Bertalda Flees into the Black Valley and Is Rescued is a perilous episode in which a quarrel at Ringstetten Castle becomes a supernatural test of loyalty and courage. Bertalda flees in shame, Huldbrand follows her into a valley haunted by Kuhleborn, and a seemingly helpful driver turns rescue into a renewed threat. Their survival depends on Undine, whose command of the flood reveals the force she can wield to protect them.

Cause and Flight

The crisis begins after Undine asks Huldbrand to leave a stone in place rather than have it removed. Bertalda arrives with workmen already ordered to carry out the removal. Huldbrand firmly refuses, rebukes her for her treatment of his wife, and sends the workmen away. Pale with rage, Bertalda withdraws to her room. When she fails to appear for the evening meal, the household searches for her and finds her apartments empty. The only trace she has left is a sealed letter to Huldbrand, in which she calls herself a poor fisher-girl, says she will atone for having forgotten her origins, and announces that she is returning to her parents’ cottage.

Undine is distressed and urges Huldbrand to go after their friend. He needs no urging: his affection for Bertalda surges back, and he searches the castle grounds for news of her departure. A page reports seeing her on the path to the Black Valley. Huldbrand rides after her immediately, without hearing Undine call from the window that he must not go there—or beg him to take her with him. When she sees that he has gone, Undine has her white palfrey saddled and follows alone, without a servant. Her decision places her on the same dangerous road, though the others do not yet know she is coming.

Into the Black Valley

The valley lies deep among the mountains, where high trees, especially firs, cast the low ground into obscurity. Even the brook between the rocks appears dark, unlike a stream beneath open sky. As evening deepens, the place grows wilder and more ominous. Huldbrand follows the brook, caught between two fears: that delay will let Bertalda get too far ahead, and that haste will cause him to miss her if she is hiding. He worries about where she will spend the stormy night if he fails to find her.

A white shape glimmers through the branches on a mountain slope. Huldbrand thinks it is Bertalda and turns toward it, but his horse refuses the way, rearing at the impassable copse. He ties the animal to an elm and pushes through the bushes on foot. Though cold evening dew falls from the branches onto his face, he keeps going. The figure lies still in long white garments like those Bertalda wore that day. Huldbrand calls her name, first softly and then more loudly; only the valley’s cavernous echo answers. He cannot make out the figure’s features in the failing light. When lightning suddenly illuminates it, the supposed sleeper reveals a frightfully distorted face and speaks in a hollow voice, demanding a kiss.

Huldbrand recognizes the apparition as Kuhleborn and hurls his sword at him. The figure vanishes like vapor, leaving a gush of water to soak the knight and confirm the nature of his attacker. Huldbrand understands that Kuhleborn is trying to frighten him away from Bertalda and recover her for vengeance. Rather than retreat, he draws courage from the thought that a human heart can answer danger with its strongest efforts. He then hears Bertalda weeping through the thunder and finds her trying to climb the steep slope out of the valley.

The False Rescue and the Flood

Bertalda, exhausted and shaken, welcomes Huldbrand’s rescue and follows him back toward his horse. The animal, made uncontrollable by the apparition, rears and foams; it is impossible to put her on its back. Huldbrand leads it by the bridle while supporting Bertalda, but she is too weary to continue. When she sinks onto the moss, she says she must perish there as punishment for her folly. Huldbrand insists he will not leave her. Yet when he moves a few paces away to keep the panicked horse from frightening her further, Bertalda calls after him, believing he is abandoning her. He cannot safely release the animal in the narrow defile, where it might trample her.

A slowly descending wagon offers help. Its driver arrives with two gray horses and says an evil water-spirit haunts the valley. He claims to know a charm, whispers into Huldbrand’s horse’s ear, and calms it at once. Because the knight’s mount is too exhausted to carry him, the driver persuades Huldbrand to ride in the wagon with Bertalda among its soft cotton bales, while the horse is fastened behind. The apparent kindness gives them a moment of shelter and, as the storm recedes into the distance, Huldbrand and Bertalda begin a confidential conversation. His affectionate reproaches and her humble, emotional answers renew the intimacy between them.

That safety proves deceptive. Huldbrand looks out and sees the gray horses wading into a foaming stream, with the wagon wheels spinning through the water. The driver insists that the road is not entering the stream; instead, the rising stream is covering the road. The whole valley is filling with a flood. Huldbrand identifies Kuhleborn as the force behind it and asks whether the driver has another charm. The man says he has one, but cannot use it until Huldbrand knows who he is. He then reveals that he is Kuhleborn. His face distorts as he thrusts it into the wagon; wagon and horses dissolve into foam, and the driver rises as a gigantic billow. The wave drags the struggling horse beneath the water and swells over Huldbrand and Bertalda, threatening to bury them.

Undine’s Intervention and Return

Undine’s voice breaks through the uproar. The moon emerges from the clouds, showing her on the heights above the valley as she rebukes and threatens the flood. The tower-like wave vanishes, muttering, and the water subsides into a gentle flow in the moonlight. Undine flies down from the slope, takes Huldbrand and Bertalda to a grassy place on the hill, and uses refreshing restoratives to ease their terror and exhaustion. She then helps Bertalda onto the white palfrey she rode into the valley. The three return together to Ringstetten Castle.

The rescue reverses the episode’s apparent pattern of abandonment. Bertalda first leaves the castle in shame; Huldbrand follows her into a place where the darkness conceals a hostile spirit; and the supposed guide who offers safe passage becomes the flood’s author. The final deliverance comes not from the knight’s sword or the driver’s charm, but from Undine’s direct intervention. Once safe, Huldbrand and Bertalda share a confidential conversation in the wagon, while Undine’s arrival and protection make their return possible. The episode thus binds their renewed closeness to the danger from which Undine saves them, and makes the valley’s false refuge and rising waters the contrast against which her genuine aid becomes unmistakable.