Undine Leaves Huldbrand on the Danube is the decisive separation between Undine and Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten: after a conflict over Bertalda’s necklace, Huldbrand rejects Undine’s gift and denounces her as a sorceress, and she disappears into the river. Her farewell makes the departure more than a marital quarrel. Undine still has ties to her water-spirit kin, but her love and her newly acquired soul make her suffering, warning, and restraint profoundly personal.

Causes and Background

The quarrel unfolds during a Danube voyage that had begun with hopes of pleasure but was repeatedly disrupted by Kuhleborn. He interfered with the boat through unruly waves and contrary winds; Undine rebuked him, only for the attacks to recur. Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten grew increasingly resentful. He privately blamed the union of a human being with a water spirit for the journey’s troubles, while excusing himself on the ground that he had not known Undine’s true nature when he married her. The repeated disturbances thus prepare the scene’s central conflict: Huldbrand experiences Undine’s supernatural connections as an affliction, even as she uses those connections to shield him.

Bertalda, who knew something of Undine’s origins but did not know Kuhleborn or understand his power, sat with the others aboard the vessel. She had received a gold necklace that Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten had recently bought for her from a travelling trader. As she drew it across the surface of the evening-tinted water, enjoying its glimmer, a huge hand emerged from the Danube, seized it, and vanished beneath the surface. A scornful laugh rose from the river. The theft brought the unseen water world directly into the company’s midst and gave Huldbrand a visible target for his anger.

The Necklace and the Rupture

Bertalda cried out and wept for the ornament, which was precious to her. Her distress intensified Huldbrand’s anger: he rose, cursed those who interfered with his family and his life, and challenged the spirits or sirens to face his avenging sword. Undine, meanwhile, dipped a hand into the river and murmured to herself. She pleaded with her husband not to scold her there, reminding him indirectly of the reason for her restraint. Her appeal briefly checked his words.

Undine then lifted from the water a brilliant coral necklace, dazzling to those aboard, and offered it to Bertalda as compensation for her loss. She explained that she had arranged for it to be brought to her and urged Bertalda not to grieve. The gesture joins compassion to supernatural authority: Undine can answer the river’s seizure with a gift from its depths, and she tries to repair the harm rather than punish Bertalda for it. But Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten tore the coral ornament from her hand and hurled it back into the river. He treated the gift as proof that Undine remained connected to her kin, called her a sorceress, and demanded that she leave mortals in peace. In rejecting the necklace, he rejected not only the offered consolation but the bond through which Undine had been trying to protect and reconcile those around her.

Farewell and Disappearance

Undine stared at him with tearful eyes, her hand still extended in the gesture of giving. Her distress deepened until she wept like an innocent child who had been cruelly wounded. She then told him that the water spirits would do him no harm if he remained true, because her fidelity and influence could keep them from him. She also announced that she had to leave, lamenting that the separation came so early in her life. The warning sets a condition on her protection while revealing the cost of the departure: she is not withdrawing affection, but surrendering her place beside him after his rejection of her connection to the water spirits.

Undine went over the side of the vessel and vanished. Those aboard could not tell whether she had plunged into the river or flowed away with it; the narrative deliberately leaves her passage between the two possibilities. The remaining little waves whispered around the boat like sobs, seeming to repeat her grief and her plea for fidelity. Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten lay on the deck, bathed in tears, and soon fell into a swoon. The scene reverses the earlier intimacy of their life together: the water that had sheltered their meeting and carried Undine’s gifts now becomes the medium through which she disappears.

Warning and Aftermath

Undine’s departure does not sever her concern for Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten. In a later dream, he sees her beneath the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, weeping beneath a crystal arch. When Kuhleborn reproaches her for mourning, she answers that she brought her soul with her and that her tears are blessed because a true soul dwells within her. The dream makes explicit what the Danube scene has enacted: though Undine has returned to the water, she has not returned to an emotionless existence or ceased to love the man who wounded her.

In the same vision, Kuhleborn observes that the laws of their element would require Undine to take Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten’s life if he married again and proved unfaithful. Undine replies that she has securely sealed the fountain against herself and her race. She has arranged for the knight to dream of this conversation as a warning, because he might otherwise leave Ringstetten Castle or allow the fountain to be opened. The departure therefore carries a continuing obligation: Undine is separated from him, yet still acts to warn and protect him, while the supernatural law surrounding his future remains in force.

The later reopening of the fountain at Ringstetten Castle shows how the separation returns as a visible presence. When the stone is lifted, a pale, veiled woman rises from the opening as a column of water and walks toward the castle, weeping. Bertalda recognizes Undine’s features beneath the veil. At Sir Huldbrand of Ringstetten’s funeral, a similarly veiled, sorrowing figure follows the procession and kneels by the grave before vanishing. These later appearances give the Danube farewell its tragic reach: Undine’s departure is not the end of her attachment, but the beginning of a grief that follows her husband back into the human world.