Querx

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Querx in front of the " KiEZ Querxenland" in Seifhennersdorf

As Querxe the members of a small stature people from the be Lausitz mythology called. The setting for the Querx sagas is the mountainous Upper Lusatia . The focus is on the area around Zittau , but they are also known in the Vogtland and Bohemia . The Querxe , like the Heinchen , Veensmännlein and Lutken , are mountain spirits who almost always appear en masse as a people.

The rule of the Querxe

According to legend, they owe their origins to Querxborn, which is located on the broad mountain near Zittau . From this "clear, fresh source," some should be constantly gushing out. They are said to have been particularly at home there and you could see them “one by one going in and out of their querxloche”. The mountain itself was even referred to as a "dwarf mountain" in the church book of Bertsdorf in 1619 . The entrances to the dwarfs ' apartments are called cross holes . Others have been handed down in Silesia on the Prudelberg near Stonsdorf ; in Upper Lusatia on the Dittersberg near Schönau on the Eigen and in the Bohemian Warnsdorf .

If the Querxe went to the surrounding villages to secretly fetch their food from the farmers, they put on a fog cap to make themselves invisible. They loved baked goods but didn't like caraway seeds. Therefore, people are said to have always baked bread with a few caraway seeds that the Querxe did not touch.

The Querxe also brought people gifts, mostly cakes or rusks. Sometimes there were also valuable gifts that brought happiness and blessings into the house as talismans. The von Ponickau family is said to have owned such a talisman, which the ancestor is said to have received as a weekly gift from the dwarfs. A talisman is also attributed to the von Bünau family . Unlike that of Ponickau, she is said to have received this at a midget wedding.

Like the Lutken , the Querxe often came to the villages and had houses and rooms there so that people got used to them. They left Lusatia when Christianity arrived there because they could not stand the sound of church bells and went to Bohemia , which is why they still have caraway bread there today. When they said goodbye to Hainewalde they said they would only come back, “when the bells would be abolished again and when Sachsenland would come back to Bohemia; then, they said, there would be better times too. "

Name form

Querx is a name form of the dwarfs , for which the spelling Querks can also be found. Other Central German forms of name are Querz , Querg and Quarg . In Franconia they are called Querkel , in the Thuringian Forest Querlich . Jacob Grimm also mentions the name Querch for dwarf in his German mythology .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl main : dwarf say from the top and Niederlausitz: Preliminary note. In: magazine for German mythology and morality . IV. Volume, 1859, pp.  211–212 ( full text from Wikisource [accessed July 25, 2011]).
  2. ↑ Meyers Konversationslexikon , 4th ed., 1885–90: Volume 13, p. 515 : Querx, in Deutsch-Böhmen, Lausitz and Vogtland svw dwarf
  3. ↑ Karl Haupt : Querxgeschenke. In: magazine for German mythology and morality . IV. Volume, 1859, pp.  214 ( full text from Wikisource [accessed July 25, 2011]).
  4. ↑ a b Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching : The Querxe (according to legends in Upper Lusatia) . In: Weekly news for friends of the history, art and knowledge of the Middle Ages. First volume. Wilibald August Holäufer, Breslau 1816, p.  102 ( Volume 1 in Google Book Search).
  5. ↑ Karl Haupt : The wedding of the Querxe. In: magazine for German mythology and morality . IV. Volume, 1859, pp.  215 ( full text from Wikisource [accessed July 25, 2011]).
  6. ↑ Karl Haupt : The farewell of the Querxe. In: magazine for German mythology and morality . IV. Volume, 1859, pp.  215–216 ( full text from Wikisource [accessed July 25, 2011]).
  7. ↑ Jacob Grimm : German Mythology . Dietrich, Göttingen 1835, p.  251 ( digitized version in Google book search).
  8. ^ Franz Knothe: The Markersdorfer dialect . A contribution to the dialect knowledge of North Bohemia. Publishers of the North Bohemian Excursions Club, 1895 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  9. ^ Karl Weinhold : The spread and origin of the Germans in Silesia . Engelhorn, 1887, p.  241 ( digitized version in Google book search).
  10. ↑ Julius Lippert : Christianity, popular belief and popular custom . historical development of their conceptual content. Hofmann, 1882, p.  444 ( digitized in Google book search).
  11. ^ Karl Eckermann : Textbook of the history of religion and mythology of the most excellent peoples of antiquity . Fourth volume. Swetschke and Son, Halle 1848, p.  287 ( digitized version in Google book search).
  12. ↑ Jacob Grimm : German Mythology . Dietrich, Göttingen 1835, p.  251 ( digitized version in Google book search).