The black count
The black count is a fairy tale . It is at number 11 in Ludwig Bechstein's New German Book of Fairy Tales and comes from Johann Jacob Mussäus ' Meklenburgische Volksmährchen (No. 6: Graf Schwarzenberg ) in the yearbook of the Association for Meklenburg History and Archeology from 1840.
content
A brave knight does not let himself be deterred by the wedding of a knight friend, from continuing his journey at night, although a black count is haunted in the forest. When he appears, he forces the knight and his squire to follow him to his castle. There the knight witnesses how the count is tormented by the corpse of his mother, whom he once murdered. The knight calls for them to give way "in the name of the crucified one". There he finds himself in ruins, and his squire helps him out of the moor.
Explanations
The horror story is almost more of a saga with features of a legend , although the place and time remain undetermined. Owls and snake-like dragons characterize the count and his castle as a place of decay and damnation ( Ps 102.7 EU ; Isa 13.21 EU ; Zef 2.14 EU ; Rev 12.9 EU ; see the witch in Grimms Jorinde and Joringel ).
literature
- Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. New German fairy tale book. After the edition of 1856, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 70-74, 289.