Her business was to tend the geese As a goosegirl, and when at nightfall She drove the geese home again through the gate, Her tears would in piteous plight fall. For nail’d up on high, above the gate, She saw a horse’s head o’er her; The head it was of the dear old horse Who to foreign countries bore her. The king’s poor daughter deeply sigh’d: “O Falada! hangest thou yonder?” The horse’s head from above replied: “Alas that from home thou did’st wander!” The king’s poor daughter deeply sigh’d: “O would that my mother knew it!” The horse’s head from above replied: “Full sorely she would rue it!” With gasping breath I used to attend When my nurse, with a voice soft and serious, Of Barbarossa began to speak, Our Emperor so mysterious. She assured me that he was not dead, as to think By learned men we were bidden, But with his comrades in arms still lived In a mountain’s recesses safe hidden. Kyffhauser is the mountain’s name, With a cave in its depths benighted; By lamps its high and vaulted rooms In ghostly fashion are lighted. The first of the halls is a stable vast, Where in glittering harness the stranger Who enters may see many thousand steeds, Each standing at his manger. They all are saddled, and bridled all, Yet amongst these thousands of creatures, No single one neighs, no single one stamps, Like statues of iron their features. Upon the straw in the second hall The soldiers are seen in their places; Many thousand soldiers, a bearded race, With warlike and insolent faces. They all are full arm’d from top to toe, Yet out of this countless number, Not one of them moves, not one of them stirs, They all are wrapp’d in slumber. In the third of the halls in lofty piles Swords, spears, and axes are lying, And armour and helmets of silver and steel, With old-fashion’d fire-arms vying. The cannons are few, but yet are enough To build up a trophy olden. A standard projects from out of the heap, Its colour is black-red-golden. In the fourth of the halls the Emperor lives, For many a century dosing On a seat made of stone near a table of stone, His head on his arm reposing. His beard, which has grown right down to the ground, Is red as a fiery ocean; At times his eye to blink may be seen, And his eyebrows are ever in motion. But whether he sleeps or whether he thinks For the present we cannot discover; Yet when the proper hour has come, He’ll shake himself all over. His trusty banner he then will seize, And “To horse! Quick to horse!” shout proudly; His cavalry straight will awake and spring From the earth, all rattling loudly.