steinwand

Recently, H and I took a hike around a rock face (Felswand) at the foothills and steepening calved cliffs of the Maulkuppe, near the Milseburg.
A few climbers were out scaling the rocks—which are volcanic phonolite (Phonolith—sounding stone, named after the characteristic clink that this uncommon mineral makes when struck—we’ll have to be more attentive and listen next time) and not the more common basalt formations (see here, here and here) as we’d originally thought made up the mountain side. There are some one hundred climbing paths (Kletterrouten) on the Steinwand—which while it is on private property, is freely accessible for all.

stockheimer warte

While researching something else, I chanced upon the identity of the now familiar landmark of my daily excursions (see previously), once part of a network of watch and signal towers though this one has since been obscured by the treeline that allowed authorities and magistrates to communicate with great alacrity even the late Middle Ages, atop a peak with its next link in the transmission line-of-sight being the Lichtenburg (see also). Inaccessible and well-preserved, I half suspected the fifteenth century, five-metre high watchtower to be some sort of folly or artificial ruin meant to lend atmosphere, with only the romantic suggestion of a staircase and like some place for a kept-maiden, but learned it not only was pressed into service but also has some local lore associated with it.
Once upon a time, a woman from the village went up to the summit to gather some blueberries and left her child to nap nearby on the moss-covered flagstones of the tower while she worked. The woman heard a shriek and ran to the base of the tower only to find her precious baby replaced by a monstrous imposter (eine Balg, a changeling). Seeing no choice but to carry on as if it were her own offspring, the woman took it back to the village, where despite wanting for nothing, it grew up (as she feared) crooked and simple but an otherwise upstanding citizen. A second tale relates that of a cobbler’s apprentice who fled his master distraught one evening and climbed into the tower, preferring exposure or starvation to the continued punishment and abuse by his master. The night grew darker and more foreboding, the wind picking up and the whole forest below seeming to surge around the tower, the sound of fleeing animals under the howl of the storm. There was a break in the wind and the tumult of noise was replaced by the raucous and lively sounds of a hunting party on horseback, the procession singing merrily songs of their adventures—which gave the boy comfort and resolve to enjoin society, even if it was a lowly shoemakers apprentice. As the hunting party receded and faded into the distance, the storm resumed, though less threatening than before and the boy drifted off to sleep. The next day, he was found by some lumberjacks who returned him to his workshop where he remained, becoming an expert cobbler himself.

sehenswürdigkeiten oder rhön around the world

Taking advantage of the bright weather but with an abundance of caution, H and I took a windshield tour meandering through a few nearby locations, first stopping in Helmershausen, a settlement filled with half-timbered (Fachwerk) buildings founded in the foothills of the Thüringen highlands by our old friend Count Poppo VI and endowed with a really out-of-proportion village church.
Completed with the Baroque stylings of the mid-eighteenth century as a showcase for the minor nobility of the area, its towering steeple and ornately decorated wood panels have earned the village church the sobriquet of “Dom der Rhön”—the cathedral of the region.
Next along the way we saw the Bernhäuser Kutte, a sinkhole and protected geotope, with a depth of up to fifty metres across a relatively small surface area unique for the state.
After a bit more of taking in the gorgeous green scenery at speed, we stopped to see the Kirchenberg—fortified church compound, Wehrkirche Santke Albanus, dedicated to the British protomartyr—of the town of Kaltensundheim (see above), an impressive Gothic structure in whose hall Caspar Bach, great cousin of the forefather of the musical family, Veit Bach, was married to Susanne Markert, the daughter of a prominent local tailor, and established the cadet branch of the family after they had immigrated from Hungary around 1520.

Too early?
We are very fortunate to live such a beautiful region and in proximity to such new sites and history to discover.  We want everyone to be safe and want to model the right behaviour, because we are all in this together and all of our actions count, no matter how seemingly inconsequential.   
We hope to take to heart and practise how that privilege is not to be flaunted but exercised only if and when it’s safe to do so. Cover your face, keep your distance and wash your hands and perhaps most importantly, know that these places and the whole wide world will wait for you and be yours to explore once this is over.

it happened on the way to baker street

Though he’s not quite yet there and it’s all I can do to not play the song back to him and encourage him in the right direction, our neighbour’s rooster wails throughout the day with a crow that close awfully close to the timeless opening saxophone riff from Gerry Rafferty’s 1977 recording which anyone in the horn section should cut their chops on. I’ll update you if his pitch and timing improve or at least manage to capture a recording of this very audible but demurring bird.

gangolf der heiliger

In honour of the Burgundian saint’s feast day, 11 May, whom has developed quite a local cult following, we’re sharing a few impressions of the nearby chapel of Gangulphus (Gangolf and Gangolfskapelle, see previously) on the foothills of the Rhön over looking the town of Fladugen.

First consecrated by the archbishop of Würzburg in 1496, razed during the Reformation and Peasants’ Revolt and rebuilt in 1597, the Gothic structure with semi-circular apse is decorated inside in Roccoco style and the grassy knoll rests a top an ornate and flowering Marian Grotto (Mariengrotto)—the shrine well-tended and filled with the objects of devotion, votives and prayers of pilgrims.

leucanthemum x superbum

We’re enjoying quite an early superbloom of daisies of the bigger variety, Ox-Eye or Marguerite, in the back garden. Previously they’ve bloomed a bit later in the year, confined to hilly back patches of the yard we’ve kept wild but now they’ve taken over and we’re content to mow a path around the deck and the back door and leave the rest to nature.

dorfgebiet

Exploring a newly discovered footpath (previously) that meandered along the periphery of the fields, I came across this beautiful though seemingly strikingly impossible to plan and envisage panoramic vista of our village. It’s not taken from an impossible angle but when a settlement has been allowed to grow slowly (or not) by dint of topology and location but rather it is quite rewarding and privileged to find such a vantage point.

daily constitutional

Even before availing myself to my midday walks through the woods where we live, it was a privilege to live in such proximity with Nature and wandered solitary for miles without encountering another soul, and now this peaceful, restorative ritual has really become an important one that’s never stinted or cut short as I’ve taken to exploring every fork in the path and have discovered quite a few hidden, anchoring landmarks in disused cabins, fishing holes and welcome vistas.

 Though still alone and hardly seeing another person out at any hour or no matter what the weather, in one direction, lies the gently logged but managed woodlands with extensive trails and opposite is our section of the European Green Belt, a nature reserve than spans the former Inner-German border and Iron Curtain with paths that follow old patrol routes.

The birdsong is exuberant and watching the trees awaken, day by day, has been a priceless and cherished thing to experience and am deeply grateful for these long, extended hikes and the chance for a change of pace to reconnect.

frühlingsbote

daytrip: milseburg

Bright through very windy, H and I took a trip to another of the nearby peaks of the Rhön highlands (Mittlegebirge, mountain ranges that tend to not rise above the treeline and are forested the entire way up) and hiked up the Milseburg with views of the Wasserkuppe and the valleys beyond. This trapezoidal massif and extinct volcano is most significant for the remains of its ancient Celtic settlement—oppodium, which was one of the first well researched and preserved sites of its kind in central Germany and led to the establishment of societies to maintain places of cultural heritage and accord them protected status, beginning nearly a century and a half ago.
Though now covered in moss, the basalt stones still in parts comprise the base of defensive walls (see also) and foundations of domiciles and the abrupt abandonment of the fortress, first in 1200 and then again in 400 BC, suggests that the site set the scene for a clash of cultures between the Celts and the Germanic tribes of the area. At the top of the mountain is a chapel dedicated to Saint Gangolf, a Burgundian knight and wealthy landowner under King Pippin the Short, whom was killed 11 May in 760 for his express wish to renounce his worldly possessions by his wife’s lover.
Prior to his martyrdom, however, Gangolf had several heroic exploits including, reportedly, no less than vanquishing the giant Mils, who in league with the devil was preventing people from taking the sacrament of baptism by a monopoly of water sources—and generally causing crops to fail by withholding irrigation access. They shall not pass—Gangolf fought valiantly but had no refreshment to regain his strength for the next attack, and a local farmer, himself desperate, refused the knight any relief unless he paid an exorbitant price, which for all his wealth Gangolf could not muster. Resigned to defeat, he removed his helmet and on the spot where he laid it down, a new spring broke forth, still flowing to this day, and gave the knight the resolve he needed to finish off the giant and furnish the locals with a new source of clean water.
The devil entombed the defeated Mils and hence the Milsburg. No recent excavations have been undertaken but the mountain is protected from an archaeological standpoint as well as a being a nature preserve that welcomes visitors and remains a popular destination. Being stormy, it wasn’t the best conditions to be exposed on a summit but it is one that we’ll be able to explore again soon.

burgruine henneberg

Taking advantage of the nice weather, H and I ventured to the nearby village of Henneberg, named for the castle ruins above and in turn the ancestral seat of the eponymous royal house (see previously here and here).

The late eleventh century compound was within the next generations built up to its height by Count Poppo (see also here) with palace, belfry (Bergfried), residential suite with cabinet (Kemenate), defensive walls and cisterns and was abandoned as official residence in the late eighteenth century, the last of the male line having died off without heirs roughly a century beforehand.
One bit of rather gruesome legend associated with Henneberg involves the Countess Margarete and her three-hundred and sixty-five children—a Dutch noble woman, daughter of Florens IV of Holland and Zealand and Mathilde of Brabant whom entered into a political union in 1249 with Count Hermann (Poppo’s son), in hopes of securing his elevation to Holy Roman emperor of the Germans, a ploy which despite the landed connections ultimately failed. Margarete died in childbirth—which was not an uncommon occurrence—but reportedly was cursed to bear as many children as there are days in the year after insulting the mother of twins with words of incredulity and accusing her of adultery out of envy of her own childless condition. Returned to her parents in Loosduinen, a district of the Hague—not anywhere near here (though the caretakers of the ruin and club of local medieval enthusiasts and reenactors call themselves that)—Margarete gave birth to this impossible brood, varying described as mice or crabs, before all dying.
Neglected and falling into disrepair by the 1830s, the ducal court of Saxe-Meiningen wanted to raise the foundations and build a pleasure palace but those plans were overcome by other events. From the end of World War II to 1989, the castle was part of the inter-German border’s restricted zone (Sperrgebiet) until 1989 due to its commanding view of the surrounding region and into West Germany.

birb's the word

Via Everlasting Blört, as happy hosts to our own flock of fluffy, round friends (though ours are notoriously camera shy and flit around far too quickly to capture their cheer and adorableness in an appreciable way) that particularly like to huddle around a leggy, bare tree directly in view from the window by the dining table, we very much enjoyed the Audubon Society’s guide for birbing. In the main, the ones we’re fortunate to have visit (that fulfill all of the criteria set forth in the article are black-capped chickadees (tits, Blaumeise) that become exceptionally globular during the winter yet still agile and aerodynamic.

keydesk and console

A little sad to have read earlier in the week that the future of another local speciality museum might be in jeopardy, I decided it was time to finally make the time to visit a nearby institution whose fate might also be in question should it not attract enough patronage, and I was glad that I did.

Housed in the fifteenth century Gothic Schloß Hanstein—the manor originally called Kemenate that remains as testament to the past prosperity and importance of Ostheim vor der Rhön, the Orgelbaumuseum presents over nine hundred years of pipe organ history from the court of Charlemagne onward, honouring the nearly four-hundred-year tradition of pipe organ expertise, innovation and manufacture specific to this area.

 There are two factories in town associated with the museum that outfit and offer maintenance services for churches and other venues and it’s a matter of pride to expect that whenever there’s any news having to do with the instrument, installation or repair work, the institution is involved and gets a mention.

There are reproductions of workshops from different eras that illustrate the technical development and mechanics of performance and fidelity, which really makes one appreciate the scope and skill of craftsmanship, and quite a few antique units on display—including a few models that one can play and learn about how the sound is produced and modified. The miniaturisation and mobility that delivered the box organ for use in private homes is also pretty astounding. Try if you can to get out and patronise your local institutions to let them know that they are appreciated.

weideabtrieb

H and I had the chance to observe an interesting agricultural event when the shepherds bring the sheep and goats down from hilltop pastures to the valley in a village not far away. It was quite well attended with human spectators perhaps outnumbering the livestock being herded and driven to their winter quarters. 

Though cattle were also present, the stars of the day were the distinctive Rhön sheep (Rhönschaf) whose single flock numbered over one thousand, the breed nearly having gone extinct in the 1960s and now their numbers, with the help of a nature conservancy and the green belt across Europe that marks the former border between NATO and the Warsaw Pact have safely returned, led through a rather narrow channel thronged by a human audience—not unlike the scene in Pamplona with the Running of the Bulls.

eurorando

Founded on this day in 1969 in a lodge on a popular hiking trail through the Swabian Jura (Schwäbische Alb), the Europäishce Wandervereinigung, the European Ramblers’ Association, la Fédération européenne de la randonnée pédestre was formed by founding members representing walkers’ clubs from West Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Belgian.  Now headquartered in Kassel and with offices in Prague, more than fifty-eight area- and regional-organisations from thirty European states sponsor regular outings and maintain, marking and signposting a vast network of long distance hiking trails (some seventy thousand kilometres worth across an active membership of some three million individuals, see previously). The so called E-Paths are not for virtual exploration, but rather are trails that cross a minimum of three countries.

gemeine stinkmorchel

Just honoured by the German Mycological Association (Deutsche Gesllschaft für Mykologie, DGfM) as mushroom of the upcoming year, we were a bit excited to share a few prime specimens in the middle stages of development of the common stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus—that is, immodest and at least a relative thereof), widely recognised by dent of its signature carrion-like odour that attracts insects to spread the spores and its distinctive shape. Not pictured is its first egg-like stage (the immature ones are prized for their culinary value and supposed aphrodisiac qualities), but later growth with the stalk forming and an olive-coloured fruiting body known as the gleba. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out the sort of folktales sprouted up around these toadstools.

pilzfund

H and I went foraging for mushrooms recently and though we’re not averaging a good return on edible specimens from the field, we are getting exposed to quite the menagerie of woodland types of fungi during our scavenging.

 

Among the diverse exemplars that we find along the trail just metres from one another we encountered the poisonous and hallucinogenic fly agaric toadstool (Fliegenpilz, Amanita muscaria) quite often, others yet unidentified and works of art in their mystery, and another quavering discovery called a wood ear or a jelly ear (Judasohr, Auricularia auricular-judæ, so called from the traditional narrative that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder, the sambucus, Holunder tree and these mushrooms often appear at the base of such trees to remind the faithful of this act of betrayal).

For all of its rather Lynchian baggage, the wood ear is very much edible—if not a bit bland unseasoned, and is a staple for umami flavourant in Asian cuisine. Please click on the images for more detail.  The pharmacological merit of the fungus is currently being studied, research suggesting that its palliative use in folk medicine was not far off.