The Project Gutenberg EBook of Undine, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

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Title: Undine

Author: Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

Commentator: Charlotte M. Yonge

Posting Date: January 8, 2009 [EBook #2825]
Release Date: September, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDINE ***

Produced by Sandra Laythorpe

UNDINE

By Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

With foreword by Charlotte M Yonge

Introduction

Four tales are, it is said, intended by the Author to be appropriate to
the Four Seasons: the stern, grave "Sintram", to winter; the tearful,
smiling, fresh "Undine", to Spring; the torrid deserts of the "Two
Captains", to summer; and the sunset gold of "Aslauga's Knight", to
autumn. Of these two are before us.

The author of these tales, as well as of many more, was Friedrich, Baron
de la Motte Fouque, one of the foremost of the minstrels or tale-tellers
of the realm of spiritual chivalry--the realm whither Arthur's knights
departed when they "took the Sancgreal's holy quest,"--whence Spenser's
Red Cross knight and his fellows came forth on their adventures, and in
which the Knight of la Mancha believed, and endeavoured to exist.

La Motte Fouque derived his name and his title from the French Huguenot
ancestry, who had fled on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His
Christian name was taken from his godfather, Frederick the Great,
of whom his father was a faithful friend, without compromising his
religious principles and practice. Friedrich was born at Brandenburg on
February 12, 1777, was educated by good parents at home, served in the
Prussian army through disaster and success, took an enthusiastic part
in the rising of his country against Napoleon, inditing as many
battle-songs as Korner. When victory was achieved, he dedicated his
sword in the church of Neunhausen where his estate lay. He lived there,
with his beloved wife and his imagination, till his death in 1843.

And all the time life was to him a poet's dream. He lived in a continual
glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities
of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation,