Read Ebook: Anne of Geierstein; Or The Maiden of the Mist. Volume 1 (of 2) by Lang Andrew Annotator Scott Walter Los Rios R De Ricardo Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1304 lines and 109596 words, and 27 pages

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics .

Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face .

Border Edition

The Introductory Essays and Notes by Andrew Lang to this Edition of the Waverley Novels are Copyright

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.

With Introductory Essay and Notes by Andrew Lang

Ten Etchings

London John C. Nimmo 14, King William Street, Strand MDCCCXCIV

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO The King's Most Gracious Majesty.

SIRE,

They are therefore humbly dedicated to your Majesty, agreeably to your gracious permission, by

Your Majesty's Dutiful Subject, WALTER SCOTT.

ABBOTSFORD, 1st January, 1829.

LIST OF ETCHINGS.

PRINTED BY F. GOULDING, LONDON.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

THE DUEL. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios Frontispiece

GEIERSTEIN. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios To face page 48

IN THE STABLE. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios 192

THE EXAMINATION. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios 256

THE EXECUTION. Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios 304

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN; OR, THE MAIDEN OF THE MIST.

What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground?

SHAKSPEARE.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.

The book was published in the middle of May, and was very popular in Switzerland. Lockhart praises "occasional outbursts of the old poetic spirit," as in the Alpine storm, the wild climb of Arthur, the duel, the noble picture of the battle of Granson. No one else then writing in England could have matched these passages. Lockhart especially admired the sympathy with which an old and weary man "depicts the feelings of youth with all their original glow and purity." "He was always living over again in his children, young at heart whenever he looked on them, and the world that was opening on them and their friends. But, above all, he had a firm belief in the future reunion of those whom death had parted."

Uno avulso non deficit alter.

Scott's imitators, in his lifetime, produced little or nothing of merit: he was, however, to leave successors, the author of "Vingt Ans Apr?s" first and greatest; the author of "Esmond"; the author, we may surely add, of "The Master of Ballantrae." Much as these differ from Scott, both in quantity and quality of genius, in method, in style, they are all "sealed of his tribe," like the spiritual children of Ben Jonson. Scott is he

Without whose life they had not been,

and thus his example has borne, and still bears, new fruit in the most innocent of intellectual pleasures. For a later generation Scott has done what the romances and the epics did for chivalry, and fairy-tales for all the world. In an unexpected place, the Memoirs of Dr. Adam Clarke, we find a tribute to old romance and fairy-tale. Had he not read these in boyhood, the learned and excellent Doctor declares, his religion would have lacked imagination, and his character the courage which he displayed in face of many dangers. Examples of lofty fancy, of chivalrous courage, all that can attract and inspire youth, all that makes against moody despair, and stolid commonplace, and creeping prose, Scott gives, even in this late work, and he enlightens all with humour, as in his admirable description of the despotic German innkeeper, before whom the Earl of Oxford has to lower his bonnet. While youth is youth, and men have yet a smack of it, we can be happy with Arthur Philipson in his duel, with Sigismund in the fight, with the cheery maid of Anne of Geierstein, and her honest ideas of love on first principles, with that royal philosopher King Ren?, with the sagacious loyalty of Oxford, and the manly patriotism of the peasant noble. That the conclusion is entangled, and the knots rather broken than disengaged, is no unusual fault in Scott: it haunted his works from the beginning. Considering his health, his absence, in this tale, from scenes familiar to him, and times familiar to his readers, the novel is remarkable for its interest. What success and merit it possesses are mainly due, however, to a determined effort of the will, not to a delighted and conscious inspiration. In his last essays, though the will was indomitable, the material machinery of the brain was shattered, and we can only criticise them as psychological examples of unconquered courage. He had to see James Ballantyne, broken by his wife's death, and "squandering his thoughts and senses upon dowdy metaphysics, and abstruse theology." It was better for Scott to work on, and die at his task, at the labour of a life which would not be complete, would not offer the same invigorating spectacle, had he thrown his pen away and confessed himself defeated.

The historical sources of "Anne of Geierstein" are explained in Scott's own Introduction and Notes. All the later part of the novel follows the narrative of Commines closely, save for certain dramatic liberties, as we shall point out in our additional annotations.

ANDREW LANG.

INTRODUCTION

ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN.

This novel was written at a time when circumstances did not place within my reach the stores of a library tolerably rich in historical works, and especially the memoirs of the Middle Ages, amidst which I had been accustomed to pursue the composition of my fictitious narratives. In other words, it was chiefly the work of leisure hours in Edinburgh, not of quiet mornings in the country. In consequence of trusting to a memory, strongly tenacious certainly, but not less capricious in its efforts, I have to confess on this occasion more violations of accuracy in historical details, than can perhaps be alleged against others of my novels. In truth, often as I have been complimented on the strength of my memory, I have through life been entitled to adopt old Beattie of Meikledale's answer to his parish minister when eulogising him with respect to the same faculty. "No, doctor," said the honest border-laird, "I have no command of my memory; it only retains what happens to hit my fancy, and like enough, sir, if you were to preach to me for a couple of hours on end, I might be unable at the close of the discourse to remember one word of it." Perhaps there are few men whose memory serves them with equal fidelity as to many different classes of subjects; but I am sorry to say, that while mine has rarely failed me as to any snatch of verse or trait of character that had once interested my fancy, it has generally been a frail support, not only as to names, and dates, and other minute technicalities of history, but as to many more important things.

I hope this apology will suffice for one mistake which has been pointed out to me by the descendant of one of the persons introduced in this story, and who complains with reason that I have made a peasant deputy of the ancestor of a distinguished and noble family, none of whom ever declined from the high rank to which, as far as my pen trenched on it, I now beg leave to restore them. The name of the person who figures as deputy of Soleure in these pages, was always, it seems, as it is now, that of a patrician house. I am reminded by the same correspondent of another slip, probably of less consequence. The Emperor of the days my novel refers to, though the representative of that Leopold who fell in the great battle of Sempach, never set up any pretensions against the liberties of the gallant Swiss, but, on the contrary, treated with uniform prudence and forbearance such of that nation as had established their independence, and with wise, as well as generous kindness, others who still continued to acknowledge fealty to the imperial crown. Errors of this sort, however trivial, ought never, in my opinion, to be pointed out to an author, without meeting with a candid and respectful acknowledgment.

"We learn from the Historians of Saxony, that the 'Frey Feld gericht,' or Free Field Court of Corbey, was, in Pagan times, under the supremacy of the Priests of the Eresburgh, the Temple which contained the Irminsule, or pillar of Irmin. After the conversion of the people, the possessions of the temple were conferred by Louis the Pious upon the Abbey which arose upon its site. The court was composed of sixteen persons, who held their offices for life. The senior member presided as the Gerefa or Graff; the junior performed the humbler duties of 'Frohner,' or summoner; the remaining fourteen acted as the Echevins, and by them all judgments were pronounced or declared. When any one of these died, a new member was elected by the Priests, from amongst the twenty-two septs or families inhabiting the Gau or district, and who included all the hereditary occupants of the soil. Afterwards, the selection was made by the Monks, but always with the assent of the Graff and of the 'Frohner.'

"The seat of judgment, the King's seat, or 'K?nigs-stuhl,' was always established on the greensward; and we collect from the context, that the tribunal was also raised or appointed in the common fields of the Gau, for the purpose of deciding disputes relating to the land within its precinct. Such a 'King's seat' was a plot sixteen feet in length, and sixteen feet in breadth; and when the ground was first consecrated, the Frohner dug a grave in the centre, into which each of the Free Echevins threw a handful of ashes, a coal, and a tile. If any doubt arose whether a place of judgment had been duly hallowed, the Judges sought for the tokens. If they were not found, then all the judgments which had been given became null and void. It was also of the very essence of the Court, that it should be held beneath the sky, and by the light of the sun. All the ancient Teutonic judicial assemblies were held in the open air; but some relics of solar worship may perhaps be traced in the usage and in the language of this tribunal. The forms adopted in the Free Field Court also betray a singular affinity to the doctrines of the British Bards respecting their Gorseddau, or Conventions, which were 'always held in the open air, in the eye of the light, and in face of the sun.'

"When a criminal was to be judged, or a cause to be decided, the Graff and the Free Echevins assembled around the 'K?nigs-stuhl;' and the 'Frohner,' having proclaimed silence, opened the proceedings by reciting the following rhymes:

"Sir Graff, with permission, I beg you to say, According to law, and without delay, If I, your Knave, Who judgment crave, With your good grace, Upon the King's seat this seat may place.

"To this address the Graff replied:

"While the sun shines with even light Upon Masters and Knaves, I shall declare The law of might, according to right. Place the King's seat true and square, Let even measure, for justice' sake, Be given in sight of God and man, That the plaintiff his complaint may make, And the defendant answer,--if he can.

"In conformity to this permission, the 'Frohner' placed the seat of judgment in the middle of the plot, and then he spake for the second time:

"Sir Graff, Master brave, I remind you of your honour, here, And moreover that I am your Knave; Tell me, therefore, for law sincere, If these mete-wands are even and sure, Fit for the rich and fit for the poor, Both to measure land and condition; Tell me as you would eschew perdition.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet