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Fortunately for us, Oswald von Wolkenstein was an autobiographical poet. This last of the Minnesingers was likewise a political personage, Oswald von Wolkenstein 3 took a very active part in the events of his time, and led so restless and adventurous a life that one marvels how he found time to learn, much less to practise, all the quaint devices and precepts of the minstrels art. That special school of poetry was already on the wane, but although, later on, Oswald discarded its stricter conventions, he never adopted the artificialities of the rising Meister singers, but evolved a style of his own, roughly dramatic, spontaneous, realistic, and pulsing with the life of his mountain people. But as our first concern is with the personal life of this remarkable man, detailed mention of his works must be deferred to a future chapter. Born in 1367, two centuries later than Walter von der Vogelweid, he probably uttered his first cry in the family castle of Trostburg, at a short distance from his great predecessors birthplace across the valley. Oswald was the second son of Friedrich von Wolkenstein and {Catherine von Villanders. His parents marriage had united two branches 4 Oswald von Wolkenstein of the same stock, and his mother, as sole heiress of Eckhart von Villanders, added much territory, including the fief of Trostburg, to her husbands possessions. The Wolkensteins were already feudal lords of the Grodnerthal, and their lands spread southwards up to Kastelruth and Seis at the foot of the Schlern. Their earliest stronghold stood on the moun tain side guarding their hamlet of Wolkenstein at the mouth of the Langethal a romantic avenue of peaks that branches off from the head of the Grodner valley near the giant Dolomites of the Sella and LangKofel groups. Local tradition has it that the founder of the line was an Italian chieftain who, driven from his own country by Attilas hordes, sought refuge in this remote spot, and mastering its few inhabitants built his eyrie on the flank of the Stevia. But, according to more authentic authorities, the Wolkensteins were a branch of the Villanders of Villanders near Klausen on the Eisach and only obtained the Langethal Castle by purchase, in 1309, from its original Oswald von Wolkenstein 5 owners the Maulrappen. A ruined tower, scarcely distinguishable from the yellow preci pice to which it clings, is all that remains of this Wolkenstein nest, for the bulk of the building was buried under a landslip centuries ago. In any case the family had risen to prosperity and power long before the days of Knight Oswald, and Grodnerthal chroniclers proudly maintain that he was born at Schloss Wolken stein. It is a poetic belief, for there could be no fitter cradle for a minstrel knighterrant than this wildly beautiful valley where daring peaks stand like flashing golden swords against the sky, and u forests perilous darkly frame flower gemmed meads and crystal streams. The ques tion could be settled had the month of his birth been recorded, for his parents only used the mountain fortress as a summer abode. So there are many chances to one that Oswald first saw the light in the warm panelled chambers of the Trostburg.

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