Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 17 -- Underground Rivers in Continental Fiction
Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
published Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus (1669, The
Adventurous Simplicissimus), chronicling portions of the
Thirty Years War, but not constrained to bellicose history.
Grimmelshausen’s protagonist, the speculative
Simplicissimus, visits Lake Mummelsee, the portal to an
underworld not unlike that of Greek mythology.
I did inspect the lake, and found lying in it certain hewn
timbers of the Würtemberg raft; and I by geometry took
or estimated the length and breadth of the water (for
‘twas far too wearisome to go round the lake and
measure it by paces or feet), and entered the
dimensions, by means of the scale reduction, in my
tablets.
I walked along the lake to the left, where the water, which
elsewhere is as clear as a crystal, doth begin, by reason
of the monstrous depth, to show as black as coal, and
therefore is so dreadful of appearance that the mere look
of it doth terrify. And there I began to cast in stones as
great as I could carry.
[I] turned not mine eyes away from the depths of the
lake, expecting to see certain bladders or bubbles rising
up from the bottom, as is wont to happen when stones
are thrown into deep water whether still or running
Yet saw I naught of the kind, but was ware of certain creatures floating far down in the depths
which in form reminded me of frogs, and flitted about like sparks from a mounting rocket which
in the air doth work its full effect, and as they came nearer and nearer to me they seemed to
grow larger and more like to human form, at which at first great wonder took hold of me, a great
fear and trembling. "Ah," said I then to myself in my terror and wonder, and yet so loud that my
dad, that stood beyond the lake, could her me, though the noise of the thunder was dreadful,
"how great are the wondrous works of the Creator! yea, even in the womb of the earth and the
depths of the waters!"
Simplicissimus is spokesperson of the Natural Philosophy of his times (Chapter 13,
Hydrotheology/Theohydrology). The flittering water spirits then guide him to the center of the
earth where the traveler unfortunately (for us, at least) ceases to maintain his hydrological journal.
Charles Perrault (one of the talented brothers we met in Chapter 12, Superterranean Metrics)
did not invent the moralistic plots of his stories, but gave literary legitimacy to what were already
folk tales. Modern readers know his Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (1697, Tales and
Stories of the Past with Morals) by its subtitle Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oie, Tales of Mother
Goose.
Within Mother Goose were Blue Beard, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots
and Cinderella. (We'll get to Walt Disney, who capitalized greatly on such lore, but not until
Chapter 24, Underground Rivers in the Comics.)
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