Chapter XX - The Rosstrappe

The Rosstrappe, or Horse’s Foot-mark, is the name of a rock in the lofty projection of the Harz behind Thale, with an oval cavity bearing some resemblance to the impression of a gigantic horse’s hoof, which many passengers ascend, on account of the beautiful romantic Swiss-like view from its summit.

Popular tradition gives the following account of the cavity.

More than a thousand years ago, before the robber-knights had erected the surrounding castles of Hoymburg, Leuenburg, Steckelnburg, and Winzenburg, the whole country round the Harz was inhabited by giants, who were heathens and sorcerers. They knew no other pleasure than murder, rapine, and violence. If in want of weapons, they tore up the nearest sexagenarian oak, and fought with it. Whatever stood in their way they beat down with their clubs, and the women who pleased them they carried off by force, to be either their servants or wives.

In the Bohemian forest there lived at that time a giant named Bohdo, of vast stature and strength, and the terror of the whole country; every giant in Bohemia and Franconia crouched before him; but he could not prevail on Emma, the daughter of the king of the Riesengebirge,^[1] to return his love. Here neither strength nor stratagem availed him aught; for she stood in compact with a mighty spirit. One day Bohdo caught sight of his beloved as she was hunting on the Schneekoppe, and instantly saddled his horse, which could spring over the plains at the rate of five miles a minute, and swore by all the powers of darkness to obtain Emma this time or perish in the attempt. Quicker than the hawk flies he darted forward, and had almost overtaken her before she was aware that her enemy was so near. But when she saw him only nine miles behind, and knew him by the gates of a destroyed town, which served him as a shield, she hastily urged on her horse. And it flew, impelled by her spurs, from mountain to mountain, from cliff to cliff, through valleys, morasses and forests, so that the beeches and oaks were scattered like so much stubble by the force of her horse’s hoofs. Thus she fled through the country of Thuringia, and came to the mountains of the Harz. From time to time she heard behind her the snorting of Bohdo’s horse, and then pushed on her yet unwearied steed to new exertions.

Her horse now stood snorting and panting on the frightful rock which, from the evil one holding his revels there, is called the Devil’s Dancing-place. Emma cast a fearful glance around, her horse trembled as it looked into the abyss, for the precipice was perpendicular as a tower, and more than a thousand feet down to the yawning gulf below. She heard the hollow rushing of the water under her feet, which here formed a frightful whirlpool. The opposite rock, on the other side of the precipice, appeared to her even more distant than the abyss, and hardly to afford space enough for one of her horse’s fore-feet.

Here she stood, anxious and doubtful. Behind her was an enemy whom she dreaded more than death itself. Before her was the abyss, which opened its jaws towards her. Emma now again heard the snorting of Bohdo’s panting horse. In her terror she called upon the spirits of her fathers for help, and without reflection pressed the ell-long spurs into the sides of her steed; and she sprang! sprang across over the abyss, and happily reached the opposite rock; but it struck its hoofs four feet deep into the hard stone, so that the flying sparks illumined the whole country around like lightning. This is the horse’s foot-mark. Time has made the hollow less, but no rains can entirely efface it.

Emma was saved! but the gold crown which she wore, and which weighed a hundred pounds, fell into the abyss as the horse sprang across it. Bohdo, who saw only Emma and not the abyss, sprang after the fugitive, and fell with his horse into the vortex of the stream, to which he gave its name.^[2]

Here, changed into a black dog, he guards the princess’s golden crown, that no thirster after gold may raise it up from the foaming gulf. A diver once, induced by large promises, tried to obtain it. He descended into the abyss, found the crown, and raised it so high, that all the assembled people could see the rays of it. Twice it fell from his hands, and the spectators called to him to descend a third time. He did so, and—a stream of blood rose high up in the air. The diver never appeared again.

With fear and horror the traveller now approaches the gulf, which is covered with the darkness of night. The stillness of the grave reigns over the abyss. No birds fly over it, and, in the dead of the night, may often be heard in the distance the hollow dog-like howl of the heathen

At the present day the whirlpool where the dog guards the golden crown is called the Kreetpfuhl,^[3] and the rock where Emma implored the aid of the spirits of her fathers, the Devil’s Dancing-place.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Or Giant-mountalns. a chain of mountains which separate Sile sia from Bohemia, the highest of which is the Schneekoppe.

[2]:

The Bode, which, with the Emme and the Saale, flows into the Elbe.

[3]:

That is, the devil’s pool (?pooi?). So Kreetkind, the devil’s child, in the dialect of those parts.