Let us take up the various arguments in favor of the contention that
Heine knew Schreiber's Handbuch in 1823, beginning with the least
convincing. If Heine read Loeben's ballad and saga in "_Urania_ fUer
1821," he could thereby have learned also of Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_,
for, by a peculiar coincidence for our purpose, Brockhaus
discusses[66] these in the introduction in connection with a tragedy
by W. Usener, entitled Die BrUeder, and based upon one of Schreiber's
_Sagen_. Proof, then, that Heine knew Loeben in 1823 is almost proof
that he also knew Schreiber.
But there is better proof than this. In Elementargeister[67], we find
this sentence: "Ganz genau habe ich die Geschichte nicht im Kopfe;
wenn ich nicht irre, wird sie in Schreibers _Rheinischen Sagen_ aufs
umstAendlichste erzAehlt. Es ist die Sage vom Wisperthal, welches unweit
Lorch am Rheine gelegen ist." And then Heine tells the same story that
is told by Schreiber. It is the eighth of the seventeen _Sagen_ in
question. This, then, is proof that Heine knew Schreiber so long
before 1835 that he was no longer sure he could depend upon his
memory.
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