“This happened a long time ago in one of the German-speaking countries of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a Count who lived in a large castle. He was rich, powerful, and the owner of large lands. He had a wife, and one daughter, who was dazzlingly beautiful, and she was betrothed to the eldest son of a neighbouring lord. When I say betrothed, I mean that her parents had arranged the marriage. She herself--her name was Elisinde--had had no voice in the matter, and she disliked, or rather loathed, her future husband, who was boorish, sullen, and ill-tempered; he cared for nothing except hunting and deep drinking, and had nothing to recommend him but his ducats and his land. But it was quite useless for Elisinde to cry or protest. Her parents had settled the marriage and it was to be. She understood this herself very well. “All the necessary preparations for the wedding, which was to be held on a splendid scale, were made. There was to be a whole week of feasting; and tumblers and musicians came from distant parts of the country to take part in the festivities and merry-making. In the village, which was close to the castle, a fair was held, and the musicians, tumblers, and mountebanks, who had thronged to it, performed in front of the castle walls for the amusement of the Count’s guests. “Among these strolling vagabonds was a fiddler who far excelled all the others in skill. He drew the most ravishing tones from his instrument, which seemed to speak in trills as liquid as those of the nightingale, and in accents as plaintive as those of a human voice. And one of the inmates of the castle was so much struck by the performance of this fiddler that he told the Count of it, and the fiddler was commanded to come and play at the Castle, after the banquet which was to be held on the eve of the wedding. The banquet took place in great pomp and solemnity, and lasted for many hours. When it was over the fiddler was summoned to the large hall and bidden to play before the Lords and Ladies. “The fiddler was a strange looking, tall fellow with unkempt fair hair, and eyes that glittered like gold; but as he was dressed in tattered uncouth rags (and they were his best too) he cut an extraordinary and almost ridiculous figure amongst that splendid jewelled gathering. The guests tittered when they saw him. But as soon as he began to play, their tittering ceased, for never had they heard such music.