The Rider on the White Horse by Theodor Storm

Dark Frisian fable of seawalls and specters

Theodor Storm (1817-1888) was a German writer, but he comes from a very specific area of Germany, North Frisia in Schlesweig-Holstein, that has a mixed cultural history of German, Dutch, and Danish influences. He was born on the coast of the Wadden Sea, which is presumably the setting of his novel The Rider on the White Horse, published in 1888. I don’t believe the word Frisia is ever used in the novel, but I assume this story is meant to take place on the German stretch of the coast. To an American reader unfamiliar with the region, however, this novel that’s largely about dike building will seem Dutcher than an orange tulip growing out of a wooden shoe.

An anonymous narrator traveling along the coast comes across a rider on a white horse. The rider has a crazed look with glowing eyes and an overall Headless Horseman vibe, but with head intact. The narrator then pulls into a nearby inn where he asks the locals about this fearsome apparition. There in the tavern, and later in his home, the town schoolmaster regales the traveler, and us, with the origin story of this mysterious horse and rider.

The schoolmasters’s tale flashes back to the 1740s and ‘50s. Hauke Haien is the son of a farmer and surveyor of middling means. Though born and raised on a farm, Hauke is not really cut out for farming, or at least his heart isn’t in it. He is more interested in book learning and has a head for engineering. In his teens, Hauke’s father manages to get him a position as an apprentice to the dike master, the official who is responsible for overseeing the dikes that protect the local farmers’ lands from the sea. An added bonus of this job is that Hauke gets to spend time with the dike master’s lovely daughter Elke, with whom he forms a close bond. Hauke would like to become dike master himself some day, but that position usually goes to the wealthiest landowner in town. If he wants the job, therefore, Hauke must strive to elevate himself above his modest status and financial means.

There’s a whole lot about dike building in this novel. This was at a time when all the work was done moving earth with shovels, carts, and horses. I sometimes found it difficult to understand exactly what Storm was saying in regard to the design, construction, and workings of the dikes, but it didn’t affect my appreciation of the human story. Although there are elements of this novel that make it feel like a fable or fairy tale, the book provides a realist view of the lives of the farming community in this time and place. After reading this novel, I find it amazing that anyone can live in these coastal lands reclaimed from the sea, with nothing but a handmade wall of dirt protecting their homes and crops from flooding and devastation.

Storm is regarded as one of the most important figures in German literary realism. Though this story is primarily realistic, it does have some supernatural elements, including the implication that God is expressing himself through nature to either benefit or punish the characters. One admirable aspect of the book is Storm’s sensitive portrayal of a child with a developmental disability. The characters here feel real, and it is easy to sympathize with them. If this is intended as a fable, the moral is not obvious. Is this merely a case of bad things happen to good people? I presume that we are supposed to find Hauke guilty of the sins of pride and ambition, which he pays for with the hardships that befall him, like Icarus flying too close to the sun. From the perspective of this 21st-century reader, however, his ambition just seems like hard-working industriousness, for which he should be rewarded, not castigated. More pious readers of the 1880s would have seen it differently. Nevertheless, I found this a compelling story, very well told by Storm, and I learned an interesting thing or two about North Frisia.