Carnuntum by Guido Von List: Preface

 To begin

Dear reader!

It is a peculiar thing about the preface; it is often written not to be read at all by most.

But now I have such an excellent opinion of you, best of all readers, that I trust you will read this preface of mine at the very least after the twenty-second chapter. Thereupon be it ventured.

My book was like the seed of the vine: it takes a long time until it comes to drinking wine.

It was more than twenty years ago. There I first saw those mysterious labyrinths inside the earth, there I first saw those strangely shaped hills. I felt indeterminable, unclear at the sight of them. But I felt powerfully attracted to them, I drew, painted, collected. Later came the realization. Many a learned researcher has since sewn himself to those enigmatic buildings and, with more or less luck, tried to interpret them. Already Friedrich Panzer mentions them in words and pictures in his solid "Contributions to German Mythology", Munich 1848-1855. He was, concerning the interpretation, on the right track, nevertheless he did not hit it correctly. In more recent times, meritorious researchers have unearthed an undreamt-of wealth of material, especially in those regions in which the present novel is set. Particularly in these regions, Baron von Sacken was favored by rare luck. Dr. Matthäus Much. Pastor Lambert Karner and painter Ignaz Spöttl, who achieved something amazing. (1) However, as enthusiastic as I am about their discoveries and other achievements, it seems to me as if luck had left them in the attempted explanation: only Dr. Much and Spöttl went farther than the milestones of proper scholarship allowed so far, they ventured, and with luck, into the field of speculation.

(1) Concerning Carnuntum, the epoch-making research of Messrs. Freiherr von Sacken. Dr. Friedrich Kenner and Amon Widder.

I was attracted by my research trips not only north of the Danube, but also to the ruins of Carnunt, where the picture formed itself. It was there, in the shadow of the Heidentor, that I read Ammianus Marcellinus' report on the destruction of Carnuntum.

Dear reader! Did you perhaps have the opportunity to read the history of the German war of 1870/71 as described by French pens? In the Moniteur, for example? Just as it happened to you there, so it happened to me under the Heidentor when I read the Roman Moniteur Ammianus. It is astonishing how far the Romans had already come in the art of whitewashing battle reports!

How innocuous it may have been read in ancient Rome of the inconspicuous remnant, which was called Carnuntum and whose loss was hardly worth mentioning! This is what Ammianus wants his Romans to believe, sweetening the bitter pill for them. - But how galling such scribblings could be in the face of the miles-wide field, which still today offers everywhere clear signs that it was once covered with palaces. An “inconspicuous nest” with African marble!

Already I wanted the tip of the pen for an exceedingly learned treatise on historical falsifications; already the plan lay fixed and ready in my head, probably divided into intentional, unintentional, systematic, political, patriotic, etc., falsifications. When a book fell into my hands that saved me from such an atrocity. It was my favorite book: Scheffel's Ekkehard. It says clearly on the first page: "This book was written in the good faith that neither historiography nor poetry can be harmed if they make intimate friendship with each other and unite in common work."

"Scheffel is my man!" I exulted. "Shabab, pearl of all knowing!" said the joyful poet in me with his smile to the learned archaeologist. He also smiled and disappeared.

In this wondrous moment I had received this book from the spirit.

But it was not yet written; it was just wandering around me. But I felt good, unspeakably light. Then I took lily-innocent white writing paper and began to banish the spirits that hovered around me. That was a pleasurable day's work!

Often it came over me, and drew me out there, where just my still disembodied figures were cavorting; over and above the Danube.

How often I dreamed then in the moonlight under the Heidentor; mind you, only then, when the grain was harvested, because earlier the land gunner would have seized me.

But when the moon then threw the lonely bow in sharp outline onto the pale gray ground, as if it were his sketchbook, then a very merry company hovered around me, silent and yet so eloquent!

In such moments it is dangerous to approach the compressor of such air figures. I have often warned them, the reckless ones, who joined me when I went into ghost-banning, as they jokingly called it not quite incorrectly. For there, where the poet forms and physically shapes the air beings hovering around him, it can happen to one, who is just at hand, that his dear ego is quite unconsciously confected and from then on is forced to lead a restless life among the figures of the poetry in the making. I have also warned you, friend Y, about this, as it is the duty of an honest man! Still I look at you beside me, your weepy little wänstlein outlined the moon gracefully on the stubble field. Can I help it that in the enthusiasm of the twelfth - bottle of Donauperle you spoke the fateful word: "Do you still know me?!" There again one of my figures had embodied itself, and with meaningful smile I gave you the answer:

"Do I know you? You Caius Publius Petronius, you darling of three deified emperors, I know you well!" Others had not fared better.

I was also cradled by the Danube girl in a smart rowing boat; past the crumbling vineyards with the wall fragments, the water pipes and the bored herons. The nimble boatman, his name was Siegfried, landed me on the crags of the Maidenberg near Thebes. There, at the mouth of the Marahabia, lies an idyllic little place hidden deep in the delightful solitude of the floodplain forest. How wonderful it is to dream there - for two! There I see my Equitius in Swanhild's arms. Long ago, envious debris has silted up the mermaid pond, but fifteen hundred years ago it may well have lied there. -

Yes, there it is! May he have stolen? Why did I write so definitely in the book that he stole?

Playfully the imagination builds the seven-colored bridge of the gods, lightly the poet floats over the gaping abyss that tradition has not filled. The historian, however, with the evidence-filled satchel, he must gasp and descend the steep wall to the bottom of the abyss, in order to gain height again, gasping, because the bridge of the gods would never be able to carry him. And yet, both travel the same road, both strive for the same goal. For the imagination does not drive its being unbridled, it only offers conclusions of probability where the scholar shrugs his shoulders. But it is therefore no less true what she tells, only more graceful in form.

Then, however, something came floating up, which the scholar nobly rejected; this was a very fair goddess, as she unveiled herself, and was nevertheless considered an old woman. It was the good woman Saga.

She confided to me in a tender hour: "Once upon a time, in times immemorial, there dwelt near the Schneeberg a ghastly dragon-worm; it is still called the Würmgarten there. The worm devoured everything, man and beast, and devastated the area disgracefully. Then it happened that a man fenced his farm with piles. - He burned the stakes before he put them into the ground to protect them from rotting. Suddenly the lindworm came snorting straight at the man. The man was not lazy, but thrust the firebrand into the dragon's throat, so that the monstrosity immediately burst. The land was freed from the beast. The people called their savior Wurmbrand, who then built a castle on the same spot and gave it his name. From then on, he also had the dragon with the firebrand in his coat of arms as a perpetual reminder."

Now the historians say that the first documented mention of Wurmbrand was Count Ottomar, who lived in 1130; what do they care about such old wives' tales!

Well, Saga smiled at such a statement of prudence and nodded kindly to the poet, when he used it, as it is told in the book.

So I sat in the inn at Stillfried - it was just miserable dog weather - in front of a stone jug of old wine and read a book, which I carried in my gun bag. There it was comforting to read: "What was also the old Germans pagan doctrine, one hears best from the wonderful Hausmärlein of the despised pious Aschenpössel and his proud mocking brothers, of the silly and lazy Heinzen, of the iron Heinrich, of the old Neidhartin and the like. Which, without writing, are always passed on orally to the descendants and are generally intended to teach fear of God, diligence in things, humility and good hope, because the most despised person is generally the very best". (Rollenhagen, preface to Froschmäuseler.)

Then the worm-burning legend came to me and I agreed with old Rollenhagen.

Another time I had hiked from Oberhollabrunn to the old healing place of Stronegg. Up on the local mountain, I sat in good company with myself, a bottle of good wine and an old book. There we held a very cozy conversation. The old book had been printed in 1680 post Christum natum; it was Jucundus Jucundissimus.

A venerable voice said to me then: ". . . . Thus we came together in this place, where the servants used to spin the yarn. Because it was the custom that one after the other had to tell a tale or other story. Then, to tell the truth, not only the noblewomen, but also I and the scribe had all our pleasure in such tales, so we often asked the old beggars to tell such tales and gave them a deuce more. -"

Thus the red thread was found. The people in their legends preserve many an invaluable memory, which fits into the frame as if by itself and completes the picture. Certainly it is the merit of the historical novel to spread light over some otherwise dark epoch of our prehistory, because to read the works, which scholars wrote for scholars, that is not everyone's preference.

Therefore, it should not be said that the novel may be carelessly worked. But where the historical picture shows a gap, there he may and must follow the old drawing to supplement the gap, and the whole color fresh. The author of the historical novel has to proceed not unlike the restorer of an ancient object that is fragmented. The museum preserves the fragments. The collector, on the other hand, if he is artistically minded and not a fool, makes the shapeless junk new by first having it cleaned of chronic dirt and rust by an art expert, then repairing the defective parts and freshening up the color, but replacing the missing parts in the proper form.

In such a newly acquired work of art, the art-lover has edification as well as pleasure, while he passes by the unrestored junk without attention, because he is not an archeologist to whom even the chronic dust incrustation seems both venerable and lovely.

Such restoration work on faded fairy tales, however, was my ambition.

Sleeping Beauty's castle of wonders had opened up to me, and the treasure of German antiquity lies enchanted within. There I found a forgotten, desolate state room; cobwebs covered the walls, rotten wallpaper hung down in faded shreds. Crushed household goods were lying around. So I tried to freshen up the faded splendor by retaining the old ornaments, and where time had irreparably destroyed, I carefully filled in the empty gaps in the wallpaper in the style of the old drawings, the old color scheme. - In this way, I transformed the desolate state room into what it had been before, into a glittering royal hall of German fame.

If I have really succeeded in this, I will have been amply rewarded for the value. Soon there will be other chambers in Schön-Dornröschens Wunderschloss; there are still enough of them. 

Vindomina, in July of the one thousand five hundred and thirteenth year after the destruction of Carnuntum.

The author.