Excerpt from Legends of the Rhine I was indeed deeply touched, and my thoughts travelled back to the days of long, long ago when as a little chap in my native Bonn, I had first listened with interest to the melodious voices of the golden-haired daughters of old Albion who came in large numbers to reside in the famous university town. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine" by Lewis Spence. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Rhine River is Europe’s most important commercial waterway, channeling the flow of trade among Switzerland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In this innovative study, Mark Cioc focuses on the river from the moment when the Congress of Vienna established a multinational commission charged with making the river more efficient for purposes of trade and commerce in 1815. He examines the engineering and administrative decisions of the next century and a half that resulted in rapid industrial growth as well as profound environmental degradation, and highlights the partially successful restoration efforts undertaken from the 1970s to the present. The Rhine is a classic example of a “multipurpose” river -- used simultaneously for transportation, for industry and agriculture, for urban drinking and sanitation needs, for hydroelectric production, and for recreation. It thus invites comparison with similarly over-burdened rivers such as the Mississippi, Hudson, Colorado, and Columbia. The Rhine’s environmental problems are, however, even greater than those of other rivers because it is so densely populated (50 million people live along its borders), so highly industrialized (10% of global chemical production), and so short (775 miles in length). Two centuries of nonstop hydraulic tinkering have resulted in a Rhine with a sleek and slender profile. In their quest for a perfect canal-like river, engineers have modified it more than any other large river in the world. As a consequence, between 1815 and 1975, the river lost most of its natural floodplain, riverside vegetation, migratory fish, and biodiversity. Recent efforts to restore that biodiversity, though heartening, can have only limited success because so many of the structural changes to the river are irreversible. The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000 makes clear just how central the river has been to all aspects of European political, economic, and environmental life for the past two hundred years.

In the dark days after the events in the book Gust Front, but before the primary invasion, the Chancellor of Germany faces a critical decision.

Based on the story of Siegfried the dragon slayer, and the fall of the Burgundian Royal House, against a background of brawling gods and bawdy goddesses, tempestuous heroes and determined heroines, black-hearted villains, and sorcerers and trolls. 'Rhinegold' is a combination of history and legend, family drama and heroic battles.

“A writer with . . . vision and scope . . . breathtaking, shimmering prose.”—Anne Rice The armies of Charlemagne are poised to conquer Italy. The human side of shapeshifter Maeniel owes allegiance to Charlemagne. But the wolf acknowledges no master. Still, it is as both wolf and man that he embarks on a hazardous mission for the emperor. Captured, Maeniel is condemned to death. Now, with the help of a Saxon warrior whose love poses dangers of its own, Maeniel’s soul mate, Regeane, will brave the icy crags and crevices of the Alps to rescue her husband, only to find that he is the bait in a trap set for her by a villainous man from her darkest past. But there is another enemy at work. Behind the tangle of ambitions and animosities driving kings and commoners alike, an ancient evil thirsts for a revenge of its own: a revenge that demands the blood of Maeniel and Regeane…and of all humanity. “Action and intrigue-filled . . . Borchardt’s strength . . . is her deeply researched setting, which brings alive the barbaric era after the fall of the Roman Empire.”—Publishers Weekly