Transcriber's Note:

1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/vulturemaidendie00hilluoft.

COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 29.

THE VULTURE MAIDEN BY W. von HILLERN.

IN ONE VOLUME.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

THE HOUR WILL COME . . . . . 2 vols.

THE

VULTURE MAIDEN

[DIE GEIER-WALLY.]

BY

WILHELMINE von HILLERN.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

C. BELL AND E. F. POYNTER.

Authorized Edition,

LEIPZIG 1876

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES; THE GALIGNANI
LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI.

The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale.

TO BERTHOLD AUERBACH, Esq.

Permit me to offer you the fruit that I have gathered in a field peculiarly your own. Under your powerful hand the difficult ground of German peasant-life has yielded up its wealth of poetry; and if others, with myself, now reap in the field tilled by you, it is our first duty to think of you with gratitude, and to render to you the honour that is rightly yours.

Freiburg in Brisgau, April 1875.

The Author.

CONTENTS.

THE VULTURE-MAIDEN.

A TALE OF THE TYROLESE ALPS.

Far down in the depths of the Oetz valley, a traveller was passing. On the eagle heights of the giddy precipice above him, stood a maiden's form, no bigger than an Alpine rose when seen from below, yet sharply defined against the clear blue sky, the gleaming ice-peaks of the Ferner. There she stood firm and tranquil, though the mountain gusts tore and snatched at her, and looked without dizziness down into the depths where the Ache rushed roaring through the ravine, and a sunbeam slanting across its fine spray-mist painted glimmering rainbows on the rocky wall. To her, also, the traveller and his guide appeared minutely small as they crossed the narrow bridge, which thrown high over the Ache, looked from above like a mere straw. She could not hear what the two were saying, for out of those depths no sound could reach her but the thundering roar of the waters. She could not see that the guide, a trimly-attired chamois-hunter, raised his arm threateningly, and pointing her out to the stranger said: "That is certainly the Vulture-maiden standing up yonder; no other maid would trust herself on that narrow point, so near the edge of the precipice. See, one would think that the wind must blow her over, but she always does just the contrary to what other reasonable Christian folk do."

Now they entered a pine-forest, dark, damp, and cold. Once more the guide paused, and sent a falcon-glance upwards to where the girl stood, and the little village spread itself out smilingly on the narrow mountain plateau in the full glow of the morning sun, which as yet could hardly steal a sidelong ray into the close, grave-like twilight of the gorge. "Thou needn't look so defiant, there's a way up as well as down," he muttered, and disappeared with the stranger. As though in scorn of the threat, the girl sent up a halloo, so shrilly repeated from every side, that a flying echo reached even the silent depth of the fir-wood with a ghostly ring, like the challenging cry of the chamois-hunter's enemy, the fairy of the Oetz valley.

"Ay, thou may'st scream; I'll soon give it back to thee," he threatened again; and throwing himself stiffly back, and supporting his neck with both hands, he