Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
Ultimately, he came to his own in Tyrol owing to an act of the Council
of Constance in Baden, which not only condemned John Huss--amongst
many ecclesiastical enactments--to be burned, but also ordered that
Duke Frederick, now an outlaw, who had burned Oswald von Wolkenstein's
castles, should rebuild them, and restore to the knight all the
property that he and his followers had seized. It is not easy,
however, to comprehend how an outlaw who was fleeing from one place to
another in fear of his life was to accomplish these things, nor how
property taken by the soldiery years before, and probably long ago
converted into cash or other uses, could be given up and restored.
We are told, however, that after visiting France in Sigismund's train
Oswald returned to his favourite castle of Hauenstein, the ruins of
which nowadays are so lost in the vast pine forest which surrounds
them as to be almost undiscoverable.
Then Sabina, his old love, once more comes upon the scene, this time
as the claimant of the castle on account, so she alleged, of an
unrepaid loan made by her grandfather to the Wolkensteins. She
invited her old suitor Oswald to join her in a pilgrimage to some
shrine for old acquaintance sake; and when he came to her,
unsuspecting and unarmed, she promptly had him seized, thrown into a
dungeon, and there kept him a prisoner in chains. He lay in
treacherous Sabina's castle until by chance Sigismund, hearing of his
parlous state, intervened on his friend's behalf, and Oswald von
Wolkenstein was set free. He was, however, so maimed by rheumatism and
the fetters which had galled him that he ever afterwards went lame.
Once more he was cast into prison, this time by Duke Frederick's
machinations, and lay in a horrible underground and tunnel-like cell
in Vellenberg not far from Innsbruck. He had married in 1417 Margaret,
a daughter of the house of Schwangau, after a long period of
betrothal, and to her he was deeply attached. On his second release,
after three years' incarceration, he returned to Hauenstein to find
his wife dead, and his home fallen into disrepair from neglect.
A few years later we find him, unconquered in spirit though broken in
body, at Rome to attend the coronation of his friend Sigismund, who
but a year or two later was driven from the throne. In 1435 Oswald
once more, as a man of fifty-eight, returned to forest-enshrouded
Hauenstein, where he died nine years afterwards, never having again
left it.
Of course, the castle is haunted by the spirit of this unhappy and
adventurous knight and Minnesinger, and there is still this belief
amongst the peasantry of Seis and the neighbourhood round about. And
the few who have ever ventured near the ruined pile after sundown aver
that those who do are sure to hear the ancient Minnesinger chanting a
dirge-like lay, accompanying himself upon his lute. But if this be so
Oswald's spirit has wandered far from his body, for his remains repose
at Neustift near Brixen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account