Lightning snake
,_R%C3%B6ntgenstra%C3%9Fe_4_-_Blitzschlange_(1)_(cropped).jpg)
A lightning snake is a ban sign that is attributed to a “lightning protection water deity”. Karl Bernert suspected their origin in Niederlausitz . The decorative strip attached vertically in the vertex of the pointed mirror field of half -timbered houses is only very rarely preserved.
Ban mark
As a magical symbol on the gable, the lightning snake is supposed to protect the house against the risk of lightning and conflagration and is interpreted as a "mirror image of the twitching weather beam". It is supposed to pretend to the lightning bolt that it has already reached its destination and thus ensure that it looks for a new destination.
The same belief that lightning does not strike twice in the same place is also the reason for the common custom in Vogtland of keeping a piece of a beam or tree struck by lightning in the attic. The splinter told him that he had haunted the building before and therefore did not have to hit it again.
Lightning snakes are also reminiscent of the thunder broom : a northern German protective symbol that was inserted into the brick gable wall to avert disaster. The "scaling of a dragon's dress" or " dragon skin " is another symbol of protection against lightning strikes that is occasionally found on half-timbered houses. Another ideal fire protection are pictorial or figurative representations of Saint Florian on houses and gates, especially in Catholic regions.
Real fire protection was provided by ladders and real lightning rods attached to the house. T. were also placed on the tip of the tail of the lightning snakes.
execution
Wooden lightning snakes can be found on the ornamental boarding of the upper tip of the gable triangle of some half-timbered houses in Upper Lusatia and Bohemia . This often consists of diagonally mounted boards that are mirror-inverted on a vertical center bar. The abstract representation of a snake, which was sawn out of a strong board by the village carpenter or the house owner, is attached to this central strip or to an additional curved board. Your body meanders from the top of the gable.
With the increasing use of slate to protect the gable walls from the weather (see slate covering ), the snake motif was occasionally also incorporated into the more modern slate gable by the slater .
In addition, the snake motif can also be found on the right and left of the front door. In this way, the whole house was to be protected from demonic calamities in order to expand the sphere of activity of the ban sign.
Examples of preserved lightning snakes
In the city museum in Löbau a 1.05 meter long, 3.5 centimeter thick lightning snake is kept, whose body moves forward in five large waves. Your neck is bent back, your head stretched forward. The tongue is visible in the slightly open mouth. The almond-shaped eye was branded. Raschke estimated their origins in the last quarter of the 18th century. The snake comes from a small collection of valuable folk objects, the estate of the Med.-Rat von Stieglitz, who was district doctor of the Löbau administration from 1903–1918. It originally hung in the top of a house in Oppach.
_(cropped).JPG)
A lightning snake preserved in Niedercunnersdorf with about 1 meter long, lightning-like jagged body and a fantastically beak-shaped head can still be found in its traditional place in the gable triangle. The original boarding of the gable was replaced by slate.
Evidence and further literature
literature
- Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian half-timbered house . In: Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz Dresden (Ed.): Messages . Font for heritage protection, folklore, monument preservation and nature conservation. Volume XXVIII, Issue 9 to 12. Dresden December 1, 1939, p. 264-278 .
- Karl Bernert : Half-timbered houses . Beton-Verl., Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-7640-0235-2 , boards, p. 126 ff . (Part of the edition of VEB Verlag für Bauwesen for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin (West), Austria and Switzerland, Berlin, 1988).
proof
- ^ Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 267 .
- ^ A b c Karl Bernert : Half-timbered houses . 1988, Boards, p. 126 .
- ↑ a b c Karl Bernert: When you still had to pull for it to ring . Scrapers, lightning snakes and other things. In: Sächsische Zeitung (= Upper Lusatian history and stories ). February 19, 2001, p. 8 .
- ^ Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz Dresden (Ed.): Messages . Font for heritage protection, folklore, monument preservation and nature conservation. Volume XXVIII, Issue 9 to 12. Dresden December 1, 1939, p. 264-278 .
- ↑ a b c d Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 264 .
- ↑ Dragon skin protects against lightning. Half-timbered expert praises the old town . In: Nassauische Neue Presse , February 24, 2007, p. 3.
- ^ Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 264 u. 275 .
- ↑ a b Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 278 .
- ^ Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 265 f .
- ^ Max Raschke: Lightning snakes at the Upper Lusatian framework house . In: Communications from the Saxon Heritage Protection Association in Dresden . tape XXVIII , 1939, pp. 273 .
