Saarland sagas and legends

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In Saarland , as in most other regions of Europe, there are numerous local sagas and legends as well as local variants of widespread sagas and other popular tales. The pioneer and essential collector of Saarland legends in the first half of the 20th century was the Saarbrücken art historian and folklorist Karl Lohmeyer , who published his first thematic work on Saarland legends in 1924. In 1935 a first overview followed, based on Lohmeyer's own field research . In 1954/55 his extensive two-volume overall presentation of the Saarland sagas was published, which is still the most extensive collection of sources and thus the standard work on the subject.

Selection of well-known sagas

The ruins of the "Sorg"

The ghostly vineyard cottage called "Die Sorg"

In the area of ​​the old Lamarche wineries in Kleinblittersdorf there was a stone vineyard house on the edge of the forest . Of the house built in 1773, only the ruins sunk in the forest are left today. According to legend, it was haunted there, a previous owner was walking around who had buried his treasures under the house. There have been excavations there by local citizens several times. However, nothing of value was ever found.

Attila's tomb

The king of the Huns, Attila, died unexpectedly of a hemorrhage in the Rhine region. To protect the corpse from desecration, a troop of Huns set out west, where they wanted to bury their king in a lonely area on a mountain. In the valley of the Blies , 16 warriors went on alone with the golden coffin and buried Attila in the begging forest near Ommersheim . When they returned to the main party, they were all slain so that no one could reveal the secret of the grave.

Another legend suspects Attila's grave near Berus .

The stingy baker

The stingy baker

The stone grimace of a gargoyle is on the castle wall in Saarbrücken . According to legend, it is said to be a stingy, rich baker who harshly rejected the poor during a famine. The princess heard about it, disguised herself as a beggar and was also turned away. As a punishment and deterrent, the stingy baker's head was attached to the old bridge as a gargoyle and later moved into the castle wall.

The wild rider Maldit (also Maldix, Maltiz or Maldiss)

A legendary figure from Saarland, known in many places, is the knight (or rider) Maltiz (with numerous local spelling variants). Some legends claim a connection with a late medieval knight, others with a baroque count. All the legends are closely related to the nationally known legend of the “wild rider” or the wild hunt .

The Maldit from Köllertal

The Freiherr von Maldit (or known as Maltitz, Baldix, Maldix and Maldiss) was the count's chief male master, responsible for the stately driven hunts and particularly strict with regard to the peasant drivers. Even the smallest negligence was punished with severe beatings or imprisonment. One fine day he called the peasants to hunt in the Köllertal when the bell rang for the service. The farmers asked if they could go to church, but the Maldit just laughed at them. When he with a Cutlass ( Saufeder struck) on an old man, who reminds him of his Christian duties, a hurricane and a huge wild boar got broke from the forest. She went under the Maldit and disappeared into the forest with the chained Maldit on her back. Since then he has haunted the air as a wild hunter. He was last seen in 1866 at the old castle in Püttlingen .

Knight Maldix vom Litermont

Knight Maldix, son of Margarete vom Litermont , was a wild hunter. In 1429 he wanted to organize a driven hunt in the Nalbacher Herrenwald in the early morning hours before sunrise on Holy Good Friday . He spotted a large white stag and chased it through the forest to the Litermont. At a ravine, the knight Maldix could no longer restrain his horse and fell to his death. Maldix can still be heard roaring through the Nalbach Valley in the storm wind.

Pilate in leases

After Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, he was sued, recalled to Rome and exiled to Gaul . He came to Lachten on the Saar , where he died of suicide in 41. He threw himself on his sword and was buried as he was found: on "Maul und Nas". Even today you can hear his cry at night: "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man."

The Pfifferjakob

A prince passed by Pfifferjakob's house, in whose window there was a large cage with colorful birds that whistled beautifully. The prince bought the birds for a lot of money. Alone, the birds didn't whistle, and so the prince summoned Pfifferjakob. He asked the prince to leave the room, and lo and behold, the birds whistled more beautifully than before. As soon as Pfifferjakob was gone, history repeated itself and the prince lost interest in the animals. When he saw them again later, they had even lost their color and were nothing more than gray sparrows. Pfifferjakob was sentenced to running the gauntlet . One last wish was granted to him: he wished he could run as he pleased. So it happened: he zigzagged around the gauntlets so that he was not hit.

The devil at the Hunnenring

In a dried up well in the ring wall of Otzenhausen , a golden carriage is said to be buried, for which two men once dug. They actually found the carriage. When they reached for the golden drawbar, one of them looked up and saw the devil who was hanging a millstone on a thread above the men. Startled, the two let go, the carriage disappeared and was never seen again.

The Varus saga

Rictius Varus, Roman governor in Trier, a declared enemy of Christians, made a bet with the devil: while he was galloping up the Schaumberg with a team of six , the devil should just as quickly pave the path in front of him by tearing the pavement away from behind the team and in front newly laid. Varus lost the bet and was banned on the spot by the lord of hell. The tiller of the gold-adorned wagon is said to be pointing upwards so close to the ground that a rooster could scratch it if he only knew where. A headless horse is said to haunt the Wareswald (which is typically called the Varuswald in a folk etymology ).

The Moor of Saarbrücken

The Mohren von Saarbrücken is an African valet of the Princely House of Nassau-Saarbrücken , who was given to the sovereign by the Elector of Brandenburg as a gift. His name was Joseph Corea. The legend tells that classic slavery (not serfdom) was abolished in the Principality of Saarbrücken, so that the Mohr was seen as a free man and entered the service of the princes as a valet. Since he had received an education and was a Christian, he was married to a widowed ministerial daughter. Several long-established Saarbrücken families refer to the descent of the children from this marriage; not without pride, since the Moor was said to have descended from Jan Conny . Conrad was the last "Brandenburg Negro king" from Groß Friedrichsburg in Ghana and a very important figure in the history of West Africa. Legend has it that the Mohr appears when the city of Saarbrücken is threatened with disaster. He is said to haunt the baroque houses on Ludwigsplatz to this day , especially in today's Palais Röder, the Saarland State Chancellery.

The fabulous events leading up to the Battle of Spichern on August 6, 1870

On July 19, 1870, Napoleon III declared . Prussia the war. The provincial town of Saarbrücken was undefended at this time - apart from a company of lancers (lancers). The French border troops quickly occupied the mountain ranges south of Saarbrücken and intended to take the city. But the citizens of Saarbrücken, together with the few Uhlans, were able to dupe the French. Day after day the Uhlans traveled through the city on horseback, behind them the high school students in colorful clothes with wooden guns. The strength of the defenders was therefore overestimated from the heights above Saarbrücken and there was no attack. Only when the Prussian troops arrived in Saarbrücken on August 6, 1870, did the battle of Spichern take place . This is how clever citizens saved their city from conquest and pillage.

Natural monument "Felsgruppe Kallenstein"

The cold stone

Under the Kaltenstein on the Hoxberg near Lebach there are rich treasures that were already sacrificed to the gods in times of paganism. Druids are said to have buried them there once, when Christianity was spreading, which could indicate an already Celtic origin of the legend. On the first night of May , dwarfs who live there celebrate a festival of joy, with said treasure showing itself and sparkling in the starlight. However, it could only come to light forever if the bells of the Trinity Church began to ring by themselves on Good Friday. Then the stones would turn three times around their own axis and reveal the treasure to humanity. These dwarfs are also reported to come out of the mountain at night, to turn the upper stone on top of the lower one at midnight, and then to disappear back into the mountain. From the understanding of the roles presented here by the figures of the dwarfs , who are decisive for the legend , their origin seems more likely to be in the late Middle Ages , if not even more likely in the Romantic period . This is also indicated by its formulation in dialect poetry of the early 20th century, which the source also mentions.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Other legends say that the Kaltenstein was a meeting place for witches around 1500. Another, albeit controversial, legend tells that the Kaltenstein was a sanctuary for Celts. This legend was strongly propagated by the National Socialists in the course of the resurgent Celtic fashion and has survived to the present day.

The Saarland saints

See Arnual , Ingbert , Liutwin , Oranna, and Wendelin .

literature

  • Karl Lohmeyer : The sagas of the Saar - complete edition . Geistkirch-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2011, ISBN 978-3-938889-32-9 .
  • Karl Lohmeyer: Golden calves and gold coffins in the legends of the Westrich . Saarbrücken 1924.
  • Karl Lohmeyer: The legends of the Saar, Blies, Nahe, the Hunsrück, Soon- and Hochwald . Hofer-Verlag, Saarbrücken 1935.
  • Karl Lohmeyer: The legends of the Saar from their sources to the mouth . Minerva-Verlag, Saarbrücken 1954.
  • Karl Lohmeyer: The sagas of the Saar - supplementary volume . Minerva-Verlag, Saarbrücken 1955, ISBN 3-925036-44-X .
  • Guido König: Saarland's treasure trove of legends . Queißer, Dillingen / Lebach 1983, ISBN 3-921815-44-4 .
  • Andreas Heinz: Saints in Saarland . 2nd Edition. Saarbrücker Druck und Verlag, Saarbrücken 1991.
  • Paul Glass: Fabulous Ensheim. Legends and stories about the old Ensheimer spell. Glass, Fichtenberg 2003 ( online ).
  • Gerhard Bungert: Typically Saarland. Publishing house Würzburg, Würzburg 2004.
  • Bernd Kissel: Saar legends. Volume 1. Geistkirch-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-938889-59-6 .
  • Bernd Kissel: Saar legends. Volume 2. Geistkirch-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-938889-65-7 .
  • Bernd Kissel: Saar legends. Volume 3. Geistkirch-Verlag, Saarbrücken 2009, ISBN 978-3-938889-72-5 .
  • Christine Giersberg, Uve Teschner: Saarbrücken. Myths and legends. Verlag Michael John, Schwaig 2010, ISBN 978-3-942057-06-6 .
  • Kerstin Rech : The Permes . Leda-Verlag, Leer 2004, ISBN 978-3-934927-52-0 .
  • Kerstin Rech : Schenselo . Conte-Verlag, St. Ingbert 2007, ISBN 978-3-936950-60-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The legends reproduced in the article all go back to Lohmeyer's collection and can be found in his two-volume main work on the subject.
  2. ↑ The Lamarche wineries were located in the area of ​​today's Rebenstrasse and extended to the edge of the forest. According to oral tradition by Mr. Fritz Pasquay and Mrs. Auguste Rexroth in 1935, this legend was told about the last owner. The inscription above the side door of the property read: “Cette loge appellé Die Sorg a été batie le 10 juillet 1773 by M. le chevalier de Hausen, capitaine de dragon dans les volt. (volontaires) d'austrasie. Cette vigne planté et defriché. Dieu benisse cette ouvrage. AS “Translation:“ This hut, called Die Sorg, was built on July 10th, 1773 by Mr. Chevalier de Hausen, Dragoon captain in the volunteer army of Austrasia . This vineyard was planted and made arable. God bless this work. AS "
  3. ^ Alfons Kolling : The stingy baker: a scare mask sculpture from the Saarbrücken Renaissance castle . Ed .: Lea Poß. Die Mitte, Saarbrücken 1999, ISBN 3-921236-84-3 .
  4. ↑ As handed down in 1925 by Otto Schmitz, Lebach, and written down as legend no. 239 by Karl Lohmeyer.