umständlichste erzählt. 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. But it is impossible to say whether Heine's memory was good
for twelve years, or more, or less.

But there is better evidence than this. Heine's _Der Rabbi von
Bacharach_ reaches far back into his life. That he intended to write
this sort of work before 1823 has been proved;[68] just when he
actually began to write this particular work is not so clear, but we
know that he did much preliminary reading by way of preparing himself
for its composition. And the region around and above and below
Bacharach comes in for detailed discussion and elaborate description
in Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_. The crusades, the _Sankt-Wernerskirchen_,
Lorch, the _Fischfang_, Hatto's _Mäuseturm_, the maelstrom at Bingen,
the _Kedrich_, the story of the _Kecker Reuter_ who liberated the maid
that had been abducted by dwarfs, and again, and this is irrefutable,
the story "von dem wunderlicheft Wisperthale drüben, wo die Vögel ganz
vernünftig sprechen," all of these and others play a large role in
Schreiber's sagas and in Heine's _Rabbi_. No one can read Schreiber's
_Handbuch_ and Heine's _Rabbi_ without being convinced that the former
stood sponsor for the latter.

And lastly, Heine wrote before 1821 his poem entitled "Die zwei
Brüder."[69] It is the tenth of the seventeen _Volkssagen_ by
Schreiber, the same theme as the one treated by W. Usener already
referrred to. It is an old story,[70] and Heine could have derived his
material from a number of places, but not from Grimm's _Deutsche_