There are characters you don't just "accompany," but inevitably grow closer to – because they don't allow you to remain comfortable. Das Mädchen aus den Träumen is the first volume of the Rhineland Saga penned by Günter Krieger, and its true center bears a simple name: Eva.
One might say she is "the girl from the dreams." But after just a few pages, you realize how false this description sounds once it meets flesh and life. Dreams are soft, fleeting, inconsequential. Eva is the opposite: She is thrust into a reality that is harsh, relentless, and precisely organized socially. The novel begins in a time when war isn't just fought on battlefields, but in everyday life – in taverns, on streets, in houses, in glances. And Eva is a woman who doesn't just survive in this world but carves out a future for herself step by step.
Eva: Not a Heroine, but a Survivor
What makes Eva so strong is not invulnerability. On the contrary: Her injury is the open wound around which everything revolves. When Jülich is captured, an act occurs in the "Zum Löwen" inn that breaks her life and simultaneously sets it in motion. The novel doesn't turn this into a sensational shock effect but an origin that has lasting effects – in shame, in rumors, in the way a community denies her humanity. Anyone looking for a "strong woman" cliché will be disappointed; anyone looking for a character who credibly grows in a medieval novel will stay all the more readily.
For Eva is not saved. Nor is she "lifted up" by a narrative hand that straightens everything out again. She has to make decisions, even though she has little room for maneuver. And she has to do it in a medieval society where a woman's life is quickly defined by attributions. Her strength lies in her ability not to be pinned down – neither by violence nor by the judgment of others.
The City Falls Silent – and the Village Becomes a Test
After Eva loses her father and her fiancé leaves her, Jülich as a place tips. Not because walls collapse, but because gazes change. The "Löwe" (Lion), which she continues to run, is avoided; she becomes a topic of conversation, a legend, a warning – and that is perhaps one of the bitterest truths of this novel: The real brutality lies not only in the act but in the long aftermath of social ostracism.
When Eva realizes she is pregnant, she makes a decision that is both farewell and new beginning: She sells, gives birth to her child, and leaves the city. The novel now opens up to the landscape, and with this change, the way Eva has to fight also changes. On a farm near Weisweiler, she learns about the daily life of farmers – not idyllic, but demanding, physical, often humiliating. Later, Merode becomes a crucial stop: There, the widowed farmer Winand takes her in. But even there, no fairy tale awaits. A quarrelsome sister, a lustful farmhand, the social hierarchy of the village – Eva remains an object of observation, remains endangered, remains vulnerable.
And yet: Here something begins that one can cautiously call hope. Not a smooth salvation, but a life that fills up again despite everything. Anyone who wants to understand the historical framework and the political upheavals behind it more deeply can find a separate perspective in the article on the historical background in the medieval Rhineland.
"Reinventing Oneself" – Without Denying the Wound
In the author's interview with the publisher, a sentence is uttered that almost explains Eva's character like a quiet poetics – and at the same time shows how consciously Krieger worked on her. He says: "But it is important for me to show that the Middle Ages was no pony farm." That's exactly what you feel in Eva's journey. She is not re-labeled as a modern heroine but remains a woman of her time, asserting herself within the narrow possibilities granted to her.
Crucially, Eva doesn't just "take" suffering, but maintains an inner movement. She learns to set boundaries. She learns to endure the gaze of others without letting herself be fully defined by it. And she learns that motherhood in the Middle Ages is not sentimental embellishment but existential seriousness. Here, the Rhineland Saga becomes a family saga in the strongest sense: The child is not just a consequence, but a future – and thus also an open question for everything that is yet to come.
Why Eva is the Central Figure of the Rhineland Saga
One could easily tell the novel as the story of a repentant man. But that would be the wrong perspective. Martin's guilt is central, yes – but Eva's life is the space in which this guilt truly gains meaning. For she is the one who has to bear the consequences, who has to move on, who has a society against her and yet does not fall silent. That makes her the actual central figure of this first volume of the Rhineland Saga: not because she is "perfect," but because she remains human – with fear, with defiance, with a longing for peace that hardly exists in this era.
Anyone who reads "Das Mädchen aus den Träumen" therefore reads not only a historical novel from the Rhineland but also the story of a woman who, under the most adverse circumstances, carves out a new life for herself – and thereby sets the tone for everything else this saga will tell. This is precisely why the beginning has such a lasting effect: because Eva does not disappear but remains. And because after the last page, you understand that Günter Krieger writes this Rhineland Saga not as decoration but as a realm of destiny – and Eva within it as its heartbeat.
The book is available in German as a printed, i.e. hardback edition (ISBN 978-3-910347-83-0) and as an EPUB (ISBN 978-3-910347-84-7) in bookstores or here in the publisher's shop.
