the train of the Wild Huntsman, and though she appeared at times as a seductive siren and tempted men to their destruction, she appeared oftener as an old woman who rewarded acts of kindness with endless generosity.  It was she who had in keeping the souls of unborn children, and babes who died before they could be christened were carried by her to the Jordan and baptized in its waters.  Even after priestly sermons had transformed her into a beauteous she-devil, she still kept up her residence in the cave, which now, in turn, took on a new character.  Venturesome persons who got near its mouth, either purposely or by accident, told of strange noises which issued from it, like the rushing of many waters or the voice of a subterranean storm.  The priests supplied explanation and etymology to fit the new state of things.  The noise was the lamentation of souls in the fires of purgatory, to which place of torment the cave was an opening.  This was said to account for the old German name of the mountain—­“Hor-Seel-Berg”—­that is, “Hear-Souls-Mountain.”  To this Latin writers added another, viz.  “Mons Horrisonus”—­“the Mountain of Horrible Sounds.”  The forbidding appearance of the exterior—­in which some fantastic writers avowed they saw a resemblance to a coffin—­was no check on the fancy of the mediaeval storyteller, however, who pictured the interior of the mountain as a marvellous palace, and filled it with glittering jewels and treasures incalculable.  The story of Tannhauser’s sojourn within this magical cavern is only one of many, nor do they all end like that of the minstrel knight.  Undeterred by the awful tales told by monks and priests, poets and romancers sang the glories and the pleasures of the cave as well as its gruesome punishments.  From them we know many things concerning the appearance of the interior, the cave’s inhabitants, and their merrymakings.  I cannot resist the temptation to retell one of these old tales.

Adelbert, Knight of Thuringia, was one of those who experienced the delights of the Cave of Venus, yet, unlike Tannhauser in the original legend, was saved at the last.  He met Faithful Eckhart at the mouth of the cave, who warned him not to enter, but entrancing music sounded within and he was powerless to resist.  He entered.  Three maidens came forward to meet him.  They were airily clad, flowers were twisted in their brown locks, and they waved branches before them as they smiled and beckoned and sang a song of spring’s awakening.  What could Sir Adelbert do but follow when they glanced coyly over their white shoulders and led the way through a narrow passage into a garden surrounded with rose-bushes in bloom, and filled with golden-haired maidens, lovelier than the flowers, who wandered about hand in hand and sang with sirens’ voices?  In the middle of the rose-hedged garden stood a red gate, which bore in bold letters this legend:—­

HERE DAME VENUS HOLDS COURT