Baldenstein ruins
| Baldenstein ruins | ||
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 Baldenstein ruins |
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| Alternative name (s): | Old castle | |
| Creation time : | around 1050 to 1100 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, spur location | |
| Conservation status: | Castle remains | |
| Standing position : | Count | |
| Construction: | Small ashlar masonry | |
| Place: | Gammertingen | |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 13 '52.3 " N , 9 ° 12' 18.7" E | |
| Height: | 712 m above sea level NN | |
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The ruins of Baldenstein , also known as the Old Castle , are the ruins of a spur castle near the town of Gammertingen in the Sigmaringen district in Baden-Württemberg .
Valuable finds were made during excavations, such as game stones, glass fragments and metal spurs, which have already been shown at various exhibitions.
Geographical location
The castle is located in the Gammertingen district, around two kilometers southwest of today's city, to the left of the Fehla on a rock spur at a height of 712 m above sea level. NN . The hamlet of Baldenstein lay at their feet in the valley. He went to Zwiefalten with the mill around 1130, and in 1329 there was still a farm.
history
Baldenstein Castle was built around 1050 to 1100 by the Counts of Gammertingen, presumably as their ancestral seat.
The village of Baldenstein, which lay at the foot of Baldenstein Castle, was donated to Zwiefalten Monastery in 1140 by two daughters of Count Ulrich II von Gammertingen . The village consisted of nine courtyards and a mill. After the founding of the cities of Gammertingen and Hettingen , the village was given up and its markings were divided between Gammertingen and Hettingen.
Around 1150, Baldenstein Castle was destroyed by fire without any warlike effects and was never rebuilt.
The Counts of Gammertingen , whose burial place was found in 1983 in the Gammerting St. Michaliskirche, died out around 1170 to 1180.
After the dynasty of the Counts of Gammertingen had died out, rule over Gammertingen and Hettingen and with it Baldenstein Castle fell to the Counts of Veringen .
The first excavations took place on the ruins of Baldenstein in 1933. 1963 to 1965 the ruins were uncovered and repaired.
description
The castle complex had a core castle in the north-west corner as a permanent stone house ( donjon ) with a base area of 19 by 15 meters and a wall thickness of around two meters with two south-facing notches in round arch niches on the ground floor. In the east, the stone house was extended by a ship's bow-like porch. To the east of the facility is the remainder of a keep , which may have also served as a gate tower , on an area of 13 by 20 meters . A section trench separated the castle from the plateau.
Valuable finds were made during excavations, such as game stones, glass fragments and metal spurs, which have already been shown at various exhibitions.
The legend of the serpent with the golden crown
By Bruno Ewald Reiser.
A long time ago, the proud castle of a mighty robber baron, named Kunibert, stood above the Fehla and was extremely rich. No road was safe from him, and he had stolen all wealth. His castle was adorned with five towers, and on the highest one sat a rooster that could speak and see over seven mountains. Kunibert had bought him for his son from a witch and did not know how much she had betrayed him. In reality, the rooster was an enchanted youth and none other than Kunibert's own flesh and blood. This guardian could not be compared with gold; he betrayed everything that was going on in the streets, and Kunibert and his fellow warriors went to where rich booty was safe for him.
His daughter, the beautiful Walburga, had to keep the golden treasure faithfully. She sat in the deep cellars with her father's watchdogs; she was so beautiful that all splendor and richness faded beside her.
One day a prince came and wanted to see the princess. Walburga guarded the treasure and let him be told that he should be patient. But the king's son did not stop asking. Then she put on her most beautiful clothes and went cheerfully to meet him. He liked it at first sight; he bowed low to her beauty, put a golden crown on her head, and she was glad to be his queen. Two human children found each other and loved each other and believed that they were alone in the world. Closely embraced, they paced up and down the castle garden. Walburga had forgotten to look after her treasure, and the king's son no longer pays attention to danger.
Then the evil Kunibert came home from a raid and saw the two of them and the little golden crown on Walburga's black locks. “By the devil,” he muttered, “how did that happen? My only child goes with a strange man and wears a golden crown on his head. That will come from my treasure, which I commanded her to guard! ”He saw how the two kissed each other without ceasing. "You serpent, you pathetic!" He swore in wild anger, drew his bloody sword and thrust it so deep into the back of the king's son that he collapsed and was dead on the spot. Walburga knelt down by him, and when the raw father raised his sword again, his curse was fulfilled on her. There she lay on the ground and was a snake with poison green eyes and a hissing tongue. The little crown was still on her head, and the gold shone like the sun, because blood flowed around a love that remained without fulfillment. The guard dogs outside the treasury smelled the blood. They came, attacked Kunibert and tore him to pieces. Then the old castle was dead; only the rooster that sat on the highest tower and the snake that carried a little crown were still alive.
In those days Kunibert's enemies came in heaps. They ravaged the beautiful gardens and destroyed the strong castle; but the golden treasure was hidden from them. It is still deep under the crumbling walls. Kunibert, who is allowed to live and not die, has to look after him and his banished children help him.
Since then, gloomy, threatening juniper bushes have grown in this country and mourn the splendor that has long since disappeared. When the sun shines over them on summer days, they shine in dark green. This is the hope of the haunted who are still waiting for the salvation that only a child from the fatality can bring them.
If one occasionally falls a fir tree into the spell of the crumbling castle, which becomes a child's cradle, then a cheer comes from its roots and the snake rejoices. She believes that now the child is born who will redeem her from the spell. And whoever was in such a cradle will see the snake with the golden crown at some point in his life and talk to it like a human child.
On a sunny, bright day - it's ten times a hundred years now - the poor snake once lay on a stone in the Fehlatal. Then a young man came walking and was very surprised: "What kind of crown are you wearing on your head?" And the snake said:
- “I am called Walburga,
an evil curse has banished me;
if you kiss me three times,
the spell is broken. "
Then the young man knelt on the ground. He took the snake's head in both hands and kissed it, and the snake laughed and kissed him too. And his heart became warm and he said that the hot lips of a young human child had touched him. And then he kissed the second time, and a hoarse cock crowed and an angry male voice cried: "You snake, you pathetic!"
Then the little crown wobbled on the serpent's head; the gold shone like a sun, and the gems sparkled like blood; her eyes flashed bright green, from her mouth came blue breath, and her tip hissed: “Kiss me! - Kiss Me!"
Then the young man was seized with horror. He picked up the snake and flung it far into the forest. Then she crawled quietly and sadly under a thick root. A rooster crowed hoarsely somewhere, and a woeful man's voice said sadly: "My poor child!"
Since then, the enchanted snake has been waiting for the third kiss. But only every hundred years there is a day when they can be redeemed. Countless fir trees fell there in the forest, and many cradles were already being made, and the enchanted woman gave many a cheer. Since then the snake has appeared several times when someone wandered lonely in the Fehlatal; but no one found the courage to kiss her like a human child. Soon the hundred years will be up again. Then perhaps a proud young man will come, kiss the serpent with the golden crown, and they will again be cast as a human child. She will reward him with the golden treasure, with her high love.
But then in the Fehlatal no more hoarse rooster will crow when a fir tree falls, no more cheers will ring out, no knight Kunibert will ask about his child, and the snake with the golden crown will never be seen on the hot rock.
Then the saga will wander sadly out of the valley, and when it has left, the people will be so poor that they would like to give the golden treasure and more when it comes back.
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the literature not to be confused with the abandoned Baldenstein farm west of Inneringen in the Veringerfeld district.
- ↑ a b Cf. Gammertingen administration area . In: The state of Baden-Württemberg. Official description by district and municipality. Volume VII: Tübingen administrative region. ed. from D. Landesarchivdirektion Baden-Württemberg, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-17-004807-4 . Pp. 795-805, here: Gammertingen c) Gammertingen , p. 798.
- ↑ See Burkarth, p. 26, and KA Kraus, Baldenstein im Fehlatal, Hohenz. Heimat 1968, p. 59.
literature
- Günter Schmitt : Castle Guide Swabian Alb, Volume 5 - West Alb: Hiking and discovering between Reutlingen and Spaichingen . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1993, ISBN 3-924489-65-3 , pp. 91-96.
- Barbara Scholkmann: Baldenstein Castle, the "Old Castle" near Gammertingen . Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1982, ISBN 3-7995-4038-5 .
Web links
- Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun