THE WILD HUNT which Heine describes in this canto is an old German legend which poets and painters have found to be a fertile source of inspiration. The wild huntsman must ride through the world every night, followed by all evil-doers, and wherever he appears, thither, according to old folk-belief, does misfortune come. Tradition herds all the foes of Christianity among this rout of evil-doers; for this reason does Heine include Goethe--the "great pagan," as the Germans call him--in that crew. There have been other foes of Christianity since, and some very great figures amongst them, so that in time the Wild Huntsman's Company may become quite presentable. HENGSTENBERG (1802-1869). A fanatical theologian professor at Berlin who made an attack upon Goethe's "Elective Affinities," which then had not yet become a classic, and was thus still liable to the attacks of the "learned." FRANZ HORN. A contemporary of Heine's of no particular importance, a poet of the Romantic School and a verbose literary historian. He wrote a work in five volumes upon Shakespeare's plays. In this he interprets the poet in a wholly romantic sense and winds up by presenting him as an enthusiastic Christian. CANTO XIX ABUNDA--in the Celtic (Breton) folk-lore Dame Abonde and even Dame Habonde. The Celtic element (as, for instance, the legend of King Arthur's Round Table) played a great part in the romantic poetry of Germany, and later in the music dramas of Wagner. Romanticism is therefore represented in Heine's poem by the fairy Abunda, in contradistinction to the Greek and Semitic inspiration--represented by Diana and Herodias. Heine's conception of Herodias as being in love with the Baptist and taking her revenge on him for his Josephian attitude towards her, has, no doubt, influenced later writers on the subject, especially Flaubert and Oscar Wilde, save that these had not the courage (nor perhaps the insight) to regard the hero in question as a "block-head." CANTO XX SIX-AND-THIRTY KINGS. At once an allusion to Shakespeare's "A kingdom for a horse!" ("Richard III") and a side-stroke glancing at the various kings and princes of Germany--some thirty-six in Heine's time. CANTO XXI HELLISH HERBS. The foul and mouldy herbs and medicines in Uraka's hut represent a collection of remedies for the cure and preservation of decaying feudalism and Christian mediævalism, which, however, no remedy can restore to health. The smell in Uraka's hut is the smell of the "rotting past," that, in spite of all nostrums and artificial revivals, goes on decomposing. The stuffed birds which glare so fixedly and forlorn, and have long bills like human noses, are members of Heine's own race. These stuffed birds are the symbols of Judaism which according to our Hellenistic poet, possesses, as religion, as little life as the Christianity that is based upon it. CANTO XXII