114 THE KING'S MIRROR 



borough; now, however, it is deserted, for no one dares 

 to dwell there. It was this event that caused the place 

 to be abandoned: all the people in the land believed 

 that the king who resided at Themar would always ren- 

 der just decisions and never do otherwise; although they 

 /^were heathen in other respects and did not have the 

 true faith concerning God, they held firmly to their be- 

 lief that every case would be decided properly if that 

 king passed upon it; and never, they thought, could an 

 unrighteous decision come from his throne. On what 

 seems to have been the highest point of the borough, 

 the king had a handsome and well built castle in which 

 was a large and beautiful hall, where he was accustomed 

 to sit in judgment. But once it happened that certain 

 lawsuits came before the king for decision in which his 

 friends and acquaintances were interested on the one 

 side, and he was anxious to support their contentions in 

 every way. But those who were interested in the suits 

 on the other side were hostile toward him, and he was 

 their enemy. So the outcome was that the king shaped 

 his decision more according to his own wish than to 

 justice. But because an unrighteous judgment had come 

 whence all people expected just decisions and because of 

 this popular belief, the judgment seat was overturned 

 and the hall and the castle likewise, even to their very 

 foundations. The site, too, was overturned, so that those 

 parts of the earth which had formerly pointed down- 

 ward were now turned upward; and all the houses and 

 halls were turned down into the earth and thus it has 

 been ever since. But because such a great miracle hap- 

 pened there, no one has since dared to inhabit the place, 



