German Legends of the Brothers Grimm
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- Mother Holla's Pond
- Gretel Mill
- Good Gerhard Swan
- The Swanrings of Plesse
- The Giant's Toy
- Hackelberg, the Wild Huntsman
Mother Holla's Pond
Many landmarks in the Meissen Mountains of Hesse are said to be very old just by their names. Of all such places, the strangest is Mother Holla's Pond. It lies in one corner of a swampy meadow and is only about forty or fifty feet across. The entire meadow is encircled by a stone wall that has sunk halfway into the marshy ground. It happens from time to time that a horse ventures beyond the wall and sinks out of sight.The people tell many things about Mother Holla, bot good and bad. Women who visit it by climbing into the spring, become healthy and fertile. She is said to deliver newborn children from her well. She has flowers, fruits, and cakes in her underground realm. She distributes these and the produce from her fantastic gardens to those she meets -- if she likes them.
Mother Holla is very tidy and keeps a neat household. When it snows in man's world then everyone knows that Mother Holla is shaking out her feather beds till the flakes drift around in the wind.
She punishes girls who are lazy at the spinning wheel by soiling their linens, tangling their yarn, even setting fire to their flax. However, she rewards the hard-working girls by presenting them with new spindles and by doing their spinning for them at night. When these girls wake in the morning, they often find their spools full of newly spun yarn. But she also visits the lazy girls at night. She pulls the covers off their beds, carries them out into the night, and places them on cold, hard cobblestones where they wake up freezing.
Mother Holla also rewards hard-working maidens who at dawn fetch water from the wells in finely polished pails, by placing silver coins in their buckets. She likes to lure children into her pond -- the good ones she rewards with success and fortune; the evil ones become changellings.
Each year Mother Holla wanders around the countryside bestowing fertility on the fields. However, she can also strike terror into the hearts of the people when she roars through the forests, leading raging hordes.
Sometimes she appears as the beautiful White Woman, floating or hovering above the surface of her pond. At other times, though, she is invisible. Then one hears only the pealing of her bells and other dark rumblings from deep beneath the surface.
♦ To foster success through hard work tells of rewards of being hard-working, and punishments for being lazy - no matter how far out: Girls listen to fantasies.
Gretel Mill
Duke Otto, the youngest son of Louis of Bavaria, sold the Mark Brandenburg to Emperor Charles IV for 200,000 guilders. He then abandoned his lands and moved to Bavaria. There he lived with a beautiful miller's daughter named Margaret in the palace of Wolfstein, below Landshut, and he lavishly wasted his fortune. This mill is still called the Gretel Mill, and the prince is called Otto the Finner because he sold such land. It is said that Charles outwitted him, and Otto was not even paid what the bell ropes on his land were worth. [Legend 502]Good Gerhard Swan
One day Emperor Charlemagne was standing at the window of his castle looking out over the Rhine River, whereupon he saw a swan swimming toward him. It had a rope of silk around its neck by which it was pulling a boat. In the boat sat a knight in shining armor with a written document hanging around his neck. When the knight came ashore, the swan swam away with the boat and was never seen again.Navilon (Nibelung), one of the king's knights, approached the stranger and offered his hand. He then led him to the king. Charlemagne asked him his name, but the knight was unable to speak, and instead pointed to the document. It said that Gerhard Swan had arrived to serve the land and a lady. Navilon thereupon helped him remove his armor and put it away. Charlemagne gave him a splendid cloak and they went to join the others from the court at the dinner table.
When Roland saw the stranger coming he asked, "What kind of a man is that?"
Charlemagne answered, "God has sent this knight to me."
Roland replied. "He appears to be heroic of stature and heart." The emperor commanded that he be well served.
Gerhard was a wise man; he served his emperor well and everyone was fond of him. He learned the language quickly and became a favorite of the emperor. Charlemagne then gave him his own sister, Adalis (Danish: Elisa) in marriage and appointed him Duke of Ardennes. [Legend 545]
The Swanrings of Plesse
The lords von Swanring came from a foreign land into the region of Plesse and settled there. In 892 a feud arose between them and the counts von Beverstein. There were three brothers von Swanring - Siegfried, Sieghart, and Gottschalk - and they bore a swan's wing and a ring in their coat of arms.Bodo von Beverstein killed Sieghart with an arrow and then fled from the vengeance of the Swanring brothers until he came to Finland where he settled down. The other counts von Beverstein constructed a fortress, called Beverstein or Hardenberg, to defend themselves against the brothers.
Gottschalk and Siegfried also planned to build a fortress opposite Hardenberg. One day they set out from Hökelheim and rode into the high forest (also called Long Forest, or Plesse Forest). They took along their illegitimate brother, called Heiso Swanwing, a good and wily hunter, who knew all the paths and trails over hill and dale. He also knew of the danger of attacks by the knights of Hardenberg.
When Heiso saw an appropriate sight on a cliff above the Leine River, he showed it to his brothers. They said, "Yes, indeed, a well-chosen place [Plätzken]! Let us build our house, castle, and fortress here." They called their castle Plätzken. Later it was changed to Plesse, and the knights von Swanring called themselves the knights of Plesse. The feud with the knights of Hardenberg was settled, and shepherds still point to the spot between the villages of Angerstein and Parnhosen where Sieghart was struck with the arrow. They also add that years ago it was marked by a stone cross called the Cross of the Swanrings. [Legend 546]
The Giant's Toy
Next to a waterfall on a high mountain in Alsace stands Nideck Castle. In early times the knights who inhabited this castle were Giants. One day a Giant maiden, who decided to see what life was like down in the valley, walked down the mountain almost as far as Haslach.Hard by the forest she came to a field just being plowed by some farmers. Her eyes filled with wonderment as she stopped to look at the plow, the horses, and the men. The whole tableau was quite new to her.
"Oh," she said as she approached, "I'm going to take it all home with me." She knelt down, spread out her apron, and stroked her arm along the ground, sweeping everything into her apron. She then made her way happily back to the castle, leaping up the steep cliffs. Near the summit, where the face of the mountain is so sheer a man could scale it only with great difficulty, the Giant maiden gave a single bound and was at the top.
The knight was sitting at the table when she entered the castle. "Ah, my child," he said, "what have you there? You can't hide the joy in your eyes."
She quickly opened her apron and let her father look in.
"What are those wiggly things you have there?"
"Oh, Father, it's such a marvelous toy! I have never had anything like it in my whole life."
She then removed each item one by one - the plow, the farmers, the horses - and set them on the table. Then she ran to the other side to look at her display. When the little creatures began moving back and forth she clapped her hands together and laughed with great joy.
However, her father spoke sharply to her, "Child, that is not a toy. Quickly now, carry them back down to the valley."
The maiden began to weep, but to no avail. "For me, child, the farmer is not a toy," said the knight grimly, "and I will have no more of your whimpering! Pack all these things gently into your apron and return them to the exact place from which you took them. If the farmer cannot plow his fields we Giants up here in our mountain nest will have nothing to eat." [Legend 17]
Hackelberg, the Wild Huntsman
Many years ago in the lands of Brunswick there lived a master huntsman by the name of Hackelberg. He was said to have been so devoted to the hunt that when he lay on his deathbed he couldn't bear to take eternal leave from it. He begged God to allow him to exchange his place in Heaven for permission to engage in the chase in Soiling Forest until Judgment Day (no doubt because he had led a God-fearing, Christian life). He also asked that he be buried in the wilderness of Soiling, and the request was granted.His irreverent, even diabolic wish was evidently also granted, for four times every night the terrifying echo of the hunting horn signaling the chase and the baying of hounds can be heard in the wilderness. One time the sounds will ring out from here, another time from there. All this was reported to me by those who have heard these threatening sounds themselves. It is also said that if someone hears these sounds during the night and still goes hunting the following day, he will invariably suffer a broken arm or leg, even a broken neck or some other terrible misfortune.
I myself, I believe in 1558, was riding through Solling on the way from Einbeck to Uglar when I became lost and chanced upon Hackelberg's grave. It was located in a clearing something like a meadow, but it was covered with a wild growth and with reeds. It measured about an acre and was somewhat longer than it was wide. Though the area was surrounded by trees, none grew on this clear¬ing. One end extended toward sunrise, and at the other end there was a raised, flat red stone about eight or nine feet long, and about¬ - as it seemed to me - five feet wide. The stone did not face toward the east as gravestones usually do, but instead one end pointed south and the other north.
I was told that no one would ever be able to find this grave - whether from inquisitiveness or from a sense of purpose - no matter how determined and adventurous he might be. But if someone should chance upon the site, he would find a pack of frightful black dogs next to it. I, however, saw no such spooky apparition, and if I had, the few hairs I have on my head would surely have stood on end. [Legend 172, told by Hans Kirschhof]
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Literature
The five last legends are sampled from Donald Ward's 2-volumed translation:
Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Karl. The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm. Vol. 1 and 2. Ed. and tr. Donald Ward. Philadelphia: The Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1981.
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