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Page 5
May we mention that Miss Christabel Coleridge's "Waynflete" brings
something of the spirit and idea of "Sintram" into modern life?
"Undine" is a story of much lighter fancy, and full of a peculiar
grace, though with a depth of melancholy that endears it. No doubt
it was founded on the universal idea in folk-lore of the nixies or
water-spirits, one of whom, in Norwegian legend, was seen weeping
bitterly because of the want of a soul. Sometimes the nymph is a
wicked siren like the Lorelei; but in many of these tales she weds an
earthly lover, and deserts him after a time, sometimes on finding her
diving cap, or her seal-skin garment, which restores her to her ocean
kindred, sometimes on his intruding on her while she is under a
periodical transformation, as with the fairy Melusine, more rarely if
he becomes unfaithful.
There is a remarkable Cornish tale of a nymph or mermaiden, who thus
vanished, leaving a daughter who loved to linger on the beach rather
than sport with other children. By and by she had a lover, but no
sooner did he show tokens of inconstancy, than the mother came up
from the sea and put him to death, when the daughter pined away and
died. Her name was Selina, which gives the tale a modern aspect, and
makes us wonder if the old tradition can have been modified by some
report of Undine's story.
There was an idea set forth by the Rosicrucians of spirits abiding in
the elements, and as Undine represented the water influences,
Fouque's wife, the Baroness Caroline, wrote a fairly pretty story on
the sylphs of fire. But Undine's freakish playfulness and mischief
as an elemental being, and her sweet patience when her soul is won,
are quite original, and indeed we cannot help sharing, or at least
understanding, Huldbrand's beginning to shrink from the unearthly
creature to something of his own flesh and blood. He is altogether
unworthy, and though in this tale there is far less of spiritual
meaning than in Sintram, we cannot but see that Fouque's thought was
that the grosser human nature is unable to appreciate what is
absolutely pure and unearthly.
C. M. YONGE.
UNDINE
by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
TO UNDINE
Undine! thou fair and lovely sprite,
Since first from out an ancient lay
I saw gleam forth thy fitful light,
How hast thou sung my cares away!
How hast thou nestled next my heart,
And gently offered to impart
Thy sorrows to my listening ear,
Like a half-shy, half-trusting child,
The while my lute, in wood-notes wild,
Thine accents echoed far and near!
Then many a youth I won to muse
With love on thy mysterious ways,
With many a fair one to peruse
The legend of thy wondrous days.
And now both dame and youth would fain
List to my tale yet once again;
Nay, sweet Undine, be not afraid!
Enter their halls with footsteps light,
Greet courteously each noble knight,
But fondly every German maid.
And should they ask concerning me,
Oh, say, "He is a cavalier,
Who truly serves and valiantly,
In tourney and festivity,
With lute and sword, each lady fair!"
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