"Der blonde Eckbert" is a Romantic fairy tale written by Ludwig Tieck at the end of the eighteenth century.
For some literary scholars and historians, the publication of Eckbert represents the beginning of a specifically German romantic movement.
[2][3] Eckbert lives an idyllic life, secluded in a castle deep within a forest in the Harz Mountains, with his wife Bertha.
For instance: "Waldeinsamkeit, Mich wieder freut, Mir geschieht kein Leid, Hier wohnt kein Neid, Von neuem mich freut, Waldeinsamkeit" Bertha and the old woman find this arrangement pleasing, but Bertha yearns to meet a knight from the stories she has read.
After six years of living with the old woman, Bertha steals a bag of precious stones and departs the home, taking the bird with her.
She rents a house and gets a housekeeper, but she feels threatened by the fact that the bird keeps singing louder, about how he misses the forest.
His paranoia and suspicions grow more intense after he realized that Walther revealed the name of Bertha's dog, Strohmian, when she never mentioned it during the story.
After the death of his wife and friend, Eckbert finds solace in frequent excursions from his home and befriends a knight named Hugo.
The old woman tells Eckbert that she was Walther and Hugo, at the same time, and that he and Bertha are half-siblings from the same noble father.
[7] The characters experience a range of physical and psychological problems, including, amnesia, abuse, abandonment, incest, immorality and illness.
From the outset, the idea of longing Sehnsucht, or a deep emotional bond through a strong interpersonal relationship, drives the story forward.
The old woman in the woods owns a powerful, gem-laying bird and performs magical acts such as transforming into multiple people.
He considered Roscoe's and the Popular Tales and Romances translations "usually fair", with Roscoe's translation "succinct and to the point, but unable to convey every finesse of meaning", while Popular Tales and Romances "fails to attain literalness, often produces a false effect and is not infrequently inaccurate", "a trifle better" than Hare and Froude's translation, which he considered "poor and inaccurate in both substance and form", and "literally full of errors".
[19] A revised version of Carlyle's translation was included in German Literary Fairy Tales (1983) as "Fair-haired Eckbert", edited by Robert M. Browning and Frank G.