Myths and Legends

The legends of the Fichtel Moun­tains show famil­i­ar places in a new and fas­cin­at­ing light.

The Bum­mel­hen­ker

Through­out the region, the people of Weißen­stadt are known as the Bum­mel­hen­ker (“bull hangers”). The name goes back to one of the most fam­ous legends of the Fichtel Mountains.

Long ago, a great deal of grass grew on the wall of Weißen​stadt’s church tower. To make use of it – people here have always been thrifty – the town coun­cil decided to let the Bum­mel, the com​munity’s breed­ing bull, graze on it, since mow­ing it would be too much trouble. So they threw a rope over the wall, looped it round the neck of the anim­al on the oth­er side and began to pull. The coun­cil­lors and the may­or had hauled the Bum­mel halfway up when he stuck his tongue far out. “He can already taste the grass!” cried a quick-wit­ted towns­man. But when they finally had him up on the ledge of the wall, he no longer stirred – he had choked to death.
And so the people of Weißen­stadt were stuck with their nick­name: “Bum­mel­hen­ker”.

You can still read the story today on the town wall, next to our stone “Bum­mel”.

The Epprecht­stein above Kirchenlamitz

Once every year, though nev­er on a fixed day, while the pas­tor in Kirchen­lam­itz is pray­ing the Lord’s Pray­er from the pul­pit, a rock rises and, until the pray­er is over, reveals great heaps of gold. At the word “Amen” it sinks down again, and the immeas­ur­able treas­ure is locked away for anoth­er year. Although no one has yet been chosen to catch this lucky moment and snatch a share, a few people did come by some of the riches long ago, in the fol­low­ing way: A shep­herd was once graz­ing his flock not far from the ruins and stretched out care­free on the soft grass. Sud­denly he heard a noise close by. He looked up and saw a girl in strange clothes, busily turn­ing over fallen leaves with her rake. She beckoned to the shep­herd in a friendly way. When he had shyly drawn near, she stuffed all his pock­ets full of leaves and van­ished. An eer­ie dread came over the shep­herd; he turned to his flock and drove it home as fast as he could. When he reached his fam­ily, he told them of the strange event and put his hand in his pock­et to show them the leaves. But – who could describe his aston­ish­ment! – every leaf had turned into a large, shin­ing gold coin! – Had night not already been at the door, he would have rushed straight back up the moun­tain to fetch all the leaves he could carry. That night was the longest of his life; he could not sleep a wink. Scarcely had dawn broken when he ran up the moun­tain with a large sack and approached the ruins with a pound­ing heart; but – everything had van­ished, and nev­er again in his life did the gold-giv­ing woman appear to him.

The Legend of the Och­sen­kopf and the Hankerlgrube

Two places in par­tic­u­lar have become fam­ous in legend: the crown of the moun­tains, the Och­sen­kopf, and the pits to the south known as the Hanker­l­gruben. Accord­ing to legend, there is a chapel on the Och­sen­kopf, the Ghost Chapel, dir­ectly beneath the rock that faces the church of Bis­chof­s­grün, filled with end­less treas­ures of gold and pre­cious stones. On St John’s Day, when the pas­tor of Bis­chof­s­grün pro­claims the Gos­pel from the pul­pit, the chapel opens, only to close again when the Gos­pel read­ing ends. Woe betide any­one who misses the moment: he will be held fast inside. But happy is he who knows how to use the brief time: he returns home laden with riches. – On this day a single flower of its kind grows there: it is the key that opens the chapel. Many hun­dreds of years ago, sev­er­al coun­try folk from the area man­aged to find it and open the chapel: they could not get their fill of the splend­ours inside; the altars and pul­pit were of gold, the pil­lars of sil­ver, set with pre­cious stones. – Once it rained on this day, and the char­coal burn­er, want­ing to save his char­coal, had hur­ried into the forest just as the bells were ringing togeth­er. There he saw the chapel stand­ing open, went in, and was met by the gleam of a golden altar. He ran home to fetch oth­ers, but the ringing came to an end, and all the char­coal burn­er heard was the sound of the chapel collapsing.

An enchanted castle full of treas­ure is also said to have sunk into this moun­tain. On St John’s Day, while the pas­tor reads and expounds the Gos­pel, it stands open to any­one who knows the way: the gold hangs down like icicles. – One man found a beau­ti­ful flower and car­ried it home; at home it turned into a key; think­ing it must be the key to the castle, he went to the moun­tain, entered the castle and filled all his pock­ets with gold and sil­ver, until someone called out: “Make haste and be gone, but do not for­get the best!” In his fear and haste he left the key behind in the lock. The fol­low­ing year, at the same time, he found the way again: he went into the castle and lingered so long that he was locked in for a whole year. Yet it seemed to him no longer than three days.

The Legend of “Hell” on the Rudolfstein

A Silesian tip­pler.
On the north­ern slope of the Schnee­berg, neigh­bour of the Fichtel­berg and the Och­sen­kopf, on the side facing Weißen­stadt, there also stood a rob­ber knights’ castle, the Rudolf­stein or Rol­len­stein, whose site is still called the Schlossberg (Castle Hill). Rudolf, a count pal­at­ine in Franconia, is said to have built the castle in the year 857 on top of the giant rocks, which look like walls raised by human hands; oth­ers name Emper­or Rudolf of Swa­bia as its build­er. No few­er than twelve to four­teen rob­ber castles stood around Wun­siedel, and like strong moun­tain winds their occu­pants blew the money out of the purses of trav­el­ling mer­chants. Rob­bers and ghosts, in cosy com­pan­ion­ship, made the impass­able area unsafe and notori­ous far and wide, and a spot in the forest below the Rudolf­stein, hemmed in by grue­some rocky clefts, is called the Hölle (Hell). It lay mid­way between the rob­ber castles of Rudolf­stein and Wald­stein, and trav­el­lers there often suffered more tor­ment from the masked high­way­men lurk­ing in the bushes than from the forest spir­its and hell­fires that appeared in the form of fire-breath­ing mon­sters, while a crash­ing was heard as if the whole forest were being smashed to the ground. A hunts­man from Sax­ony who did not yet know about the ghostly goings-on in the Hölle saw some game there and pur­sued it as it fled up towards the Wald­stein. The high­er he climbed, the more game he caught sight of, but it all fled before him into the castle ruins, and none came with­in range. Now he, too, fol­lowed through the gate – and sud­denly rock and wall, bush and tree were shrouded in grey mist, and in the castle court­yard there began a roar­ing, shriek­ing, banging and jingling, bark­ing and yelling, as if all hell had broken loose, with screech­ing and laughter, and the Wild Hunts­man appeared before him with the whole Wild Hunt, full of bewil­der­ing fig­ures, until he fell to the ground and lost his senses entirely. When he awoke, it was dark around him, and down below in Reumer­sreuth the church clock was strik­ing twelve.

The Bricks of the Waldstein

The most beau­ti­ful ruin on and among the enorm­ous rocky giants of the Fichtel Moun­tains is the Wald­stein, once the seat of the Lords of Spar­neck, who kept their “money boxes” all around, in which they stored oth­er people’s money – until their doings were brought to a ter­rible end. – A poor day labour­er was once chop­ping wood very close to the old walls that still remained of Wald­stein Castle, when a little man came up to him, very friendly, and handed him a brick, indic­at­ing with ges­tures that the man should take the brick home with him. The wood­cut­ter was baffled and stood there like but­ter in the sun; he gaped open-mouthed and wide-eyed, slowly turned the stone in his hand and peered at it, and at last the big ques­tion occurred to him: Why should I take this brick home with me? – and since his homespun wits were not up to answer­ing it, he wanted to put the ques­tion to the giver. But lo and behold: the little man had van­ished. Once more the wood­cut­ter turned the brick over and over and muttered: If it were a brick cheese, I’d like it bet­ter. All you get from this thing is red smears on your hands and clothes and noth­ing to show for it – spare me such tom­fool­ery! And with that he threw the brick into the bushes. When he got home, his wife cried out to him in amazement: “Well, man! You’re gleam­ing like a bacon rind! Did someone have you gil­ded in the fire?” – And all the brick dust that had stuck to his hands and clothes was pure gold dust. My, how quick the wood­cut­ter was now! How he ran back up to the Wald­stein! How he searched the bushes for the golden brick until night­fall! – But much good did it do him: he nev­er found it again.