The Kyffhäuser is a small low mountain range south of the Harz. On a mountain promontory in the north-east are the ruins of the thousand-year-old Reichsburg Kyffhausen. A multitude of German legends have grown up around the Kyffhäuser. The most famous is the Barbarossa legend. It states:
“The old Emperor Frederick Barbarossa has been transported by a spell, i.e. a supernatural secret power, to an underground castle of the Kyffhäuser mountain in Thuringia. Here he sits asleep on an ivory chair and rests his head on a marble table. His red beard, which resembled yellow flax when he was alive, glows like the embers of fire and has grown through the table, almost around it.
Sometimes the emperor moves his blond head, half-lifts his heavy eyelids and blinks or squints his eyes. By such dreamlike winking he beckons at long intervals – of 100 years – a dwarf, scarcely the size of a boy, to go up and see if the ravens, the images of discord and misfortune, are still flying and cawing around the mountain. If this is the case, the emperor closes his eyes with a sigh, sleeps and dreams again for 100 years.
Only when the beard has grown completely around the round marble table and a mighty eagle soars in proud flight, circles the mountain and scares away the flock of ravens, only then will the emperor awaken with his equally enchanted faithful.”
Information about taking this photo
- Camera: Konica Minolta Dynax 7D
- Focal length: 20mm
- Aperture: ƒ/9
- Shutter speed: 1/30s
- ISO: 100
- Caption: KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
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