, panting, with their necks outstretched. The poor creature here was already dead. Nearby lay the tub overturned and already completely dry. The animals couldn’t have done it. A malicious hand must have played a role here.”
“Child, child,” the mother interrupted him, “who would add sorrow to a poor widow!”
“Listen now, Mother, there’s even more. “I climbed the hill and looked in all directions over the plain, but no man could be seen. The burning heat lay as on all the other days silently over the fields. Just near me, on one of the large stones, between which the small cave goes into the hill, sat a salamander sunning its ugly body. As I stared around me, half perplexed, half angrily, I heard behind me all at once a muttering from the other side of the hill, like someone eagerly talking to himself, and when I turned around I saw a gnarled little man in a fire-red coat and red pointed cap down between the heather trudging up and down. – I was frightened, when it suddenly approached! – And it looked so evil and deformed. Its big brown-red hands were folded behind his back, with his crooked fingers playing in the air like spider legs. I stepped behind the thorn bush that grew beside the stones on the hill and could see everything there without being seen. The monstrosity below was still down there in movement. It bent down and pulled a bunch of singed grass from the ground, that I thought it must have plunged headfirst with its pumpkin head. But then it stood again on its pin legs, and while it rubbed the dry weeds into powder with its big fists it began to laugh so terribly that on the other side of the hill the half-dead sheep sprang up and in wild flight fled down behind the bank. The little man laughed then even more shrilly, and it began to spring from one leg to another, such that I feared that the little sticks would collapse under its chunky body. It was gruesome to behold, as sparks really leapt neatly out of its little black eyes.”
The widow had quietly taken the girl’s hand.
“Do you know now who the Fire Man is?” she said. Maren nodded.
“But the mostly horribly gruesome thing,” Andrew continued, “was his voice. ‘If only they knew, if only they knew!’ he screamed, ‘those louts, those yokels!’ And then he sang with his rasping, squeaking voice a strange little verse, always repeating it, as if he couldn’t get enough of it. But wait, I am getting it together!”
After a few moments he continued:
“No rain! No dew! Just woes.
No spring, not one, still flows.”
The mother suddenly left the spinning wheel, which she had been turning eagerly during the story, and looked at her son with wide-open eyes. But he became silent again and seemed to reflect.
“More,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know more, mother. It’s gone, and I recited it to myself a hundred times along the way.”
But when Mrs. Stine continued with an unsure voice:
“The woods now silence knows,
in fields the Fire Man sows!”
He then added quickly:
“Open your eyes to sight!
And look to left and right!
Or mom will grab you tight
And take you home tonight!”
“That’s the Rain Maiden’s spell!” cried Mrs. Stine, “And now quickly once more! And you, Maren, pay attention as well so that it doesn’t get forgotten again!”
And now the mother and son said it again together and without hesitation:
“No rain! No dew! Just woes.
No spring, not one, still flows.
The woods now silence knows
in fields the Fire Man sows!
“Open your eyes to sight!
And look to left and right!
Or mom will grab you tight
And take you home tonight!”
“Now all our problems have an end!” cried Maren. “Now we will awaken the Rain Maiden; tomorrow the fields will all be green again, and the day after tomorrow there will be a wedding!” And with flying words and shining eyes she told her Andrew the promises she had won from her father.
“Child,” said the widow further, “do you know the way to the Rain Maiden?”
“No, Mother Stine. Do you also not know the way anymore?”
“But, Maren, it was my great grandmother who went to the Rain Maiden; about the way there she never said anything.”
“Well, Andrew,” said Maren and grabbed the arm of the young farmer, who meanwhile had been staring with furrowed brow. “Say something! You always have good advice!”
“Perhaps once again I have some,” he said thoughtfully. “This afternoon I need to carry water up to the sheep. Maybe I can eavesdrop on the Fire Man behind the thorn bush again! If he revealed the spell, he’ll reveal the way as well, for his thick head seems to overflow with these things.”
And this decision remained. As much as they talked back and forth, they could not think up anything better.
Soon thereafter Andrew was with his load of water up there on the pasture. When he came near the giant hill he already saw the goblin from afar sitting on one of the stones at the dwarf hole. He combed his red beard with his five extended fingers; and every time he pulled out his hand, a little heap of fiery flakes came out and floated in the harsh sunshine onto the fields.
“You arrived too late,” Andrew thought, “you won’t learn anything today,” and turned sideways as if he had seen nothing, turning to the spot where the overturned tub still lay. But he was hailed. “I thought you wanted to speak to me!” he heard the squeaking voice of the goblin behind him.
Andrew turned around and took a few steps back. “What do I have to say to you?” he replied. “I don’t know you.”
“But you’d like to know the way to the Rain Maiden?”
“Who told you that?”
“My little finger, and it is smarter than many a big guy.”
Andrew gathered his courage and walked a few steps closer up to the monstrosity on the hill. “Your little finger may indeed be smart,” he said, “but it doesn’t know the way to the Rain Maiden, because not even the wisest people know.”
The goblin swelled out like a toad and drew his paw several times through his beard, that Andrew staggered back a step from the outpouring heat. But suddenly, staring at the young farmer with the expression of superior derision from his evil little eyes, he snarled at him, “You’re too simple, Andrew. If I told you that the Rain Maiden lives beyond the great forest, you also wouldn’t know that beyond the forest a hollow willow stands!”
“Here it will pay to play the fool!” thought Andrew, for although he was otherwise an honest farmer, he also got a good portion of the farmer’s shrewdness towards the world as well. “You’re right,” he said and opened his mouth, “I would certainly not know that!”
“And,” the goblin continued, “if I told you told you that beyond the forest the hollow willow stood, you also wouldn’t know that in the tree a staircase leads down to the garden of the Rain Maiden.”
“How one can indeed miscalculate,” Andrew cried. “I thought one could walk in directly.”
“And if you also could walk in directly,” the goblin said, “you also wouldn’t know that the Rain Maiden can only be awoken by a pure virgin.”
“Now of course,” Andrew thought, “that doesn’t help me at all. Therefore I will place myself immediately back on the path home.”
A malicious smile twisted
the wide mouth of the goblin. “Don’t you want to pour the water into the tub?” he asked. “The beautiful animals are nearly wasted away.”
“That’s the fourth time your right!” replied the lad and went with his buckets around the hill. As he poured the water into the hot tub, it hit hissing up and dissipated into the air in white clouds of steam. “Oh great!” he thought, “I’ll drive my sheep back home, and at the earliest tomorrow I’ll accompany Maren to the Rain Maiden. She should be able to awaken her!”
On the other side of the hill the goblin jumped from his stones. He threw his red cap in the air and raved with whinnying laughter down the mountain. He then sprang again on his scrawny spindle legs, danced about like mad, and screamed with his screeching voice once over and over, “That overgrown child, that farmer thought that he could dupe me and doesn’t know that the maiden can only be awoken by the right spell. And no one knows the spell like Eckeneckenpen, and Eckeneckenpen – is me!”
The evil goblin did not know that he had himself betrayed the spell that morning.
On the sunflowers, standing before Maren’s room in the garden, the first morning rays fell, as she already opened up the window and stuck her head out into the fresh air. The meadow farmer, who slept in the alcove of the living room, must have been awaken thereby, because his snoring, which had just been penetrating through all the walls, suddenly stopped. “What are you doing, Maren?” he called with a sleepy voice. “Is there something wrong?” The girl put her finger to her lips, for she knew well that if her father knew of her intentions, she would not be let out of the house. But she composed herself quickly. “I couldn’t sleep, father,” she called back. “I want to go with the people into the field; it is so beautifully fresh this morning.”
“There’s no need for that, Maren,” replied the farmer, “my daughter is no servant!” And after a while he added, “Well, if it pleases you! But come back home at the right time, before the big heat comes. And don’t forget my breakfast!” He threw himself to the other side, so that the bedstead creaked, and at the moment the girl heard again the well-known, measured snoring.
She gently pushed her chamber door. As she went through the doorway outside she heard the servant awaken the two maids. “It’s so shameful,” she thought, “that you have to lie, but” – and she sighed a little – “what doesn’t one do for one’s sweetheart.”
Outside in his Sunday best stood Andrew already waiting for her. “Do you still know the spell?” he called out to her.
“Yes, Andrew! And do you still know the way?”
He just nodded.
“So let’s go!” But just then Mother Stine came out of the house and stuck a bottle filled with mead in her son’s pocket. “This is still from my great grandmother,” she said, “she always did very mysterious and valuable things with it that will do you good in the heat!”
They then went in the morning light down the quiet village street, and the widow stood a long time and looked in the direction where the young vigorous figures disappeared.
The couple’s path led behind the village border over a wide heath. After that they came into the great forest. But the forest’s leaves lay mostly dried on the ground, so that the sun shined through everywhere; they were almost blinded by the alternating light. Once they had advanced for a considerable time between the tall trunks of the oaks and beeches, the girl took the hand of the young man.
“What’s wrong, Maren?” he asked.
“I heard our village clock strike, Andrew.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“It must be six o’clock!” he said further. “Who’s going to cook breakfast for father? The maids are all in the field.”
“I don’t know, Maren, but that can’t be helped.”
“No,” she said, “that can’t be helped. But do you still know our spell?”
“Of course, Maren!
“No rain! No dew! Just woes.
No spring, not one, still flows.”
And when he hesitated for a moment, she said quickly:
“The woods now silence knows
in fields the Fire Man sows!”
“Oh,” she cried, “how the sun burns!”
“Yeah,” Andrew said and rubbed his cheek, “It’s really giving me a regular sunstroke.”
Finally they came out of the forest, and there, a few steps in front of them, also stood the old willow tree. The might trunk was completely hollowed, and the darkness that prevailed within seemed to lead deep into the abyss of the earth. Andrew climbed down first alone while Maren leaned on the hollow of the tree and tried to look after him. But soon she saw nothing more of him, only the sound of descending steps struck in her ear. She began to become worried, above around her it was so lonely, and from below she finally heard no more sound. She stuck her head deep in the hollow and called, “Andrew! Andrew!” But it remained silent, and she called once more, “Andrew!” After some time it seemed to her as if she heard from below a coming back up, and she gradually recognized the voice of the young man whose voice she called and held the hand which he held out to her. “It leads down a flight of stairs,” he said, “but it’s steep and crumbling, and who knows how deep below to the bottom it is!”
Maren was startled. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “I’ll carry you. I have a sure foot.” He then lifted the slender girl on his wide shoulders, and as she put her arms around his neck he climbed cautiously with her into the depths. Thick darkness surrounded them, but Maren still breathed a sigh of relief while she was carried down step by step at a snail’s pace; then it was cool in the bowels of the earth. Not a sound from above came down to them; only once did they hear muffled by a distance the dull roar of the underground water that was vainly working to raise itself up to the light.
“What was that?” whispered the girl.
“I don’t know, Maren.”
“But is there no end?”
“It almost doesn’t seem so.”
“Maybe the goblin cheated you!”
“I don’t think so, Maren.”
So they climbed deeper and deeper. Finally they detected below them again the glimmer of sunlight, which was illuminating with every step; but at the same time a suffocating heat rose up on them.
Once they stepped on the lowest step into the open, they saw a completely unknown region before them. Maren looked around baffled. “But the sun is still shining as usual!” she said finally.
“It’s not the least bit cooler,” Andrew said while lifting the girl to the ground.
From the place where they found themselves, on a broad paved roadway, ran an avenue of old willows out into the distance. They pondered not long, but went as the way indicated to them, along between the rows of trees. When they looked to one or the other side, they saw a deserted, boundless low-laying plain that was torn apart by all kinds of gullies and depressions, as it consisted of an endless tangle of abandoned lake and stream beds. This seemed to be affirmed by an oppressive fume, like that of a dried reed, that filled the air. There positioned between the shadows of the separately standing trees such a fervor that it seemed to the two wayfarers as if they saw little white flames fly onward on the dusty road. Andrew must have thought of the flakes from the goblin’s fire-beard. Once it even seemed to him that he saw two dark eye circles in the bright sunshine; then he clearly believed to hear the frenzied leaps of the spindle legs. Soon it was on the left, soon on the right of his side. But when he turned, he could see nothing; only the white-hot air trembled, sparkling and dazzling before his eyes. “Yes,” he thought as he took the girl’s hand, and they both walked laboriously forward, “you make us sore, but you’re not winning today!”
On and on they went, one listening to the heavier and heavier breathing of the other. The monotonous path seemed to have no end; beside them the unending gray, half-defoliated willows, sideways aside them here and there among those eerie, fuming lowlands.
Suddenly
Maren stood and leaned with closed eyes on the trunk of a willow. “I can go no further,” she murmured, “the air is pure fire.”
There Andrew thought of the bottle of mead that they had until then left untouched. – When he pulled off the plug, a fragrance spread, as if there rose to bloom again a thousand flowers from whose chalices perhaps more than a hundred years ago the bees had carried together the honey for this drink. No sooner had the girl’s lips touched the edge of the bottle then her eyes already cracked open. “Oh,” she called, “on what beautiful meadow are we?”
“On no meadow, Maren, but just drink; it will strengthen you!”
As she drank she straightened up and looked with bright eyes around her. “Drink once, too,” she said, “a woman is such a miserable creation!”
“But that is a genuine drop!” said Andrew, after he had also tasted it. Heaven only knows from what the great-grandmother brewed this!”
Then they went further, strengthened and chatting cheerfully. But after a while the girl stayed still again. “What’s wrong, Maren?” Andrew asked.
“Oh nothing. I only thought—“
“Yeah, Maren?”
“Do you see, Andrew! My father still has half the hay out in the meadows, and I go out and want to make it rain!”
“Your father is a rich man, Maren, but the rest of us have our little scraps of hay in the barn and all our grain is still on the dry stalks.”
“Yes, Yes, Andrew, you’re right; one must think of others!” After a while she added in silence to herself, “Maren, Maren, you’re making self-justifying rationalizations; you are doing everything because of your sweetheart!”
So they again for a while continued on, but the girl suddenly said, “What is this? Where are we? It is a large, gigantic garden!”
And indeed they had arrived, without knowing how, out of the monotonous willow avenue into a large park. From the wide, now of course scorched lawn, rose everywhere groups of large, magnificent trees. Although their foliage had partly fallen or hung withered and limp on the branches, the bold structure of the branches still strove to the sky and the mighty roots still spread themselves far out over the earth. An abundance of flowers, such as the two had never seen before, covered the ground here and there; but all of these flowers were wilted and fragrantless and seemed to have been, during the height of their flowering, hit by the deadly heat.
“I think we are in the right place!” Andrew said.
Maren nodded, “You must now stay here until I come back.”
“Of course,” he replied as he stretched out in the shade of a large oak. “The rest is now your affair! Hold fast to your spell and don’t misspeak it!”
So she then went on over the wide lawn and under the heaven-reaching trees, and soon the one left behind saw nothing more of her. But she walked on and through the solitude. Soon the groups of trees ceased, and the ground sank. She recognized well that she was traveling into the dried bed of a body of water; white sand and pebbles covered the ground, among which dead fish lay and flashed their silver scales in the sun. In the middle of the basin she saw a gray, foreign bird stand; it appeared to her to be like a heron, but it was so much bigger that its head, if it held it erect, must have towered above that of a human. Now it had laid its long neck between the wings and appeared to sleep. Maren was afraid. Besides the motionless, eerie bird no living creature was visible, not even the buzzing of a fly interrupted the silence; the silence lay like a horror over this place. For a moment fear pushed her to call for her lover, but she dared not repeat it, because to hear the sound of her own voice in this deserted place seemed still more terrible than anything else.
So she fixed her eyes firmly on the distance, where a dense cluster of trees again seemed to rise from the ground, and stepped further, without looking to the right or left. The large bird did not move as she walked passed it with quiet steps, only for a moment did the black under its white eyelids flash out. – She breathed out a sigh of relief. – After that she walked a long distance, where the lakebed narrowed into the channel of a moderate stream that led on under a broad group of Linden trees. The branches of these mighty trees were so dense, that despite the lack of foliage no sunbeam could penetrate through.
Maren went further into this channel, the sudden coolness around her, the high dark clouds of the treetops over her; it almost appeared to her as if she went through a church. But suddenly her eyes were struck by a blinding light; the trees ceased, and before her stood a gray rock on which burned the most glaring sun.
Maren stood herself in an empty, sandy basin into which a waterfall might once have hurled down over the rocks, which then had its outlet through the channel to the now evaporated lake downstream. She searched with her eyes where the path led up between the cliffs. But she was suddenly startled. For that there at half the height of the precipice could not be part of the rock; even if it were as gray and rigid as those in the motionless air, but soon she recognized that it was a garment which covered in folds a sleeping figure. – With bated breath she stepped closer. There she saw clearly; it was a beautiful, powerful feminine figure. The head lay sunken back deep on the rock; the blond hair, which flowed down to the waist, was full of dust and dry leaves. Maren looked carefully at it. “She must have been very beautiful,” she thought, “before those cheeks became so slack and those eyes so sunken. Oh, and how pale her lips are! Could that truly be the Rain Maiden? But she doesn’t sleep; she is dead! Oh, it is terribly lonely here!”
The strong girl soon recomposed herself. She stepped very close and, kneeling down and bowing down to her, put her fresh lips to the pale as marble ear of the sleeper. Then, taking all her courage, she spoke loudly and clearly:
“No rain! No dew! Just woes.
No spring, not one, still flows.
The woods now silence knows
in fields the Fire Man sows!”
There rang out from the pale mouth a deeply mournful sound, but the girl said, becoming stronger and more insistent:
“Open your eyes to sight!
And look to left and right!
Or mom will grab you tight
And take you home tonight!”
There was a slight gentle rustling through the treetops, and in the distance it thundered softly as if from a thunderstorm. But at the same time and, like it seemed, coming from the other side of the stone, a piercing sound cut through the air like the scream of fury of a malevolent animal. When Maren looked up, the tall figure of the maiden was standing erect before her. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Oh, Ms. Maiden,” answered the girl still kneeling. “You have slept so cruelly long, that you are making all the foliage and all the creatures perish!”
The maiden saw her with wide-open eyes as if she was struggling to come out of oppressive dreams.
Finally she asked with a flat voice, “The spring runs no longer?”
“No, Rain Maiden,” replied Maren.
“My bird no longer circles around the lake?”
“It stands in the hot sun and sleep!”
“Woe,” moaned the Rain Maiden. “So it is high time. Get up and follow me, but don’t forget the pitcher lying there are your feet!”
Maren did as she was told, and both now climbed up on the side of the rock. – Even more massive tree groups, even more wonderful flowers had sprouted from the earth here, but here also was everything wilted and scentless. They went along on the channel of the creek that behind them had its plunge from the rocks. Slowly and unsteadily the maiden strode on in front of the girl, only now and then sadly looking around. Nevertheless Maren believed that a green glow remained on the lawn where her foot had stepped, and when the gray garment trailed over the dry grass it rustled it so peculiarly that she always had to listen to it. “Is it raining already, Rain Maiden?” she asked.
“Oh no, child, first you must unlock the fountain!”
“The fountain? Where is it then?”
They had just stepped out of a group of trees. “There!” the maiden said, and several thousand steps ahead of them Maren saw a monstrous structure rising up before them. It seemed to be piled up with gray, jagged, and irregular stones; up to heaven, thought Maren, because from above upwards everything dissolved in the air and sunshine. The front, at the ground level, jutting out in gigantic bowed windows, was everywhere pierced through by high, sharply arched gate- and window- openings, without nevertheless anything being seen of the windows or the wings of the gates themselves.
For a while they walked straight towards it until they were stopped by the precipice of the bank of the stream that seemed to circle around the structure. Nevertheless the water had evaporated down to a narrow thread, which still flowed in the middle; a skiff lay shattered on the dry mud surface of the streambed.
“Step through!” said the maiden. “It has no power over you. But don’t forget to scoop up some water; you’ll need it soon!”
When Maren, obeying the command, stepped down to the bank, she almost drew back her foot, because the ground was so hot that she could feel the heat through her shoe. “Nonsense! Let the shoes burn!” she thought and vigorously stepped further with her pitcher. But suddenly she stood still; the expression of the deepest horror entered into her eyes. Because next to her the dry mud surface was ripped open and a great brown-red fist with crooked fingers came up out of it and grabbed after her.
“Courage!” she heard the voice of the maiden behind her from the bank.
Only then did she let out a loud cry, and the specter vanished.
“Close yours eyes!” she heard again the maiden say. – There she went on with her eyes closed; but when she felt the water touching her foot, she bent down and filled her pitcher. Then she rose easily and safely up on the other bank again.
Soon she had reached the castle and went with a pounding heart through one of the large open gateways. But inside she stopped astonished in the entrance. The whole interior seemed to be only a single boundless room. Mighty pillars of stalactite carried an odd ceiling of an almost unseeable height; Maren almost thought that it seemed to be nothing but gigantic gray cobwebs that hung everywhere in folds and lace between the capitals of the pillars. She stood as if lost in the same place and soon looked directly before her, soon at one and the other side, but these immense spaces seemed except for the front through which Maren had entered to be entirely without borders. Pillar after pillar rose up, and no matter how hard she strained, she could never see the end. There her eye remained fixed on a recess in the ground. And behold! There, not far from her, was the fountain; and the golden key she saw lying on the trapdoor.
As she approached it, she noticed that the flooring was not like she saw it in her village church, with stone slabs, but everywhere was covered with dried reeds and meadow plants. But already now nothing surprised her.
Now she stood at the well and was about to take the key; there she quickly pulled her hand back. Because she clearly recognized that the key that was illuminated in the glaring light of one of the rays of sunshine falling in from outside, was red from heat and not from gold. Without hesitation she poured her pitcher out, so that the sizzling of the water boiling away echoed in the vast spaces. Then she quickly unlocked the fountain. A fresh scent rose from the depths as she struck back the trapdoor and soon filled everything with a fine wet dust, which climbed up like a delicate cloud between the pillars.
Musing and relieved in the fresh coolness, Maren walked around. There began a new wonder at her feet. Like a breath rippled a light green over the ground surface of withered vegetation, the stalks straightened up, and soon the girl strolled through a wealth of sprouting leaves and flowers. At the foot of the pillars it became blue from forget-me-nots; there between bloomed yellow and brown-violet irses that breathed out their delicate fragrance. At the tips of the leaves little dragonflies climbed up, tested their wings, and then floated shimmering and fluttering above the flower cups, while the fresh scent that continually rose from the fountain filled more and more of the air, and danced like silver sparks in the sun rays falling in.
While Maren could find no end to the joy and marvel, she heard behind her a tranquil humming as from a sweet female voice. And actually, as she turned her eyes toward the basin of the fountain, she saw on the green mossy rim that sprouted up there the resting figure of a wonderfully beautiful radiant woman. She had propped her head on her bare sparkling arm, over which the blond hair fell over like waves of silk, and let her eyes wander up between the pillars to the ceiling.
Maren also looked up involuntarily. There she now saw well that that which she thought to be a large cobweb was nothing other than the delicate gauzy webs of rainclouds that were being filled by the vapor rising up out of the fountain and were becoming heavier and heavier. Such a cloud in the middle of the ceiling had just then detached and sank floating down, so that Maren saw the face of the beautiful woman at the fountain shining as if through a gray veil. This one clapped her hands, and the cloud immediately swam to the nearest window opening and flowed through it into the outside.
“Well,” cried the beautiful woman. “How do you like that?” And she smiled her red lips, and her white teeth flashed.
Then she waved Maren to her, and this one made her sit next to her in the moss; and just when another web of vapor once again sank down from the ceiling, she said, “Now claps your hands!” And when Maren did that, and this cloud, like the first, was drawn out into the open, she said, “Do you see how easy it is! You can do it better than I!”
Maren looked astonished at the beautiful, spirited woman. “But,” she said, “who are you really?”
“Who am I? Come on, child, are you naïve!”
The girl looked at her again with uncertain eyes; finally she said hesitantly, “But you couldn’t be the Rain Maiden?”
“And who should I be otherwise?”
“But forgive me! You are surely so beautiful and cheerful now!”
Then the maiden became very quiet. “Yes,” she said, “I must be grateful to you. If you hadn’t awoken me, the Fire Man would’ve become master, and I would have had to go down to the mother under the earth.” And while she contracted her white shoulders a little as if from an inner horror, she added, “And it is so beautiful and green up here!”
Then Maren had to explain how she came hither, and the maiden lay back down on the moss and listened. Sometimes she picked one of the flowers that sprouted up beside her, and she put it in her or the girl’s hair. When Maren reported on the toilsome path on the willow causeway, the maiden sighed and said, “The avenue was built from you people yourselves, but that was a long, long time ago! Such garments as you wear, I have never seen on your women. They came often to me, I gave them seeds and grains for new plants and crops, and they brought to me thanks for their fruits. As they did not forget me, so I didn’t forget them, and their fields were never without rain. But after a long time the people became estranged from me, no one comes to me any longer. There I fell asleep from the heat and sheer boredom, and the malicious Fire Man almost achieved victory.”
Maren had meanwhile laid back also with closed eyes on the moss, the dew fell so softly around her, and the sound of the beautiful maiden sounded so sweet and intimate.
“Only once,” she continued, “but it is a long time ago, a girl still came, and she looked like you and wore almost the same such garments. I gave her my meadow honey, and that was the last gift that a person has received from my hand.”
“Look,” Maren said, “that’s certainly a coincidence! That girl must have been the great-grandmother of my sweetheart, and the drink that made me so strong today must have been from you!”
The rain woman still thought well of her young friend from back then, because she asked, “Did she have such beautiful brown curls on her forehead?”
“Who, Rain Maiden?”
“Now, the great-grandmother th
at you mentioned!”
“Oh no, Rain Maiden,” Maren replied, and she felt herself almost superior to her powerful friend. “The great-grandmother has become quite as old as the hills.”
“Old?” asked the beautiful woman. She did not understand, because she did not know aging.
Maren had great difficulty explaining it to her. “Just imagine,” she said finally, “having gray hair and red eyes and ugly and sullen! See, Rain Maiden, that we call old!”
“Of course,” she replied, “I remember now; there were those among the women of the people; but the ancestor should to me come, I can make her happy and beautiful again.”
Maren shook her head. “That can’t happen, Rain Maiden,” she said. “The great-grandmother has been long under the earth.”
The maiden sighed. “Poor ancestor.”
Hereupon both were silent, while they still lay stretched out comfortably on the soft moss. “But child!” the maiden suddenly said, “Because of all this chatter we forgot about the rainmaking. Open your eyes! We’re buried under nothing but clouds; I can’t even see you any more!”
“One will become as wet as a cat!” Maren said as she had opened her eyes.
The maiden laughed. “Just claps your hands a little, but watch out that you don’t tear the clouds!”
So they both began to softly clap their hands; and immediately created a billowing and a shoving, the fog formations thronged to the openings and swam, one after the other, into the open. After a short time Maren saw again the fountain before her and the green ground with the yellow and violet iris flowers. Then the window openings became free, and she saw far over the trees of the garden the clouds covering the whole sky. Gradually the sun disappeared. Still a couple moments, and she heard it blow outside like a shower through the leaves of the trees and bushes, and then it rushed down, powerful and incessant.
Maren sat upright with folded hands. “Rain Maiden, it’s raining,” she said softly.
She gave a scarcely noticed nod with her beautiful blond head; she sat as if dreaming.
But suddenly a loud pattering and howling arose outside, and as Maren looked out startled, she saw enormous white steam clouds raise themselves intermittently into the air from the nearby stream which she shortly before had stepped across. In this same moment she felt herself embraced by the arms of the beautiful rain woman, who snuggled trembling up beside the young human child resting beside her. “Now it extinguishes the Fire Man out,” she whispered, “just hear how he resists! But it doesn’t help him anymore.”
They embraced each other for a while; then it became quiet outside, and there was nothing to hear than the gentle murmur of the rain. Then she stood up, and the maiden lowered the fountain’s trapdoor and locked it.
Maren kissed her white hand and said, “I thank you, dear Rain Maiden, for myself and all the people in our village! And” – she added a little hesitantly – “now I’d like to go back home!”
“Go already?” asked the maiden.
“You know it surely, my darling waits for me; he may already have become thoroughly wet.
The maiden raised her finger. “Will you never let him wait afterwards?”
“Certainly not, Rain Maiden!”
“So go, my child; and when you come home, tell the other people about me, so that they henceforth not forget me. – And now come! I will accompany you.”
Outside under the fresh heavenly dew and everywhere already the green of the grass and of the foliage of the trees and bushes had sprouted up. – When they came to the stream, the water had filled the entire bed, and as if it expected her, the boat rested, restored by an invisible hand, swaying on the lush grass on the bank of the stream. They climbed in, and they quietly slipped over while the droplets played and tinkled in the stream. There, just as they stepped onto the other side, the nightingales began to sing next to them in the dark of the bushes. “Oh,” said the maiden and breathed out a real sigh of relief from the bottom of her heart, “It is still Nightingale time, it is not yet too late!”
They went along the stream, which led to the waterfall. It plunged again roaring over the rocks and continuously flowed forth then gushing in the wide channel under the dark Lindens. When they stepped into the open again, Maren saw the strange bird soaring in large circles over the lake whose large basin stretched at her feet. Soon they went down along the shore, constantly breathing the sweetest scents and listening to the rustling of the waves that flowed up over the shiny pebbles on the shore. Thousands of flowers bloomed everywhere, even violets and Maililien, Maren noticed, and other flowers whose time was really long past because they were unable to grow in the vicious heat. “They also don’t want to be left behind,” said the maiden, “now everything is blooming indiscriminately.”
Sometimes she shook her blond hair so that drops like sparks sprayed around her, or she folded her hands together so that the water flowed down from her white arms as if from a water basin. Again she tore her hands apart from each other, and where the spraying drops touched the earth, there sprang up new rose scents, and a play of colors from fresh, never-before seen flowers pressed themselves sparkling from the lawn.
As they walked around the lake, Maren looked back once more at the wide surface of the water, now with the falling rain, barely visible in full; then she almost shuddered at the thought that she walked with dry feet that morning through those depths. Soon she had to be near the place where she had left Andrew behind. And yes! There under the high trees he lay with a propped up arm; he appeared to be sleeping. But when Maren looked at the beautiful maiden, how she walked with her red smiling mouth so proudly next to her, she suddenly seemed to herself in her peasant clothes so inelegant and ugly, that she thought, “Oh, it won’t be good, Andrew doesn’t need to see her!” Aloud she told her, “Thank you for your company, Rain Maiden, I can find it myself now!”
“But I must still see your darling!”
“Please don’t trouble yourself, Rain Maiden,” replied Maren, “it is just a lad like the others and just good enough for a girl from the village.”
The maiden looked at her with penetrating eyes. “You’re a beautiful, little fool!” she said and raised her finger threateningly. “Aren’t you also in your village the most beautiful of all?” The pretty maiden blushed so that her eyes filled with tears. But the maiden kept smiling. “So remember!” she said, “because now that all the fountains spring again, you can take a shortcut. Immediately below to the left of the willow avenue lies a boat. Climb in confidently; it will bring you quickly and safely to your homeland! – And now farewell,” she said and put her arm around the girl’s neck and kissed her. “Oh, how sweetly tastes the such a human mouth!”
Then she turned and went away under the falling drops over the lawn. She began to sing; it sounded sweet and unvaried; and as the beautiful figure disappeared among the trees, Maren didn’t know, if she still heard from the distance the song, or was it only the murmur of the falling rain.
For a while the girl stood still; then, as if in a sudden longing, she stretched out her arms. “Farewell, beautiful, lovely Rain Maiden, farewell!” she said. – But no answer came back; she recognized it now clearly, it was only the rain that swept down.
As she slowly walked up to the entrance of the garden, she saw the young farmer stand up erect under the trees. “What are you looking at?” she asked as she came closer.
“Hey, Maren!” said Andrew, “What kind of pretty woman was that?”
The girl grabbed the arm of the boy and turned him around with a rough jerk. “Don’t wear your eyes out looking!” she said, “she is not for you; that was the Rain Maiden!”
Andrew laughed. “Now, Maren,” he replied, “that you had to wake her properly, that I have already noticed here; because the rain is so drenching, I think, like never before, and such a turning-green have I also in all my life never before seen! – But come now! We want to go home, and your father should mak
e good on his given word.”
Down at the willow avenue they found the boat and climbed in. The whole wide lowland was already flooded over, on the water and in the air existed all sorts of birds; the slender Sea Swallows shot screaming over them and plunged the tips of their wings in the flood, while the herring swam majestically beside their onward shooting boat; on the green islets, where they passed here and there, they saw the Ruffs with their golden collars conducting their courtship battles.
So they glided swiftly on. The rain still fell, gently but incessantly. Now however the water narrowed, and soon it was only a moderately broad creek.
Andrew had looked for a while with her hand over his eyes into the distance. “Look, Maren,” he said, “isn’t that my rye field?”
“Of course, Andrew; and it has become lush green! But don’t you see that is our village creek that we’re traveling?”
“That’s right, Maren, but what is that there? There it is completely flooded!”
“Oh, dear God!” said Maren, “that is surely my father’s field. Just look at the beautiful hay; it’s floats everywhere.”
Andrew squeezed the girl’s hand. “Never mind, Maren!” he said. “The price is, I think not so high, and my fields are bearing now so much the better.”
The boat laid by the village linden. They stepped onto the bank, and soon they went hand in hand down the streets. There they were nodded to from all sides, because Mother Stine in their absence had been gossiping.
“It’s raining!” said the children who ran under the drops through the street. “It’s raining!” said Cousin Mayor, who looked comfortable from his open window and shook the hands of both of them with a hearty grip. “Yes, yes, it rains!” said the meadow farmer, who stood in the door gateway of his stately home with his Meerschaum pipe. “And you, Maren, boldly lied to me this morning. But come in here, you both! Andrew, like Cousin Mayor says, is always a good boy, his harvest will this year also be good, and if it should again be another three years of rain, then it would not be bad in the end if the heights and the depths come together. Therefore go over to Mother Stine, for we want to settle the affair immediately.
Several weeks had since passed. The rain had long since stopped again, and the last heavy harvest wagons were drawn in with wreaths and fluttering ribbons in the barns; then marched a huge wedding procession in the beautiful sunshine to the church. Maren and Andrew were the bride and groom; behind them went hand in hand Mother Stine and the meadow farmer. When they had almost reached the church door, so that they could already hear the chorale which the old cantor was playing on the organ for their entrance, suddenly a little white cloud rose above them in the blue sky, and a pair of light raindrops fell on the bride’s wreath. – “That means luck!” said the people standing in the churchyard. “That was the Rain Maiden!” whispered the bride and groom and squeezed each other’s hands.
Then the procession stepped into the church; the sun shined again, the organ became silent, and the priest performed his task.
Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm Page 13
