Scrooge Oak
The Dagobertseiche (also called Chatteneiche ) was an oak near the village of Dagobertshausen in northern Hesse near Marburg . The oak was badly damaged in a storm in 1841; the last remains collapsed around 1890. With a trunk circumference of 14.86 meters at a height of one meter, the oak was considered to be one of the largest oaks in the world. It was the last real giant oak in Germany.
meaning
At that time the oak was considered to be the largest in Germany. Globally speaking, there was only one stronger oak in Bosnia, which was felled in 1886. Even in later years, no oak with a larger girth was known in Germany. The currently strongest oak trees in Germany have a trunk circumference of less than 13 meters. The currently strongest naturally grown oak in Germany, the thickest of the Ivenack oaks in Ivenack , has a circumference of around 12.5 meters. In Europe, too, there is currently no oak with a larger trunk circumference than the Dagobert oak. The largest oak in Europe, the Kvilleken in Sweden , has a trunk circumference of just over 14 meters. The trunk, dead on one side, is attached to the remaining part with ropes. The strongest oak with a halfway intact trunk until April 2013 was the Pontfadog Oak in the United Kingdom with a trunk circumference of 13.38 meters, measured at a height of 1.3 meters. The largest oak in the United States , which is considered one of the largest in the world, is the Live Oak with a girth of just over eleven meters.
history
The Dagobert oak was completely hollow in the trunk area in the middle of the 18th century. The village swineherd built a pigsty for himself in the hollow trunk. In 1820 the German philosopher and Lutheran theologian Karl Wilhelm Justi wrote in Die Vorzeit: a paperback for d. Year 1821 :
“If you want to see the most splendid image that God has set up between heaven and earth, of the German kind and German sense, - go to Dagobertshausen, an hour from Marburg, and look close to the village - an oak tree, high and noble, and of such a thing amazing extent that you will have to say: "We never saw such an oak!" - This thousand-year-old holy oak of God, under which Germany's guardian spirit formerly had its essence, is - because it was hollow below - towards the middle of the (18th) Century - for the swineherd of the village - was made into a pigsty. - - O economic sense and spirit of the century! what kind of works are you not doing! - - The nightingales are now singing in the green branches above, and pigs dwell below. The nightingales sing in many a poet's head, and pigs grunt in their hearts! - Continue glossing who can gloss! - - - This ancient oak is still sprouting leaves and twigs, and annually renews the insulted memory of a venerable patriotic past! - "
In a copper engraving of the Dagobertseiche by Ludwig Christian Wagner from 1838, the caption mentions a circumference of 36 feet , which corresponds to about eleven meters. However, it is not stated at which stem height the measurement was taken. In 1851 the oak was given a trunk circumference of 14.86 meters, measured at a height of one meter. On July 18, 1841, a hurricane overturned numerous trees during a solar eclipse in Central Europe, including several outstanding old ones , such as the Luther beech near Steinbach in West Thuringia and a very large linden tree near Freiberg in Switzerland . The hurricane also caused great damage to the Scrooge Forest. In 1851, the resulting cavity in the trunk was used as a goat and dog stable . Above it was a room that was used as a hayloft. Around 1891 the only surviving wall of the trunk collapsed. On July 18, 50 years after the hurricane, the Oberhessische Zeitung reported about it in a poem:
1) Before we were 50 years
away,
I often went out to the place,
Where an oak stood
Not far from Scrooge's house.
2) As ancient legends say, your
lifetime was a thousand years.
Like that felled by Boniface,
consecrated to the strong god of thunder.
3) Half a century has disappeared,
That our oak found its goal,
That it fell
down, lashed by the storm, after wounds that were often struck .
4) In their youth, Christian
armies saw
them
march against Saxony, return home with bloodied spears,
Indeß defeated the heathen flee.
5)
A pilgrim and wanderer often rested in their cool shadow ,
who then, strengthened with cheerful courage
, went for the trimmed path.
6) How many a bird, the
falcon or hawk threatened with murder,
found his rescue from death
in a safe nest there!
7) How often did the green branches
in her home
choose Mrs. Nightingale, Who
, when the day was running out late,
Here fluted the sweet sound.
8) In the end, without any piety,
they were chosen, peeled off with age,
Two bristle animals for
dwelling and unclean place
.
9) Those while birds sang upstairs,
interfered with disgusting shuddering sound,
Until with the knife came gone
A man gave a well-earned wage.
10) The storm wind came, took this shame,
And has done a good work,
Oppressed by long years of bonds
. The weakness of old age came to her.
11) And what grim power is our own,
bringing destruction, evil storm,
Has many a fall want to show us,
Who does not think of the storm of victory ?
12) Hardly you know the spot on earth,
where our tree stood for 1000 years,
Hardly what day destroyed it,
the wonderful specimen.
The last remains of the oak disappeared around 1900. In 1909, the superintendent Friederich Kanngießer, who estimated the age of the oak according to the calculation methods at that time to be 800 to 1200 years, wrote in Remarkable Trees and Shrubs in the Marburg Area :
“The small hamlet of Dagobertshausen (near Marburg, Hesse) used to boast that it owned the strongest oak in the world. It was the so-called Chatteneiche, which was also called Dagobertseiche. Their location was at the so-called shepherd's house, right there - so the irony of fate would have it - where there is now a dung pit. The tree had a circumference of 14.86 m 1 m above the ground and 1.8 m above the ground, the Coloss was 13.92 m in the periphery. In 1851 the oak was already completely de-peaked and only led a miserable existence. The hurricane of July 18, 1841 had broken their strength. In 1851 it was still used as a goat and dog stable, above it as a hayloft. Most recently it had served as a pigsty. About 18 years ago [1891] the only surviving wall collapsed and today there is no trace of this giant oak left, the age of which is attributed to the Frankish King Dagobert, who is said to have built the place named after him in 630 as a fortress. "
In February 1931 it was reported in the Oberhessische Blätter , a weekly entertainment supplement of the Oberhessische Zeitung , that the oak was used by a shepherd as a pigsty and was destroyed by a hurricane on July 18, 1841. In this context, the report by Karl Wilhelm Justi from 1820 from the work Die Vorzeit: a paperback for d. Year published 1821 .
See also
literature
- Karl Wilhelm Justi: The prehistory: a paperback for d. Year 1821 . Elwert, Marburg and Cassel, 1820 ( dfg-viewer.de ).
- Uwe Kühn, Stefan Kühn, Bernd Ullrich: Trees that tell stories . BLV Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-405-16767-1 .
Web links
- Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung , issues 109–216
- Entry in the directory of monumental oaks . Retrieved January 10, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Uwe Kühn, Stefan Kühn, Bernd Ullrich: Trees that tell stories . BLV Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-405-16767-1 , p. 39-40 .
- ↑ Old Trees in The Netherlands and Western Europe. Retrieved May 28, 2011 .
- ^ Title page of Die Vorzeit: a paperback for the year 1821.
- ^ Karl Wilhelm Justi: Die Vorzeit: a paperback for d. Year 1821 . Elwert, Marburg and Cassel, 1820, p. 316-319 ( dfg-viewer.de ).
- ^ Karl Wilhelm Justi: Die Vorzeit: a paperback for d. Year 1821 . Elwert, Marburg and Cassel, 1820, p. 316-318 ( dfg-viewer.de ).
- ^ Report by Pastor Friedrich Heinrich Enslin 1841. (PDF file; 103 kB) Retrieved on May 24, 2011 .
- ↑ Johannes Hofmeister: Historical descriptions of the weather from the Marburg-Gießen area. (PDF; 184 kB) p. 112 , accessed on June 5, 2011 .
- ↑ Uwe Kühn, Stefan Kühn, Bernd Ullrich: Trees that tell stories . BLV Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-405-16767-1 , p. 38 .