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Some have declared him the illegitimate child of a Bohemian heretic, others, the oaf of a witch, still others, a changeling of Beelzebub, etc. Many of these writers, giving themselves the airs of painstaking investigators who have made careful research, repeat the tale of Barbour, viz., that Luther was born in the day-and-night room of an inn at Eisleben.
He had made friends with Luther and Melancthon, and soon began to teach with them at the university. John Agricola from Eisleben had already taken part in the biblical lectures at the university, which was then the chief place for the exposition of evangelical doctrine. This man, born in 1494, had lived at Wittenberg since 1516.
The last named was endeavouring to exchange his post at the high school at Eisleben, under the Count of Mansfeld, with whom he had fallen out, for a professor's chair at Wittenberg, which had been promised him by the Elector; and now, on receiving his invitation to the conference, he left Eisleben for good without permission, taking his wife and child with him.
Agricola of Eisleben, for instance, would not hear of a repentance growing out of such impressions produced by the Law and the fear of punishment.
These latter, whether of great, or lesser, or even of no renown, and amongst whom women played a great and very notable part, were scattered far and wide; but each one cultivated some little corner of the mystic garden. One such garden was the Cistercian convent of Helfta, near Eisleben, in Saxony, in the thirteenth century a centre of mystic tendencies.
Tradition still identifies the house where he was born; it stands in the lower part of the town, close to St. Peter's Church. Several conflagrations, which devastated Eisleben, have left it undestroyed. But of the original building only the walls of the ground-floor remain: within these there is a room facing the street, which is pointed out as the one where Luther first saw the light.
In the meantime it may be mentioned that Julius, the second son, nine years Richard's senior, was apprenticed at Eisleben to Geyer's younger brother, a goldsmith: he alone was not pulled stagewards. Naturally enough there is nothing but idle and frequently fatuous hearsay to repeat of these early years, save this only, that Richard did not show the slightest musical precocity.
Again, on another occasion, he was at Eisleben on the occasion of another hare-hunt, when the nobleman succeeded in killing eight hares, which were, on their return home, duly hung up for the next day's meal. On the following morning, horses' heads were found in their place. "In mines," says Luther, "the devil oftentimes deceives men with a false appearance of gold."
A few days after, immediately before his departure for Eisleben, he wrote again to Spalatin, recommending his friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care that he was not anticipated in the step.
To Jonas and the Counts' court-preacher Colius, who were staying, with him, he said he thought he should remain at Eisleben, where he was born. Before supper he complained of oppression of the chest, and had himself rubbed with warm cloths. This relieved him, and he left his little room, going down the staircase into the public room to join the party at supper.
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