A rich cathedral gloom pervades the pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the moss they fairly seem to burn.

But the weirdest effect, and the most enchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon sun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused light takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland.

The suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at all times is intensified by this unearthly glow.
We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black Forest stories have pictured them.

The first genuine specimen which we came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common Council of the parish or district.

He was an important personage in the land and so was his wife also, of course.
His daughter was the "catch" of the region, and she may be already entering into immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels, for all I know.