One of his lines is, _"Ich wunsch ich were tot,_ I wish that I were dead:" -- the others shall remain safe in Manesse's _Collection._ This same Markgraf Otto IV., Year 1278, had a dreadful quarrel with the See of Magdeburg, about electing a Brother of his.

The Chapter had chosen another than Otto's Brother; Otto makes war upon the Chapter.
Comes storming along; "will stable my horses in your Cathedral," on such and such a day! But the Archbishop chosen, who had been a fighter formerly, stirs up the Magdeburgers, by preaching ("Horses to be stabled here, my Christian brethren"), by relics, and quasi-miracles, to a furious condition; leads them out against Otto, beats Otto utterly; brings him in captive, amid hooting jubilations of the conceivable kind: "Stable ready; but where are the horses,--Serene child of Satanas!" Archbishop makes a Wooden Cage for Otto (big beams, spars stout enough, mere straw to lie on), and locks him up there.

In a public situation in the City of Magdeburg;--visible to mankind so, during certain months of that year 1278.

It was in the very time while Ottocar was getting finished in the Marchfeld; much mutiny still abroad, and the new Kaiser Rudolf very busy.
Otto's Wife, all streaming in tears, and flaming in zeal, what shall she do?
"Sell your jewels," so advises a certain old Johann von Buch, discarded Ex-official: "Sell your jewels, Madam; bribe the Canons of Magdeburg with extreme secrecy, none knowing of his neighbor; they will consent to ransom on terms possible.

Poor Wife bribed as was bidden; Canons voted as they undertook; unanimous for ransom,--high, but humanly possible.