THE RIDER ON THE WHITE HORSE (Der Schimmelreiter)
by Theodor Storm, 1888

The Rider on the White Horse, also translated as The White Horseman or The White Horse Rider (Der Schimmelreiter, was the last work published by the poet and storyteller Theodor Storm, who died in 1888 at the age of 70, a few months after its first publication. In many ways it is a summation of his work. The setting is the storm-battered coastland of North Friesland in the province of Schleswig, the subject of the disputes between Prussia and Denmark in the nineteenth century that ended, to Storm's personal satisfaction, with Prussian claims prevailing. Storm was born in the area, and he had an intimate knowledge of the local people and their ways, of the abundant and still unspoiled wildlife of the region, and of the folktales that were repeated by firesides on winter nights.

Storm presents The Rider on the White Horse through a number of narrative frames, gradually taking the reader farther and farther back from the present into the past in a manner that is typical of the German novella of the nineteenth century. A first-person narrator, whom we might well be tempted to identify with Storm himself, tells us how he once read a tale in an old magazine on which, of course, he cannot lay his hands any more. The author of the magazine article related how one stormy day he had set out to ride along the North Friesland shore in dirty weather when suddenly he saw what seemed to be a ghostly figure galloping on a white horse along the dike; the apparition was all the more eerie because he heard no sound of the hooves beating the ground. In some alarm the traveler went into the next inn he came to. When he related what he thought he had seen, there was a stir of interest, and after a little persuasion the village schoolmaster prepared to tell the old tale. The frame has served to transport us back from the present to a more remote past, and the skepticism of the schoolmaster in particular makes the reader more curious about the superstitious side of the story, which is packed full of homely detail about the everyday life of this rural community in a coastal region, where there is a constant duel between land and sea.

The basic concern of the community is reclaiming rich farming land from the shallow sea and protecting it from the waves and tides by maintaining dikes. The official in charge of this highly responsible task has the title of "dike master," an important personage in local affairs. But Tede Volkerts is old, idle, and stupid, and when the young, intelligent, and enterprising Hauke Haien enters his employ, what happens is predictable enough. Tede soon comes to rely on him, and though Hauke has to overcome the resentments of the older workers, he wins some respect by displaying physical prowess in the village winter games on the ice. He ends up, as good apprentices so often do in nineteenth-century fiction, by both marrying his master's daughter and taking over the office of dike master. He then sets out to implement a policy of further land reclamation, designing dikes on a new, more efficient model. Hauke's proposals meet with opposition from the local people, who do not wish to change their ways; they resent the intellectual superiority of a young man at whose social ascension they look askance.

All of this looks as though it belongs to the familiar traditions of nineteenth-century bourgeois optimism, with a certain novelty given by the rural setting, which can in turn be delightful and threatening. But there are darker forces at work too. When Hauke purchases a white horse from a mysterious stranger, there is whispering about the skeleton of a horse that used to lie on a sandbank, bleaching in the sun at low tide, and has now disappeared. There is also the blow of the birth to Hauke and his wife of a baby who is feebleminded, and Hauke is himself taken ill. While still weak, he consents to proposals made by an old rival for inadequate upkeep to the old dike, and in a storm the next winter the inevitable occurs. Hauke rides to the scene on his white horse, surveys the damage, and sees that his wife and daughter, instead of staying at home in a house on higher land, are in danger of being swept away by the swirling waters as they drive down to look for him. In despair, as if to expiate his guilt for not insisting on proper repairs and also it seems to satisfy the local superstition that a living sacrifice must be made if the breach is to be sealed, Hauke spurs his white horse and dashes into the water. He is drowned, and so is his family. The next morning the storm subsides, and, uncannily, it is said that the bones of a horse are seen again on the sandbank offshore.

The Rider on the White Horse is a gripping tale. Homely realism in the depiction of the existence of ordinary folk living close to the land and the sea provides a fine setting for a well-observed account of social pressures in a small community. Hauke is something of a romantic loner, though his marriage provides him with a measure of integration, and the conflict of a thoughtful man with the natural forces of the sea is another romantic theme. The exploration of superstitions adds another dimension, and Storm's clever narrative technique, which includes effective use of symbols, enhances a tragic story that has been acclaimed as one of the finest examples of the German novella.

—Christopher Smith