Whales
Walen or Venediger (also Walhen , Wahlen , Wälsche or Welsche , Veniceermandln, Vennizianer , Venetianer , Venetianer and similar spellings) are foreign ore and mineral seekers in the legends . It is not certain whether such people were really looking for minerals that were needed to make glass . The alleged gold prospectors are said to have encouraged the formation of legends throughout Central Europe due to their foreign language and their incomprehensible actions in the mountains . In the legend they were also assigned magical properties. They appear there as magical and ghostly aliens. In addition, they were assigned the authorship of the so-called whale books: alleged directions to hidden treasures and rich ore veins .
Designation as "Walen" or "Venediger"
The term “whale” is derived from Welsche , in the general sense of “foreigner” who speaks a foreign (mostly Romance language ); “Venediger”, on the other hand, from the city of Venice , which is often referred to as the place of origin , at that time a world-famous center of gold and silversmiths, gemstone cutters and glass manufacturers. In addition, both in the contemporary documents and in the sagas, the most diverse places of origin are mentioned, mostly in Italy, but also in France and Spain, and occasionally even in Bohemia and Germany. In the southern German-speaking world, the legendary figures are due to its proximity to the mountain males and mountain spirits as Venedigermandl or short Mandl called "Erzmännchen" in Thuringia.
Historical background
The Montanethnographer Helmut Wilsdorf points out that in the Middle Ages cobalt blue glass was very rare and sought-after in Europe. Since it was mostly imported from Constantinople (via Venice), it was also called "Byzantine glass". Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis boasted that for the windows of his church , consecrated in 1144, he was able to obtain the very expensive “sapphire mass” that was needed to make clear blue glass. Chemical analyzes of this and other blue glasses from French cathedrals showed a characteristically high bismuth content that only coincides with occurrences in Germany: the Schneeberg in the Ore Mountains and the Black Forest Kinzig Valley . At this point in time, and for a long time afterwards, there was no evidence of large-scale mining in the areas mentioned . (In fact, the occurrence of cobalt ores interferes with silver mining because it reduces the yield.) Nevertheless, there must have been people who knew these deposits and the value of the ores and brought them to France. Around 1400, in his treatise on painting , Cennino Cennini mentioned an azurro della Magna , ie a "blue from Germany" that had something to do with silver mining in an unclear way, and gave its German name as smalto , ie "melting color ". In the course of the 15th century, the most important cobalt deposits became generally known, and there was no longer any need to look for them.
The situation was different with the manganese-containing brown stone , which was particularly needed for the discoloration of the famous Venetian mirror glass . At the beginning of the 16th century Venice had a virtual monopoly on this technique and Murano glassblowers were forbidden to divulge their secrets on the death penalty.
Walen was mentioned in April 1365. Here Margrave Friedrich calls it Italian merchants, which has nothing to do with the later whale ideas. A mention relating to the formation of tradition can be found in the Joachimsthaler Bergbüchlein printed in 1523 . There, Hans Rudhardt complains in a verse that the whales are carrying "great Burde and Huck" away from Germany. Caspar Bruschius wrote in 1542 in his historical and geographical description of the Fichtelgebirges of elections and Venetians (in addition to Spanish and Zigainern ). He also complains that these foreign agriculturists know the natural resources of Germany better than the locals themselves (who sometimes throw a stone at a cow that is more valuable than the cow - a proverbial phrase) and carry great treasures with them . Here you can also find the first mention of whale books written in "Wellisch", French and Low German. Of the specimen that he himself owned, Bruschius only says that it contained “a lot of strange things” and pointed to numerous places where it was found.
In 1574, Lazarus Ercker , the chief miner of the Kingdom of Bohemia , stated:
"But I have so much from believable persons who have been reported by such land travelers that such grains have no gold with them, nor are they made out of them, but through them, the land travelers, in Italy and other places for a reward, as an addition to make beautiful colors or melt-glass. What colors and melted glass are so highly valued by them, and what Tewer is selling as if it were gold. "
Another monopoly tried the Papal States to defend after the 1459 Alaunlagerstätten at Tolfa had been discovered. Pope Pius II. Threatened anyone with the excommunication , which would be alum not with him but with the "enemy of Christianity", shopping. After the conquest of Constantinople , the important alum deposits near Phokaia fell into the hands of the Turks , and so Tolfa with 6000 miners temporarily became the largest mining company in the West. But after European ore prospectors had discovered deposits of alum, the income of the Apostolic Chamber , which was officially entrusted with the financing of the next crusade , began to decline significantly. So the Pope decided to send Italian experts to scout out, buy up or otherwise eliminate the companies of the unpleasant competition. On the other hand, financially strong investors like the Fuggers hired such specialists for exactly the same purpose (Agricola met two of them in Rome in 1526, an ore prospector and a smelter). These alum seekers should not have been distinguishable from the other "Veniceers" for the locals.
In 1595, an alchemist named Georg Meyer mentioned in his work Bergkwercks-Geschöpff not only land drivers but also traveling students as gold washers, so he also attributed some academic (possibly alchemical) knowledge to them. In addition to “transparent sand and grains to make beautiful melting glasses”, they are also said to have been looking for “talch” (probably a special type of clay ), from which refractory crucibles can be burned, as well as for precious stones and pearls.
Christian Lehmann compiled the first collection of reports on elections as early as the 17th century. However, it was only published by his grandson in 1764. Lehmann repeats the negative views of Bruschius about the Venediger (in fact he even blames them for an unsolved murder in 1514 in Annaberg ) and suspected them of alliance with the devil . Real encounters with whales seem to have practically no longer occurred at this time, because Lehmann claims that they were expelled from the country by the authorities a long time ago.
The memory of the whales remained in the population, not least because of the circulating whale books. Around 1800, Friedrich Gottlob Leonhardi still trusted the "common Savoyards", that is, foreign peddlers , in his description of Chursaxony, that they only pretended their trade while they were actually looking for precious stones in the forests and rivers that they cut back home and then sold them back to Germany for a lot of money. In fact, there is evidence that Italian ore prospectors crossed the Alps well into the first decades of the 19th century. But after regular mining companies began to mine manganese ores, these loners lost their livelihood.
But it is also assumed that the name "Venediger" was not limited to the mineral seekers of Italian origin. Rather, it also referred to rich merchants who were active in the mining industry, who did not come from Venice, but mostly from Germany, but carried on brisk trade with Venice.
Venetian legends
The Venetian or Venetian sagas are folk tales and usually tell of the encounter between locals and Venetians. Although, or precisely because such encounters are actually very rare, the Venetian legends represent an important subgroup of the miners' legends and were also given more attention by legend researchers.
The non-native Venedians appear in the sagas mostly as loners, but also in small groups, often in groups of three, who ask locals for quarters or meet them by chance in the mountains. They appear surprisingly and quickly disappear, but then often come back many years in a row. Their appearance also seems strange: they are portrayed as small and dark-haired. Often they hide their wealth under poor clothing and an unpretentious lifestyle, elsewhere they are dressed in strikingly colorful clothes. Especially among each other they talk incomprehensible gibberish . They sometimes bring herbs or other goods with them from their homeland, which they sell in the manner of the humpback pharmacist . In reality , however , they mainly know how to find ( prospect ) and smelt ore as well as the art of tasting and cutting , but they are usually not actual miners . Although they seem to only collect ordinary pebbles, sand or earth and knock around with small hammers on ordinary stone, it is clear to everyone that these must really be gold, silver, pearls and precious stones that the locals just don't consider can recognize such. They are portrayed as knowledgeable, friendly and grateful, but also as secretive and secretive, sometimes vengeful. All of this fits well with what little is known about the documented whales and Venetians.
While the official sources distrust the Venetians and often lump them together with thieves and “traveling people” (because they allegedly disregard the mountain shelf and pay no taxes on their finds), the legend shows much more admiration for their skills. In no way are they accused of hiding the source of their wealth, keeping most of it to themselves and taking it out of the country. Rather, the legends prefer to report the princely rewards for helpful locals (and the occasional punishment of overly greedy confidants). The reward often only takes place after the Venedians have left, as their initially inconspicuous legacies have turned into treasures the next morning, or the Venetians decide to reveal the secret of their wealth to a local after they have collected enough for themselves and no longer need to come back.
One motif that is constantly being modified is the journey of a local to Venice, where he meets the Venetian again. Often he (or his son) does not come to town until a long time later, either by accident or at the invitation of the Venetian, or because of a promise of help made by him earlier. Or the locals will during sleep through the air in the tower, through tunnels in the mountains, Venice raptured . There he is always recognized first by the Venetian, who then invites him to the magnificent palace in which he now lives. The visitor, however, sometimes only recognizes the Venetian after he has put on his old shabby work clothes. The Venetian then reveals to him that he has gained all this wealth in the home of the guest. If the visitor had previously helped the Venetian, he will be lavishly entertained and given rich gifts. If he has caused him damage or even injured him (and recognized him by the healed wound), he is still entertained, and surprisingly often he is forgiven for his crime after he has shown honest repentance. In the case of the rapture, the heavenly beautiful Venice occasionally takes on features of the Otherworld : many years or centuries have passed when the visitor returns home, while the visitor believed he had only spent a short time there. In the fairytale-like variants of this motif, the Venetian palazzo also bears more resemblance to the throne room of a dwarf king .
Treasure and Venetian legends share the motif that “Finderglück” is a reward for good behavior is shared with other mining legends. Sometimes the Venedians take on the role that is usually attributed to the mountain ghosts or miners : they lead the locals to new places of discovery (but also make the ore disappear again if a crime is committed). The Venedians do not owe their own “lucky finder” to luck, but to their own superior knowledge.
There is a small, but constant narrative tradition that the Venedians received their supernatural abilities directly from the devil (Venice is declared a university city, where the incarnate himself gives lectures on the art of treasure hunting ), compared to the usual treasure sagas the Venetians hardly rely on black magic to achieve their goals . It is rarely reported that they only hire a local as a companion, because the treasure-guarding demon demands a soul for every visit, or something similar. On the contrary, the Venedians themselves have power over the treasure keepers ( black dogs , dragons ) who have to clear the way for them. They have divining rods , magic flowers (like St. John's wort ), magic keys or books that contain magic formulas that can be used to open treasure-filled caves. The strange fact that the locals themselves could not discover anything of obvious value at the whale digging sites is explained by the legend that the treasures were covered with a magic that "closes the mountains again".
The distinctive characteristic of whales to appear (unexpectedly) in spring and to disappear again in autumn (as secretly as possible), the legend condensed into a sudden appearance around St. John's Day , the evening before which was considered particularly favorable for the treasure hunt. As suddenly as they appear, the Venedians can make themselves invisible, e.g. B. when they are disturbed in their mysterious goings-on. The “Venediger Mandln” can even fly, e.g. B. with the help of "flight towels" that you tie around your head or put under your feet. The Venedians get their “perspective”, which enables them to see the hidden treasures in the mountains, for example. B. by eating the flesh of a white snake (the "Otter King"), which they have previously attracted by playing the flute.
The mysterious “mountain or treasure mirror ” of the Venedians, which is often described in the legends and which enables them to look through the rocks as well as into great distances, is now interpreted as a simple magnifying glass or gold pan unknown to the population .
There is a non-mining variant in Tyrol, where the venice mandl not only knock on stones, but sometimes only on trees (probably just as incomprehensible to the locals as stone knocking), but otherwise behave very similarly. This is interpreted as a search for special tonewood for Northern Italian instrument making.
Whale books and whale signs
The origin of the so-called whale books is likely to be found in real notebooks in which ore prospectors recorded the sites and path markers they knew. For example, a booklet that is difficult to interpret is known that could have been written around 1430 and was later attributed to an “Antonius Wahle” from Krakow or Wroclaw. However, the information was soon excessively exaggerated and finally fictitious because the aim of the copyists was no longer to secure private information, but at best to boast about secret knowledge, but probably only to sell the copies to gullible people. A Styrian whale book of only 16 pages leads z. B. 134 found instructions. In Styria , about half of the location information is still correct, but the alleged ore grades are fantastically high. In Upper Austria , not even the location information is correct. The little book is introduced with astrological instructions for choosing the "lucky days" on which prospecting should be particularly promising.
The 18 or 19 known whale books mostly come from the 17th and 18th centuries and are mostly handwritten. Significantly, none of them has survived in Italian (as one should actually expect), but exclusively in German. Sometimes the authors claim that they got their knowledge of whales. But even if names of sources are mentioned, “Welsche” are never found among them. The whale books did not lead their gullible buyers to hidden treasures (at most to strikingly colored rock formations or sterile mineralization), but only to any meadow, stream or well (if their information was understandable at all). Although their statements could easily be refuted, the whale books contributed to the belief in the existence of whales and Venetians who returned from Germany to their distant homeland laden with treasures until the end of the 18th century. The numerous " Kuxgangers " who followed the information in the whale books were probably mistaken for whales by the residents themselves: a self-reinforcing process .
Since such pure lists of directions and "find reports" are rather dry reading, the texts were puzzled with the most complicated or even threatening formulations, as well as with the use of alchemical symbols, such as the sun symbol for gold, the moon symbol for silver, a triangle standing on its top for water etc. The paths and sites are said to have been marked with mysterious signs, the so-called whale signs. The texts then often describe very ephemeral waypoints: tree stumps, sawed-off forks or trees that have grown strangely; Hands cut into the tree bark, crosses, or simple alchemical symbols. Monks are often given as whale signs carved in stone, especially in the Harz Mountains , who either point with their arm in a certain direction, or wear a wedge pick on their back, and occasionally also the figure of a bishop. The images of alleged whale signs in the books are, however, much more complex: They range from pseudo-alchemical and Christian symbols, to depictions of animals and sketches reminiscent of site plans, to apparent texts in secret script. The treasures should then often be hidden under piles of stones or thick cushions of moss, but also under wooden planks or in cellar-like caves with carved steps, etc.
Such a hand is good for washing ore.
This sign is whale pits, dignified [gold] and is soap .
With this sign there are many grains of gold everywhere.
At this sign you will find yellow zirill.
This shows a mountain there [gold] enough inside.
This sign was found in Wittigsthal (Erzgebirge) in 1899 . The inscription cannot be interpreted in terms of mining.
See also
literature
- Christian Gottlieb Lehmann: News of elections . Frankfurt / Leipzig 1764 ( digitized ).
- Friedrich Wrubel: Collection of mining legends . 1883 digitized .
- Heinrich Schurtz: The soap mining in the Ore Mountains and the whale legends . Stuttgart 1890 ( digitized ).
- Robert Cogho: The whales or Venediger in the Giant Mountains . 1898 ( E-Text ).
- Leo Winter: The German treasure saga . Cologne 1925.
- Rudolf Schramm & Helmut Wilsdorf : Venetian tales from mysterious treasure hunters. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Grundstoffindustrie, 1st edition 1986, 2nd edition 1987, 3rd edition 1990.
Web links
- From old whale signs in the Giant and Jizera Mountains
- The elections or Venetians in the Ore Mountains
- Whales and whale signs in the Lusatian Mountains
- The secret of the dwarfs ARD / NDR-arte documentary by Sven Hartung Germany, 2010, 52mn
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://codex.isgv.de/codex.php?band=cds2_13&f=&a=b&s=024 .
- ↑ Lazarus Ercker: Description of all noble (main) ore and mining types ; Prague 1574 (reprint Frankfurt aM).
- ↑ Helmut Wilsdorf: Introduction to the miners' legends "from the Veniceers" , in: Rudolf Schramm & Helmut Wilsdorf: Venetian legends of mysterious treasure hunters. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Grundstoffindustrie, 1st edition 1986, 2nd edition 1987, 3rd edition 1990, pp. 217-255.
- ↑ a b Eva-Maria Pyrker: The mountain name Venediger and the legends of the Venice people: An attempt to explain their history , in: Wolfgang Meid (ed.), Studies on onomastics and linguistic geography: Festschrift for Karl Finsterwalder on his 70th birthday, ( = Innsbruck Contributions to Cultural Studies, Volume 16), Innsbruck, 1971, pp. 215–226
- ^ Rudolf Schramm & Helmut Wilsdorf: Find instructions in whale books. ; in: Rudolf Schramm & Helmut Wilsdorf: Venetian tales from mysterious treasure hunters. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Grundstoffindustrie, 1st edition 1986, 2nd edition 1987, 3rd edition 1990, pp. 257-278.