Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1895-03-15
THE ENCHANTED LADY
[From the German

Once there was a young peasant girl,
who was the handsomest maiden in all
the country round, but she was wretch
edly poor in everything except good
blood.
Her checks were as red as two
peonies, aud one day when she cut her
hand with the sickle, it seemed as if
the blood would never stop flowing.
Fortunately the shepherds house was
home. He was a man who understood
more about the art of healing than ten
city doctors. He repeated a charm
and, as an extra prccaution, stuck a
plaster over the wound. Then it
stopped bleeding, and of course 1t was
the charm that did it.
Three days afterward the beautiful
girl took her apron to the brook to
wash out the drops of blood which had
fallen on it. The water came down
from wooded hill, which was crown
ed with an old, ruined, castle, and not
far from its source formed a wide,
deep basin, on whose shores grew
willows and alder-bushes. The maid
en- knelt down by the edge of the
water and began her work without
looking up.
But after while she Glanced to
raise her ewes, and to her astonishment
she saw that she was not alone. Oppo-
site her on the other side of the brook
knelt beautiful pale woman, dressed
in pure white, who was also trying to
wash some blood-stained linen. But
as often as she took the garment out
of the stream, the drops rolled off as
from the feathers of a swan; the cloth
remained dry, and the stains es bright
a crimson as before. The maiden
looked with amazement at the strange
washerwoman and scarcely dared to
breathe.
AT last the pale lady saw that her
work was useless. Sadly she looked
at the bloody garment and said half
aloud:
MY veil ] have washed for three hundred
years,
But as bloody as everit still appears"
Then the maiden was seized with
terror; she jumped up and ran in wild
haste away from the uncanny washer
woman and back to the village.
In the village lived an old wise-wo-
man who could give advice about all
sorts of things. After the angelus,
the young girl went to her and told
her what had happened.
''That was the enchanted lady of the
mountain-castle," said the old woman,
and then she related what she knew of
her history.
..Many years ago a knight lived up
there in the castle, and he had wife
who was beautiful beyond all compare,
but likewise proud and vain. And
because she priced beauty above every
thing else, she had recourse to witch
craft. and committed most horrible
deed When her little child was born
she stabbed it through the heart and
bathed herself in the warm blood. BY
youth and imperishable beauty. AS
the penalty for her crime, she finds no
rest in the grave, but has to wander
about in the ruins of the old castle.
The huntsmen and wood-cutters often
see her as she goes about wailing and
wringing her hands.
1.-The long veil which floats down
from her head is dotted with red
pinks; in reality they are drops of
blood. And when the day on which
she committed the horrible crime comes
around, she goes down to the water in
the forest to wash the blood stains
from her veil, but she never has sue
ceeded and never will. They say be-
sides that she guards treasure, which
lies buried in the old castle, and who
knows, my child, but it might have
fallen to your lot, if you had held
your ground"
The young girl listened to the old
woman with awe.
But in spite of her fear she ventWed
the next day to 90 to the brook again,
where The ghostiy washerwoman had
appeared to her, but the pale lady did
not come. Indeed the old woman