THERE are many strange old legends among the peasantry of Germany, some of which I suspect were spread abroad by Christian monks of old time (for there were Christians even among the monks), to teach the poor ignorant people truth in the form of fable or parable. Now, among these old legends there is one which I think will not only amuse little people, but instruct them too. It is said that, once upon a time, many long years ago, there lived a cowherd who was wont to tend his cows in the grassy glades of the boundless forests that clothed the Thuringian mountains on the borders of Saxony. He was a very poor man, but very cheerful, and used to be always singing to himself as he roamed about after his cows, or sat on some jutting rock or fallen tree, watching them as they fed, while the cow-bells made tinkling music to his songs, rising and falling on the soft wind along the green glades; for every cow, you must know, had a bell on her neck, so that if she got astray in the woods the sound would help the cowherd to find her. Well, one summer’s day, when the flowers were all in blossom, lie was walking along as usual after his cows, near the ruins of an old castle, perched on a crag of the mountain, and thinking how he should like to have just a little more money, that he might not have to tend the cattle in the cold winter months, when all at once he caught sight of a beautiful blue flower, such as in all his wanderings on the mountains he had never seen before. It was so large, too—as large as his hand—and so bright that, although growing low down among the grass, it caught his eye directly. Wondering that he had never seen anything of the kind before, he stooped down and plucked it to look at it more closely, but had no sooner done so than another and a greater wonder met his view. What do you think that was? Well, the legend says that as soon as he had taken the flower in his hand he saw an open door before him in the side of the mountain on which the ruined castle stood, standing wide open, as if to say, “Come in if you like.” Now, he had crossed that mountain scores of times, and knew every crag and every moss-grown boulder on it; and, as to the old castle above, though the mantling ivy might change its aspect every spring, and add to its shadow each summer, he was pretty well at home in its ruined archways, and knew exactly where to find shelter in a storm, let the wind come which way it would. A door in the mountain was therefore a marvel greater to him than the flower he held in his hand; and no wonder neither. Yet there it was plain enough, a real door, low-arched and stout and strong, studded with great nail-heads and iron-bound, as old castle doors were wont to be, to keep out unwelcome and not very gentle visitors. “Well,” said he to himself, “this is very strange;” but he said it in German, you know, and not in English: and then, as he looked and wondered and whispered to himself, he drew nearer to examine it. “Perhaps,” thought he, “it was hidden before by some earth that has since fallen down and so uncovered it;” but he could find no fallen earth on the hard grass-grown rock. Just within he could see a flight of narrow steps, cut in the rock, and leading he couldn’t tell where for the gloom. He looked a long while, now up at the mountain, now down at the door, and then at the flower he held in his hand, which somehow seemed to him to have something to do with the matter; but he could make nothing of it. At last it struck him that the best way to know all about it was to go in and see; but this he found no easy thing to do for very fear. Presently, however, he set first one foot in, and then the other, and then he took another step, and began to go slowly down, down in the dark. Ah, poor fellow, how he shook as he went! It is not pleasant, you know, to go down in the dark, especially when you don’t know where you are going to, or what will come of it; and so poor Hans (I think that was his name) trembled at every step of the way, while, quite unconsciously, he clutched the flower that he held in his hand all the tighter as he went.
How this reminds us of the believer going down some ever-darkening path in this poor world of sorrow, clinging to that bright blossom, PROMISE, yet hardly conscious that he is clinging, and sometimes even forgetting altogether that he has it with him on the way!
But Hans was not a believer at all. His mind was set on quite other things, and, like the woman at the well (John 4), who was occupied with her water-pot, his thoughts seldom rose above his cows and the little money he earned by tending them. If he had been a believer, what precious opportunities he might have had of communion with the Lord when quietly tending his cows, ALONE WITH GOD in those solemn old woods! But so it is, that those who do not know Jesus have no idea what they lose, even in this world, to say nothing of those joys which are to come, which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” and which even the heart of man, with all its boundless desires, has never so much as been able to conceive of. But the cowherd did not think that his heart was at all boundless or unreasonable in its desires. Far from it. He had often said to himself that, if he had but just enough to live upon in the winter time, so that he needn’t come up there in the mountains in bleak weather, he should be quite content. You see, he didn’t know his own heart, as we shall presently find. Who does? (Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)). Well, one thing he knew just now was, that his heart trembled a good deal as, step after step, he went slowly down the mysterious hole in the mountain; and the worst of it was that the further he went the darker it grew. It seemed a long way to the bottom, and took a long time. Every now and then he would stop to listen and peer into the gloom, and try to see how many more steps there were in that strange staircase; but he could see nothing. And then it took him all the longer to get down, you know, because he had to feel with his foot before he set it down, lest there should be no step there at all, and he should take one long plunge to the bottom. How like the unconverted sinner, who knows not where he is going! “He walks on in darkness.” One thing is quite certain, and that is, that lie is on the downward road, with his back to the light, as the cowherd’s was, and in danger every moment of taking one long, long step into the bottomless pit!
Well, “it is a long lane that has no turning,” and a long staircase that has no end; and so, although this one was very long indeed, Hans found himself at the bottom at last. Then the subterranean passage suddenly widened out into a spacious vault, dimly lighted somehow, yet sufficiently so to allow Hans to see all that it contained. And what do you think he saw Well, the legend says that, when lie entered that strange vault, all the treasures of earth which this poor world delights in met his astonished gaze; gold and silver, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies sparkled in the dim dreamy light from every side of that mysterious place.
What further happened, and what we may learn from this old legend, I must tell you, if the Lord will, another time. In the meanwhile, I want you to try and find out what the Key flower is. You see, Hans had no sooner taken it in his hand than a door was opened to him. Now, can you think of anything that deserves the name of the Key-flower?
J. L. K.