Herthasee (Ruegen)

Herthasee
	The Herthasee
Geographical location	District of Western Pomerania-Rügen
	Data
Coordinates	54 ° 34 '7 " N , 13 ° 38' 52" E Coordinates: 54 ° 34 '7 " N , 13 ° 38' 52" E
surface	0.202 km²
Maximum depth	11 m

The almost circular Lake Herthasee on the island of Rügen is about 170 meters long, 140 meters wide and up to 11 meters deep, located in the forest of the Jasmund National Park directly on the hiking trail between the visitor car park in Hagen (a district of the municipality of Lohme ) and the national park -Zentrum Königsstuhl is located. On its northeastern bank is the Herthaburg , a rampart up to 17 meters high from the time of Slavic settlement from the 8th to 12th centuries.

Herthasage

Herthasee in the Stubnitz - plan from 1872

The Roman historian and politician Tacitus briefly mentioned the worship of the deity Nerthus (Hertha), mother earth , in his work Germania , which was written around 98 AD . On an island in the ocean (out of the context probably in the Baltic Sea ) she is said to have occasionally boarded a cows-pulled cart in a sacred grove and driven across the country in it. After this trip, which was a festive and peaceful time, the chariot and the goddess herself were bathed in a remote lake, and those who helped her were subsequently devoured by the lake.

The chronicler Philipp Clüver first associated this legend with the lake in the Stubnitz in the 17th century in his work Germania antiqua (Leyden 1616, Volume III, p. 107) . He believed that with the Borgsee and the Borgwall on Rügen's Jasmund peninsula he had discovered the location of the events described by Tacitus. One of the most important supporters of this theory, which is untenable from today's point of view, was the historian and philosopher Johannes Micraelius , who in the middle of the 17th century was also rector of the Pedagogy in Szczecin, which was founded in 1543 . During the Romantic era , some authors of the first travelogues about the island of Rügen took up this legend again around 1800. Here, the material was in part poetically significantly exaggerated. In Karl Nernst (* 1775; † 1815), a student of Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten , one reads in his "Walks through Rügen" for example:

“[...] The altars smelled of burnt offerings. Fields and groves resounded with chants. Sublime hymns awakened the slumbering echo. The paths were covered with flowers. The weapons rusted in the dullest wave. [...] "

However, other places also claim to be the scene of the Herthasage.

Before the saga was successfully settled in this place around 1893 by the enterprising innkeeper of the Gasthof am Königsstuhl , who also arranged the nearby sacrificial stone and its surroundings for advertising purposes, the lake was called, despite that already Mystical Hertha spectacle published several times, mostly only Borgsee or Schwarzer See and the adjacent Herthaburg only Borgwall . At that time, Sassnitz children were earning pocket money during their school holidays by entertaining tourists with horror stories. In Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest , the couple is shown the sea, along with "sacrificial stones" with channels, "so that it drains better" - an idea that Effi so depressed that the couple fled Rügen.

The Hertha legend is still relevant for tourism. Herta-See, Herthaburg and Hertha-Buche are the terms used in the Stubnitz area. The term or the legend of the Hertha beech refers to a vast beech that existed until a few years ago, but which has been wrapped. The sound of leaves in the wind is said to have played a role in the priests' prophecy.

Herthasee in the Stubnitz
Herthasee with the Herthaburg (in the forest), seen from the south
It used to be called the Black Lake - probably because of the gloomy surroundings and the boggy subsoil