Castling

“ The king cannot castle after having been once moved, nor when any piece stands between him and the rook, nor if he is in check, nor when he has to cross a square commanded by an adverse piece or pawn, nor into check. It will be perceived that after castling with the king’s rook the latter will occupy the KB square, while the king stands on the KKt square, and if with the queen’s rook, the latter will occupy the queen’s square while the king stands on the QB square. ”

“ Popert and another fine player of London.
[A] Castling before moving the Q. B. P., and before the adverse K. Kt. is in the field, appears safer play.
[B] Threatening to exchange the Kt., and then take Q. B. P. with the Rook.
[C] Intending again to take the Kt., and thus win a Pawn.
[D] Well played, the advance of this Pawn secures to him an irresistible attack.
[E] Transcriber's Note: This move is notated as the impossible 22... Q. R. to Q's 6th. in the original text.
[86] Game VIII.—Between Mr. Buckle and Mr. Harrwitz. ”

“ And by the castle walls runs an enchanted river, in which live beautiful water-witches, that sing in the moonlight, and draw the lonely home-returning knight down into their watery bowers. In the castle itself is one tower loftier than all the rest, with windows on every side, through which you can see, as in a magic glass, the whole wide earth, with its cities and its roads and all its hidden places. ”

“ A quarter of a mile from the great historic ruin is the modern castle, built mainly of stone from the ancient structure early in the eighteenth century, with oak-panelled rooms, many quaint gables, stained glass, and long, echoing corridors—a residence well adapted for entertaining on a lavish scale, the front overlooking the beautiful glen, and the back with level lawns and stretch of undulating park, well wooded and full of picturesque beauty. ”

“ Pointing to the rock, she showed him an opening just big enough for a man to wriggle through. Passing into it, they entered a long underground passage, which led out on to a wide field, above which spread a blue sky. In the middle of the field stood a magnificent castle, built out of porphyry, with a roof of gold and with glittering battlements. And his beautiful guide told him that this was the palace in which her father lived and reigned over his kingdom in the Under-world. ”

“ Few men have done so much for their country as he. However, having no guide-book, we were none the wiser for what we saw out of the window of the rail-carriage; but, now and then, a castle appeared, on a commanding height, visible for miles round, and seemingly in good repair,—now, in some low and sheltered spot, the gray walls of an abbey; now, on a little eminence, the ruin of a border fortress, and near it the modern residence of the laird, with its trim lawn and shrubbery. ”

“ Though the old castle is in decay, everything about it thrives; the very crevices of the walls are tenanted by swallows, rooks, and pigeons, all sure of quiet lodgment; the ivy strikes its roots deep in the fissures, and flourishes about the mouldering tower. ”

“ And every castle has its domestic legend of faithful or unfaithful love, of broken hopes or baffled treachery. Story, ballad, and tradition have breathed a soul into every tumbling tower and crumbling wall. ”

“ Nothing can be more noble or interesting than the true thirteenth or fourteenth century castle, when built in a difficult position, its builder taking advantage of every inch of ground to gain more room, and of every irregularity of surface for purposes of outlook and defence; so that the castle sate its rock as a strong rider sits his horse—fitting its limbs to every writhe of the flint beneath it; and fringing the mountain promontory far into the sky with the wild crests of its fantastic battlements. ”

“ The young man walked round and round the castle, not caring who saw him, till the King noticed him, and asked what he was doing there. 'I was just looking at your castle.' 'You would like to have one like it, wouldn't you?' The young man did not reply, but when it grew dark he took his snuff-box and opened the lid. 'What do you want?' 'Build me a castle with laths of gold and tiles of diamond, and the furniture all of silver and gold.' He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in front of him, exactly opposite the King's palace, a castle built precisely as he had ordered. ”

“ The castle of my fathers is planted high up on a ledge of rock, but so that the conical roofs of the tower just reach above the level of the plain. My mother having poor health, and having no other place to walk save one tiny platform before the castle on the edge of the abyss, took it into her head to create for herself a garden at the summit of the crag on which we were perched midway. ”

“ From the land side the castle looks perhaps even more stern and severe, and like the fortress it was in old days. Not a window is to be seen, only the bare fortifications and the old walls clad with ivy, almost as old to all appearance as the walls themselves.
What appeals to one most is the restfulness and quiet of the place. The old castle, with its towers and battlements, its cloisters and courtyard, stands just as it has stood for centuries. You are out of the world here, the bustling, hurrying, work-a-day world of to-day, and back again in a world of two or three hundred years ago. ”

“ With the sunlight on its turrets is the castle seen,
Calm and very wonderful, white above the green
Of the wet and waving forest, slanted all away,
Because the driving Northern wind will not rest by night or day.
Yet the towers are sure above, very mighty is the stead,
The gates are made of ivory, the roofs of copper red.
Round and round the warders grave walk upon the walls for ever
And the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory,
Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the gods nor man's endeavour,
And it shall be a resting-place, dear heart, for you and me. ”

“ The site of the castle is admirable. My approach was to the western extremity; which, as you look down, brings the village and church of Arques in the back ground. If the eye were to be considered as a correct judge, this venerable pile, composed of hard flint-stone, intermixed with brick, would perhaps claim precedence, on the score of antiquity, over most of the castles of the middle ages. A deep moat, now dry pasture land, with a bold acclivity before you, should seem to bid defiance, even in times of old, to the foot and the spear of the invader. ”

“ I have always denied that the chief merit of a castle consists in its being haunted, and the simple-minded people who inhabit this old England of ours look to the circumstance of their houses being comfortable to live in, free from draughts and bad smells, large enough to entertain their friends, and possessed of good kitchen arrangements, rather than to their being the residence of any supernatural beings such as those of which you and your castles appear to be so proud. ”

“ They never appear so pretty as when coming in and out of their nests under the eaves of a house or barn, and still more in the buttresses and angles of an old castle. “Their loved mansionry” gives an additional impression of the beauty their “pendent beds and procreant cradles” add to the rough old castle which itself is brought finely out from the canvass by the light reflecting from each jutty frieze, buttress and coigne of vantage. ”

“ Quite near the city of G——, coming from the south, may be seen a castle in the style of the middle age, which seems like a stone giant, to watch the road through the openings in a wood of pines that surrounds it. Behind this residence, is spread out a grand park all covered with shade and mystery. The solitude which reigns in the castle strikes a chill to your heart like the air from a tomb; and it is with difficulty that the old porter deigns to inform the curious traveller that this was the residence of the late counsellor of state Reutlinger. ”

“ When the surrender, or the turning over, of the castle took place, all the population, including women and children, marched en masse upon the structure, and wall by wall and stone by stone dismantled it, leaving it in the condition one sees it to-day. A castle of sorts still exists, but it is a mere wraith of its former self. ”

“ But all the impressions produced by the castle at a distance are as nothing when you stand within its vast area and behold the architecture of all ages blended into one mighty ruin! The rich hues of the masonry, the sweeping facades—every description of building which man ever framed for war or for luxury—is here; all having only the common character,—RUIN. The feudal rampart, the yawning fosse, the rude tower, the splendid arch, the strength of a fortress, the magnificence of a palace,—all united, strike upon the soul like the history of a fallen empire in all its epochs. ”

“ The rattling of the chains of the drawbridge was heard, and the sound of opening the ponderous castle gates, followed by the tramping of a horse in the courtyard, and the heavy footsteps of a steel-clad warrior on the stone stairs, and a tall, martial-looking figure, but with melancholy gait and drooping head, entered the room and made a profound obeisance to the lady of the castle, but without speaking a word of salutation. ”

“ In winter, the banquet room is lighted up with large torches, and a band of minstrels make the castle resound with their songs and roundelays. You may hear occasionally the trampling of horses, even when the company are set at table, and see a number of young gallants, of knights, too, and minstrels, coming through the great stone entrance, mounted on steeds richly caparisoned, and clad in fantastic vestments of green and gold, with high caps and ribands. ”

“ They soon—having gold in abundance—got possession of a cottage; and in a marvellously short time the castle, which yet bears his name, was rebuilt by this lord. Many affirm that the lord by the force of his enchantments, and the lady by the spell of her voice, compelled the spirits of the earth and air to work for them; and that three nights were sufficient to rear an enormous pile, of which but one tower now remains. ”

“ Comparing this charitable brother with the uncharitable sister, who had visited me yesterday, how much more elevated was the natural feeling of this peasant, than the obtrusive refinement of the so-called higher classes.--On the top of the hill it was indeed beautiful. With the exception of a small chapel and a solitary tower which remain intact, the castle is in ruins; only a few fragments of walls, thickly covered with ivy, are standing. Luxuriant grass grows beneath them, tribes of lizards rustle over the sunny stones. ”

“ Bows of queer-shaped trees are on each side of us; up yonder, in front, is a graveyard on a braeland; farther to the right a tall church spire, and flanking all, and peeping through the greenery of trees, is the ruined castle. ”

“ In the widest part of the dale you are struck with the appearance of an ancient ruined castle, which seems to stand upon the summit of a little mount, the mountains around forming an amphitheatre. This massive bulwark shews a front of various towers, and makes an awful, rude, and Gothic appearance, with its lofty turrets and rugged battlements: we traced the galleries, the bending arches, the buttresses. The greatest antiquity stands characterized in its architecture; the inhabitants near it assert it is an antidiluvian structure. ”

“ The castle is but a thing of yesterday. King Stephen's time or thereabout, in that retrospect. One climbs the pitch of perforation, and there one is lifted to the centre of far more than a hemisphere of view. ”

“ They possessed, however, the privilege of returning to their natural state every seventh day, from sunrise to sunrise, till the silvery stars on the horizon began to grow pale; then the spell spread with the falling of the morning dew over the land,—the castle changed into a steep inaccessible rock—the beautiful park into a dismal solitude—the fountains and cascades into dim and muddy pools—the lord of the castle became a shaggy bear—the knights and squires badgers and martens—the ladies of honour and chambermaids owls and bats, which cooed and wailed all day and night. ”

“ The house is a castle which the king cannot enter. ”

“ Well, that castle was built by a bad giant who lived here in former times; and he balanced it like that on the tip of the rock, and only he had the secret of walking into it. If any one else steps into it, they are pretty sure of stepping on the wrong place, and down will go the whole castle overbalanced into the abyss. ”

“ The castle stands high among vast, sharp-edged waves of sand at the edge of a cliff, and looks at the sea and a long, empty shore. At its feet a little river can be seen running in a narrow valley. A few miles off it rises in the red moorland, then it falls with many a cascade down ladders of crag, broadens among willows where long leaves are all horizontal in the wind, and here by the castle it has reached an elvish, merry old age already, as it moves clear over the brown stones and out among the rocks to the sea. ”

“ Man says to master, ‘Master, the man that got the lady can get the castle.’ Boy tells horse. Horse reminds him of unlucky feather. Three more days and bags of gold. They go. Horse reminds boy of giant’s promise. Giant puts chain round castle and drags it along. The castle is walled round and locked. Lady demands her keys. ”

“ So they looked before them and saw a castle that was seated in the plain without the forest, and they saw that it was set in a right fair meadow-land, and was surrounded of great running waters and girdled of high walls, and had within great halls with windows. They draw nigh the castle and see that it turneth all about faster than the wind may run, and it had at the top the archers of crossbows of copper that draw their shafts so strong that no armour in the world might avail against the stroke thereof. ”