The Cooper of Auerbach

"The Cooper is tasting his wine." Country folk whisper about a fragrant perfume of wine that sometimes steals into the air.  When asked for the reason of this saying, they share a story.

Once as the sun shone golden on the vine-clad hills, grapes deepened in purple color. A peasant passing by the ruined castle of Auerbach smelled the perfume of wine.

A little man with leather apron stained with wine stood and looked up at him with a twinkle in his eyes.

"So, my friend, you think upon the wine, eh? Come and spend an hour with me and you shall taste it."

As the cooper spoke a scent rose like incense about him. The peasant's brain reeled with delight.

The peasant followed the little man, tripping under the vines, through thorn hedges and over crumbling walls till they came to a flight of ancient steps that led down to a cellar door.

The door opened into dusky vaults and from a nitch in the wall the little man took a candle and a huge bowl. He went over the moist floor until there rose before them in the candlelight, a gigantic cask called a tun. In a crooning murmur the cooper began to tell of his possessions.

He called the vaults his realm, the tuns his dearly loved subjects. They glittered like gold to the peasant. At this the cooper laughed and said that the wine had fashioned its own casks, gleaming crusts, from which the ancient wood had fallen away long ago..

Next he filled the huge bowl with glowing wine and drank to the peasant.When the cooper put a filled bowl into the peasant's hands, the fellow emptied it in one gulp. He breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

With rapture he sang the praises of the wine but the cooper assured him that even better would come. Again he was led from cask to cask. Mad with delight, the peasant sang aloud but the song broke into wild howling. He danced about the tuns then fell to embracing them, stroking and kissing them saying love words to the dusky fragrant wind.

He drank on and on until joyful tears ran down his face. Before his eyes, the tuns danced round him in a giddy whirl. Then he felt into a deep sleep.

When the peasant awakened the next morning his body lay stretched in a muddy ditch with his lips pressed to clammy moss. Stumbling to his feet he looked around for the door to the wine vault. He searched carefully yet never could find it.

He never saw the little cooper with his leather apron and ruddy face again.