The Treasure of the Rosenau
However, it soon turned out that the
tenant was a lousy landlord. In reality, he was no a landlord at all, but a vagabond who
had heard about the legendary Maiden of Rosenau, who, in days long gone by, had been cursed and sunk
into the earth together with her treasure. That treasure had never been found, it was told
at night in sinister taverns. Two lads from Honnef had once tried it, but had come back
screaming - as they say, a dragon with a fiery mouth had interfered. To him that
could not happen, the alleged tenant thought, he was made of sterner stuff.
Every night he sneaked outside, dug holes into the earth and fooled around with explosives. Doing so, he frightened humans and animals and destroyed the environment.
One night, as he set to work
again, a maiden in a medieval garment appeared in front of him. It was
Roshain, the Maiden of Rosenau, "Say,
don’t you realize that you are not getting anywhere?" she asked,
"You
destroy everything around here for nothing. Don’t you see that there is no treasure?"
The alleged tenant threw a clod at her, "You witch, you won’t drive me insane. Just come with your dragon with the fiery mouth, I’m not leaving without the treasure." Roshain did not move an inch, just said calmly, "I ‘d rather you came to your senses and left on your own accord. If not – just as well."
After this encounter the alleged tenant went on in an even more reckless way. Then Roshain appeared again, this time accompanied by a dragon. "You again? What do you want now?" the alleged tenant yelled at her, "you get on my nerves!" "Just help you a bit," Roshain said calmly, "look, the fuse in not well fixed."
She took the fuse and held it close to his bottom. The dragon cleared his throat, spit a bit fire and boom ..
the alleged tenant disappeared and never came back.
