The king banished Wolf for betraying his lord.  But Wolf did not leave the country.  Instead he fled to his secret lair, a castle protected by the great precipice.

Now Duke Eberhard followed Wolf and encircled his hideout.  Wolf was trapped. The next morning, the knight tried to find any escape.  Wolf looked at the precipice. It had been formed by the River Murg below.  “I cannot give up.  Daring wins,” he decided.

Wolf mounted his horse and rode to the cliff’s edge.  The horse was terrified, but the knight urged him on.  Together they jumped off the rock face.  Wolf’s horse was killed when it landed in the river, but amazingly the knight escaped harm.  The faithful horse had died for his master’s high ambition.

Wolf’s survival was no miracle.  Miracles are different.  But there is a moral to the story. It is:  “Don’t put the wrong person on a high pedestal.”

The siege of Old Eberstein.  In the time after Charlemagne, during the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor Otto wanted to conquer the castle known as Old Eberstein.  The dukes who had retreated there would not accept his sovereignty and had allied with the emperor’s enemies in Strasbourg.  So Otto laid siege to the castle.

After lifting the siege on Old Eberstein, Emperor Otto is reconciled with the warrior Eberhard.

The siege went on and on.  Finally the emperor thought of a trick. He held a festival in Speyer, the main attraction of which was a jousting tournament. The emperor knew that the dukes could not resist such an invitation to show their mettle.  Sure enough, they left their haven, crossed the Rhine, and enjoyed the tournament. But the emperor felt that he could now win a greater victory.  The heart of the resistance was gone.  The foolish dukes had left their castle unguarded and vulnerable.

The duke of the castle was a great warrior named Eberhard.  He defeated all comers in the tournament.  His exploits were so dazzling that the emperor’s daughter Edeltrand fell in love with him.  Enamored, she whispered to Eberhard that the emperor would take the castle that night.