The stomach of the last ox

After the male line of the lords of Fels died out, their possessions passed to the knight Walther, who from then on wielded unlimited power as lord of the castle and would acknowledge no overlord.

This vexed Count John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and he sent a captain with troops before the castle of Fels, with instructions to summon the defiant knight to submit to the king and, should he refuse, to storm the castle.

When the soldiery advanced on Fels, Walther was in Italy; but his faithful castle warden, to whom he had handed over the government of his lordship on departing, quickly took every measure to put the stronghold in a state of defence. He succeeded in beating the attackers back from the walls time after time.

But as the siege dragged on and the provisions melted away fast, the situation soon became very awkward. All the cattle in the castle had already been slaughtered and eaten. Only one ox was left.

The warden ordered that one slaughtered too, the stomach emptied and filled with wheat, and thrown over the walls during the night.

When the enemy found the stomach in the morning and saw what was in it, they gave up hope of forcing the castle to surrender by hunger, and marched away.

This success made Walther more defiant still, and on no condition would he agree to swear the oath of fealty to the king.

Then the king came himself with a division of his soldiery, and since Walther would still not submit, the storming of his castle began at once. He defended himself like a lion, but what could his small number do against such odds? Soon the flames leapt up from the stormed castle.

Then Walther, with a desperate leap, broke through the ranks of his attackers and stood, glaring wildly about him, at the edge of the deep castle well. Alive, he cried in fury, you shall not have me. And he threw himself into the yawning depth.

His faithful warden, who had not left his side, tried to hold the raging man back, but leaned too far forward and fell, dragged down by the weight of his armour, after his lord into the deep.

So the castle of Fels came into the power of John the Blind.