"How horrid, dark, and wild and drear, It seems the hue of hell to wear. The bellowing thunder bursts the clouds; - The extraordinary interest which the above tale has excited, from its having been made a musical exhibition at almost every theatre in England, and a vehicle for the delightful strains of the celebrated German composer, Von Weber, has rendered it universally popular. The incantation, with all its accompanying devilries-the casting of the magic balls-the agency of the Demon Huntsman, and other infernal powers, and mysterious and unearthly music, hold such a thrilling power over the senses, that in spite of our better reason, we can but see and admire. As we profess in our work to present our readers with the original romances and traditions of every nation, we give this highly interesting tale from its primitive source. ("The popular tales and Romances of the Northern nations") without any abridgment or alteration of our own, so that those who have witnessed the dramatic exhibition, will 5 easily see in what instances it has departed from the original. The present tale will be found to describe most powerfully the scenes of horror above mentioned. The term "Der Freischütz" requires explanation. It implies "Free" or "Fatal Bullet”— "Free Shot," which signifies a ball, destined by fate, or the devil, to hit a certain object, and which it must do, though discharged from a piece pointed in a direction diametrically opposite to that object. The following narrative we think it necessary to insert previous to our commencing the tale, as it gives some account of the popular German superstition, on which it appears the whole story hinges. It is from the pen of Captain L. Forster, an officer in the Gotha contingent of troops attached to the French army during the sway of Bonaparte. It was in the year 1811, during, if I mistake not, the march from Hamburgh to Stralsund, with the two officers of my company, the lieutenants B. and C. von W., that we were quartered at an ancient castle, inhabited only by the keeper. We found but a single habitable room, which we were obliged to share with our servants; and as we had not only made a long march that day, but were wet through with a soaking rain, we seated ourselves soon after supper, round the fire-place, in which a cheerful fire had been kindled. The conversation turned on a variety of topics, till at length it fixed upon hunting and shooting. Many curious stories were related, many instances of excellent shots were mentioned, and at last various allusions were made to the secret arts of gamekeepers. These led to a narrative, with which, on account of (I may say) its horrible singularity, I was particularly struck, and which I will endeavour to repeat as nearly as possible in the words of the relater. Ulrick, the servant of lieutenant B., who was born in a woodland village of the duchy of Gotha, and, as he said, had associated much with gamekeepers from his youth, and been accustomed to shooting, began as follows: 'Yes, captain, you may think as you please about it, but gamekeepers are up to things that are really astonishing. With a Mr. C., head forester at Fr-th, there lived an old gamekeeper, who could certainly do more than merely eat bread. He had, to all appearance, an ordinary gun, with which he never used any thing but ball, whether he was firing at hares, birds, or any other sort of game, and he was never known to miss, even at distances exceeding by twice or thrice the usual range of such a piece. But this was not done fairly, for it is certain old Nick had a hand in it.' We laughed. 6 Laugh as you please,' said Ulrick, still it is positively true. You shall hear. One evening we were sitting together; the old man I am speaking of, several young keepers, and Charles, the son of the head forester. We were talking of the excellence of the old man's gun; on which he observed that what we had hitherto seen was nothing to what he could do; adding that he would immediately fire out of the window, if he would first decide in what part of the country he should shoot a piece of game, and what kind of game it should be. This appeared incredible to us; but for fun we mentioned a spot in the forest, about a mile from the house, and desired him to shoot a fox there. He fired out of the window, and we repaired to the spot specified, and there sure enough we found a fox that had been just shot. The son of the head forester, then quite a youth, very curious to know by what means this was done, and the old man promised to teach him the trick, if he had courage to learn it. Charles was desirous of learning, but desisted at the decisive moment, frightened by terrible apparitions.' 'Well,' said I,' 'but Charles, I suppose, told you in what way a person was to set about it?' O yes. You must strive to gain possession of a host already consecrated for the holy communion. With this, and a gun loaded with ball, you repair, on the night of Christmas eve, to the forest; nail the host to a tree, go back to a little distance from it, and with a loud voice renounce the belief in the blessed trinity. Hereupon you fire at the host, and this done, you will find upon it three drops of blood; these you wipe off with a piece of paper, and then make a hole (which may be done at home) in any part of the stock of the gun, put the paper into it, and close it up again. When all these ceremonies have been duly performed, every ball fired from this piece is sure to hit whatever the owner pleases.' I expressed my surprise that any one could be silly enough to believe such absurd and stupid stuff; but Ulrick persisted in his assertion, that the thing was nevertheless true. For,' continued he, Charles contrived to procure a host, and went out into the forest with the old man, on the night of Christmas eve. According to his direction, he nailed the host to a tree, and repeated the oath of abjuration; but when he took aim to shoot, the trees were gone, and he saw our Saviour nailed to the cross, and innumerable frightful infernal shapes dancing about him;' on which he threw down his gun, and ran away.' The important events of the campaign in Russia, the eleven months which I passed in Dantzig, during the siege of that city, and many as well cheerful as melancholy hours which I have spent since that evening, were not capable of erasing Ulrick's narrative entirely from my mind. I knew not whether to regard it as a fabrication of Ulrick's or if it were not so, whether Charles might not have been the dupe of a heated imagination, and fancied he saw things which in reality had no existence. When at length, after the surrender of Dantzig, I joined the battalion to which I belonged, in Flanders, and assumed the command of a company, I was reminded of Ulrick's story by the name of the serjeant. This serjeant was called Charles C-r, and he was a native of F. I inquired if he was the son of the head forester of that place. He replied in the affirmative; consequently I could no longer doubt that he was the same person whom Ulrick had mentioned. During the next march, after I had conversed with him a good while, and found him to be a tolerably well informed man, I turned the discourse, as if by accident, to the circumstances related by Ulrick. Charles related the story to me in nearly the same words. I was now quite at a loss what to think; for though I shall never be so weak as to believe such things to be possible, still, as every impartial person must admit, the coincidence of circumstances was extremely striking. Of the two cases which I had previously assumed as probable, of course one (namely, that Ulrick had invented the story) fell to the ground; and the other (that Charles had been the dupe of an overheated imagination) lost more and more of its plausibility, for I found him to be nothing of a visionary or one who wishes to pass off his inventions for truth. Admitting, however, that all this were otherwise, whence the perfect accordance between the accounts of Charles and Ulrick (who had not seen each other in the intermediate time), concerning the old gamekeepeer's gun, and bis shooting the fox? Leaving each of my readers to form his own opinion of this matter, I can solemnly assure them that it came to my knowledge in the manner above related; for though, in the lapse of time, my memory may err in regard to some unimportant collateral circum stances, still they may rely upon its fidelity in regard to the principal facts, as they interested me too deeply to be forgotten or incorrectly retained. LISTEN, dame," said Bertram, the old forester of Linden to his wife, " once for all, listen: it's not many things that I would deny to thy asking; but for this notion, Anne, drive it out of thy head-root and branch, the sooner the better; and never encourage the lass to think more about it. When she knows the worst, she submits; and all goes right. I see no good that comes of standing shilly shally, and letting the girl nurse herself with hopes of what must not be." "But, Bertram, dear Bertram," replied old Anne, "why not? could not our Kate live as happily with the bailiff's clerk as with the hunter Robert? Ah! you don't know what a fine lad William is; so good, so kind-hearted-" "Like enough," interrupted Bertram; "kind-hearted, I dare say, but no hunter for all that. Now look here, Anne: for better than two hundred years has this farm in the forest of Linden come down from father to child in my family. Hadst thou brought me a son, well and good; the farm would have gone to him; and the lass might have married whom she would. But, as the case stands,-no, I say. It's not altogether Robert that I care about. I don't stand upon trifles; and, if the man is not to your or the girl's, why not look out any other active huntsman that may take my office betimes, and give us a comfortable fire-side in our old-age: Robert, or not Robert, so that it be a lad of the forest. For the clerk's sake old Anne would have ventured to wheedle her husband little longer but the forester, who knew by experience the efficacy of female eloquence, was resolved pot to expose his own firmness of purpose to any further assaults or trials; and taking down his gun from the wall, he walked out into the forest. Scarcely had he turned the corner of the house, when a rosy, light-haired face looked in at the door. It was Katharine smiling and blushing, she stopped for a moment in agitation, and said, "Have you succeeded, mother? was it yes,' dear mother?Then, bounding into the room, she fell on her mother's neck for an answer. 66 Ah, Kate, be not too confident when thou shouldst be prepared for the worst. Thy father is a good man, as good as ever stepped, but he has his fancies; and he is resolved to give thee to none but a hunter: he has set his heart upon it; and he'll not go from his word; I know him too well." Katharine wept, and avowed her determination to die sooner than to part from her William. Her mother comforted and scolded her by turns, and at length ended by joining her tears to her daughter's. She was promising to make one more assault on the old forester's heart, when a knock was heard at the door-and in stepped William.— "Ah, William!" exclaimed Katharine, with streaming eyes" we must part: seek some other sweetheart: me you must never marry; father is resolved to give me to Robert, because he is a huntsman. But, if I am to part from you, to my dying day, dear William, I will remain faithful to you." . The bursts of wounded feeling were softened in the report of the mother: she exclaimed to the bewildered William, who knew not what to make of Katharine's ejaculations, that Bertram had no objections to him personally; but that, simply, with a view to the reversionary interest in his place as forester, he insisted on having a son-inlaw who understood hunting. * Is that all ?" said William, recovering his composure, and at the same time he caught the sobbing girl to his bosom.- Is that all? Then be of good cheer, dearest Kate. I am not unskilled in hunting; for at one time I was apprenticed to my uncle Finsterbusch, the forester-general; and it was only to gratify my god-father, the bailiff, that I exchanged the gun for the writing-desk. What care I for the reversion of the bailiff's place, unless I might take my Kate into the bailiff's If you can be house as mistress? content to look no higher than your mother did, and Will the forester is not less dear to you than Will the bailiff, then let me die if I won't quit my clerkship in an instant." Oh! thou dear kind lad," said Katharine, whilst the clouds dispersed from her fair forehead, and her eyes swam in a shower of glittering tears, "if thou wilt do this for my sake, then do so, and speak to my father without delay-before he can make any promise to Robert." 66 Stay, Kate; I'll go after him this moment, He's gone to the forest in search of the venison, that is to be delivered to-morrow into the office. Give me a gun and a pouch: I'll meet him with a jolly salutation-and offer my services to him as his hunting-boy." The mother and the daughter fell upon his neck; helped to equip him to the best of their skill; and looked after him, as he disappeared in the forest, with hope, but yet with some anxiety. "This William's a fine fellow !" exclaimed the forester, as he returned home from the chase: who would have looked for such a good shot in the flourisher of a crow-quill? Well: to-morrow I shall speak with the bailiff myself: for it would be a sad pity if he were not to pursue the noble profession of hunting. Why, he'll make a second Kuno. You know who Kuno was, I suppose?" said he, turning to William. William acknowledged that he did. not.9007 "Not know who Kuno was! bless my soul! to think that I should never have told you that? Why, Kuno, you're to understand, was my great; great grand father's father; and was the very first man that ever occupied and cultivated this farm. He began the world no better, I'll assure you, than a poor riding boy; and lived servant with the young knight of Wippach. Well, once it happened that this young gentleman of Wippach was present with many other knights and nobles at a great hunt held by the duke. And in this hunt the dogs turned up a stag, upon which a man was seated wringing his hands and crying piteously: for, in those days, there was a tyrannical custom among the great lords, that, when a poor man had committed any slight matter of tresspass against the forestlaws, they would take and bind him on the back of a stag, so that he was bruised and gored to death by the herd: or, if he escaped dying that way, he perished of hunger and thirst. Well, when the duke saw this-oh lord! but he was angry; and gave command to stop the hunting; and then and there he promised a high reward to any man that would undertake to hit the stag; but threatened him with the severest displeasure in case he wounded the man; for he was resolved, if possible, to take him alive, that he might learn who it was that had been bold enough to break his law. Now, amongst all the nobility, not a man could be found that would undertake the job on these terms: they liked the reward, mind you, but not the risk. So, at last, who should step forward but Kuno, my own great grandfather's father-the very man that see painted in that picture. He spoke boldly to the duke, and said, "My noble liege, if it is your pleasure, with God's blessing, I will run the hazard: if I miss, my life is at your grace's disposal, and must pay the forfeit; for riches and worldly goods I have none to ransom it; but I pity the poor man, and, without fee or reward, I would have exposed my life to the same hazard, if I had seen him in the hands of robbers." This speech pleased the duke; it pleased him right well; and he bade Kuno try his luck; and again you he promised him the reward in case he hit; but did not repeat his threat in case he missed. Kuno took his gun; cocked it in God's name; and, commending the ball with a pious prayer to the guidance of good angels, spent no time in taking aim, but fired, with a cheerful faith, right into the midst of the thicket; the same moment out rushed the hart, staggered, and fell; the man was unwounded, except that his hands and face were somewhat scratched by the bushes. "The noble duke kept his word, and gave Kuno, as his reward the farm of the forest to himself and his heirs for ever. But, lord bless us ! good fortune never wanted envy; and the favour of Providence, as Kuno soon learned, is followed by the jealousy of man. Many a man there was, in those days, who would gladly have had Kuno's reward; and what did they do but persuaded the duke that Kuno's shot had hit the mark through witchcraft and black arts: "For,' says he, Kuno never took any aim, but fired at random-a devil's shot; and a devil's shot, you are to understand, never fails of hitting the mark, for needs must that the devil drives.' So hereupon a regulation was made, and from this the custom came, that every descendant of Kuno must nndergo a trial, and fire what they call his probational shot, before he is admitted tenant. William, who had listened to this story with lively interest, rose from his seat when it was ended, pressed the old man's hand, and promised, under his tuition, to make himself a huntsman such as even old father Kuno should have had no cause to blush for. William had scarcely lived a whole fortnight in his capacity of huntsman, when old Bertram, who liked him better every day, gave a formal consent to his marriage with Katharine. This promise, however, was to be kept secret until the day of the probationary shot. Meantime the bridegroom elect passed his time in rapturous elevation of spirits, |