Bergfried to Belfry (page 69)
The following are fairytale illustrations by Anne Anderson (1874—1952):
What’s a fairytale without a castle? So I’d like to say a few words on castles, Burgen.
The German Burg or castle is cognate with the English burh, meaning a fortified settlement, which led to the English word borough, a self-governed settlement. Other cognates are bourg in French, burgo in Spanish, and púr पुर् going back to Sanskrit. The burg/burh/burgo/púr पुर् lives still in German, English, Spanish, and Indian place names like Hamburg, Peterborough, Burgos, Jaipur. (The examples came from this delightful little block book for children, which I found more than good enough for me.)
We’ve had castles a few times already in this story. The King’s Stone of August the Cold (on page 15), Cinderella’s rental Castle Moritzburg (on page 17), Rockcastle Rathen where Constantia and her little boy Friedrich went for refuge (on page 49), Kronborg Castle of Elsinore of Prince Hamlet fame (on page 51).
Castles come in different formations. Castles with a central tower, castles surrounded by water, ringforts or fairy forts that are nice and round, castles that are prepossessing and picturesque, all the way to castles that are just practical and plainly rectangular.
The German castle of the Middle Ages was particularly fond of having a palas where people lived, and a bergfried tower to which people could retreat, when the besieging times come. The idea of a tall tower bergfried lives cognately in English as a belfry. Aside from the word representation, the actual need of a bell tower is quite widespread, and naturally in China as well. On the very first page of our story when Tang Lili meets Wang Xiaolong: “His laughter is like the bronze bell on a pagoda, resonant, secure, giving a sense of all is in order, all’s well and will end well.” The first word I had written, before replacing it with pagoda, had been belfry.