There is also a certain resemblance between the tale of a mystery-book in the Ninth Romance of the Rosary and the story of the beautiful casket in Heine's poem of _Jehuda ben Halevy_.[6] Only that Brentano's story of the passing of the mystery-book from hand to hand, through many ages, merely opens up to us a Romantic wonder-world, whereas Heine's tale of the wanderings of the casket is at the same time a jest at the vicissitudes of life: the pearls first belong to Smerdis, who gives them to Atossa, then to the great Alexander, who gives them to Thais, then in course of time to Cleopatra, to a Moorish sultan, to the regalia of Castille, and to the Baroness Solomon Rothschild, in a compliment to whom the life-history of the casket terminates. [6] _Cf_. Eduard Grisebach; _Die deutsche Litteratur_, p. 254, &c.; where, however, a definite influence is insisted on, regardless of Heine's priority. It is quite certain that Heine is indebted to Clemens Brentano for the subject of what in Germany is the best known and most sung of all his songs, the song of _Lorelei_, "Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten." As far back as 1802 Brentano had published, in his _Godwi,_ a ballad entitled "Lorelei." It is not the story of a siren, but of a young girl of Bacharach on the Rhine, who was so beautiful that all men fell in love with her. She was accused of witchcraft. But the bishop, who ought to have condemned her to be burned, fell in love with her himself. She desires to die, for the one man she loves will have nothing to say to her and has gone away; so, on her way to the convent to which the bishop is sending her, she climbs a high cliff, Lurelei (Ley means slate-rock), and in despairing longing for her beloved, throws herself into the Rhine. This ballad suggested to a writer called Nikolaus Vogt the fabrication of a Rhine legend, which he published in 1811, passing it off as an old one. In it Lorelei, on her way to the convent, sees the man of her heart sail past her on the Rhine, and throws herself from the cliff in grief at having failed to win him. Three of her adorers follow her to a watery grave. Hence a rock in that neighbourhood is known by the name of the Dreiritterstein (Rock of the Three Knights). The last incident was perhaps suggested by the ending of Brentano's poem: "Wer hat dies' Lied gesungen? Ein Schiffer auf dem Rhein. Und immer hat geklungen Vom hohen Felsenstein: Lore Lay! Lore Lay! Lore Lay! Als wären es unser Drei."[7] [7] Who was it sang this song? A boatman on the Rhine. And still we heard the cry, from the high cliff overhead: "Lore Lay! Lore Lay! Lore Lay!" Me-seemed that we were three. From this fabricated legend a certain Count Loeben, in 1821, took the theme for a poem, _Lorelei_,[8] in which the young girl who drowns herself is transformed into a mermaid, whose singing lures into the depths those who are sailing past: