The Devil's Crown part 3: Helfenstein

So far we’ve established that Hasungen may have been the site of an early Christian hermitage, founded on top of a hill where pagans used to gather on the summer solstice in order to do pagan things. Indeed, a stream that flows from the foot of Hasungen is still known as Teufelsborn, ‘Devil’s Spring’, and one mile to the north is another stream called Heiligenbach, ‘Holy Beck’, perhaps so named because early baptisms took place there.

Across the valley from Hasungen is a combe called Heilerbachtal, which we’ve already visited. The most exciting thing, however, is at the head of the combe: Helfenstein, a massive basalt formation that looks as though it was frozen while erupting out of the grassy peak.

To give some idea of scale, the bowl-shaped rise is about 250 metres across and 50 metres high. When you’re standing at the top of the combe, Helfenstein simply siezes your senses and draws you towards it. Only when you reach it do you realise how tall and steep it is; it takes a good five minutes of clambering to reach the top.

The best way to approach is from the north-west side (1). You follow a winding track up the slope, picking through the rough grass and vegetation, to a cluster of horn-like extrusions (2). By this point you’re already out of breath, taking care not to slip on the increasingly rocky ground, and it’s all you can do to crane your neck up to look at the looming sentinels as you climb between their shadows.

Once near the top, you pass by the side of the central extrusion and head towards the tallest and most distant (3). This was the focus of Bronze Age rituals, and in later medieval times was used as a fortified lookout post. There’s no evidence of conversion-period activity here, but then we wouldn’t necessarily expect there to be, since religious rituals in exposed natural settings often leave no archaeological traces.

This final outcrop is one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been. You can see here how large it is - if you look closely you can make out a tiny Carolyn standing bottom right. The weirdest thing, though, is believing that it’s an entirely natural feature. It just looks... freaky.

For one thing, the way the volcanic rock formed and cooled several million years ago has resulted in a flight of ‘steps’ that lead you up the northern side to the very top. Here’s a close-up of the steps:

Quite bizarre. Not only that, but the steps lead towards a large platform at the top which has its own natural ‘altar’, an alcove protected on three sides by sloping rocks, with the fourth, open side looking directly towards - of all places - Heilerbachtal, Wichtelkirche and Hasungen.

In order to test whether this ‘altar’ would have been suitable for, say, human sacrifices, Carolyn and I did a little test.

Thanks to Carolyn for the photo!

Result. But what does all this mean for Boniface? There’s no direct evidence that Helfenstein was ever visited in the eighth century. I can only fall back on supposition and circumstance: Hasungen appears to have been important at the time, in part surely because of its unique solstice relationship with Helfenstein. The combe below Helfenstein has a stream called Heilerbach, ‘Healing Beck’, along with the Wichtelkirche, which I suggested derived its name from ‘Holy Valley’. All this points towards Helfenstein’s special status in the landscape.

Finally, if Helfenstein was some kind of ritual site in the conversion period, it chills me to think what the Anglo-Saxon missionaries would have made of it. They had no concept of geology or any understanding of the natural processes which could create something like this. They must have looked at Helfenstein and assumed that someone or something had created it; when they saw those great columns twisting out of the earth, the huge flight of steps leading up to the altar, they may have seen not a natural curiosity, but a monstrous, perverted imitation of church architecture - a nightmarish temple wrought by the hands of Satan to his own glory: the Devil’s Crown.

The Devil's Crown part 2: Hasungen

Across the valley from the Wichtelkirche is a plateau-topped hill called Hasungen. In the early eleventh century, a monk called Heimerad, having been kicked out of the monastery of Hersfeld after a squabble with the abbot, came wandering north through Hessia. He visited a place called Kirchberg, where he somehow got himself accused of breaking into the church and committing 'sacrileges' within it, and was expelled. Then he went to a place called Kirchditmold, where he managed to annoy the local priest so profoundly that he was chased away by dogs.

Why everyone hated the hapless Heimerad so much is a mystery. In any case, he eventually ended up on D) Hasungen, where he lived as a hermit for a few years. After his death, he was proclaimed a saint and a monastery was founded on the site.

This account, written about 1085, is the earliest mention of a Christian presence on Hasungen. One must always read hagiography through a very critical lens, however, and it seemed strange to me that Heimerad should choose this particular hill at random. He came from Hersfeld in southern Hessia, which was itself originally founded under Boniface's personal direction as a hermitage. I suspect that Heimerad came to Hasungen deliberately because there was already a hermitage there known to the monks of Hersfeld, and this hermitage may have dated back 250 years to the conversion period.

The Warme valley - the curving white line shows the 'arms' of Heilerbach combe, which faces towards D) Hasungen

This is a 250-year wide leap of faith, true, but the landing is cushioned somewhat by the two stream names near the hill: A) Heiligenbach and B) Teufelsborn, 'holy beck' and 'devil's spring' respectively. Such names were most likely coined during the conversion period, when pagan rituals at springs were still going on, and there were missionaries about who were able to 'demonise' them.

In the Vita Bonifatii, a biography of Boniface written a few years after his death, the author writes how some Hessians "continued to offer sacrifices, secretly or openly, at groves and springs" even after they were baptised. In a letter dating from 738, the pope himself wrote an open letter to the Hessians in which he urged them not to return to "the sacrifices to the dead or prophecies at groves and fountains... which used to happen within your borders."

Typical pagan nonsense

Teufelsborn may have been one such spring that the missionaries successfully associated with devil worship. Heiligenbach, then, just under a mile to the north, was perhaps the site of early baptisms.

But what of Hasungen itself? I was talking to Herr K one evening and he happened to mention that every summer solstice the flat top of Hasungen attracted 'funny people' who went there to watch the sun rise. The dawn sun, it seems, rises precisely between the rocks of Helfenstein. My jaw dropped when he said this. My earlier hunch about Helfenstein and the solstice had been right - but it was dawn, not dusk, that was important, and Helfenstein was the place to look at rather than the place to be - I had gone to the wrong place at the wrong time!

Looking from D) Hasungen to F) Helfenstein, the line shows where the solstice sun rises

A couple of mornings later, since it was only a week or so past the equinox, I rose early, drove out to Hasungen and climbed to the top to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was too foggy to see anything.

Not the most impressive sunrise ever

I've risen early two or three times since, but each time the weather has defeated me, and by now the alignment of the dawn sun and Helfenstein has probably been lost. But here's a photo I stole from the internet which shows what I missed:

The solstice sunrise smack bang on top of Helfenstein!

The combination of early Christian hermitage, sacred place-names and this astronomical phenomenon all point towards Hasungen being a focus of intense pagan activity somehow connected to the solstice. Early missionaries had a choice when they came across a cult site. They could either divert the people elsewhere, or they could elbow in and take over the place itself.

Here I think we see both tactics. First, there was a sacred spring below the hill that might have been used year-round by locals and travellers seeking to win the favour of the gods. The missionaries rebranded this spring 'Teufelsborn' and pointed people towards another nearby stream which they used for baptisms, and which consequently became known as 'Heiligenbach'.

Second, there was the hill of Hasungen. This was not so simple: diverting the people elsewhere would do no good, since they might still be drawn to the hill at the solstice - even Boniface could not change the fact that Hasungen offered a unique viewing platform for this astronomical event. So the logical tactic was to appropriate the hill itself, thereby controlling access to it. If the pagans couldn't get up onto the hill, they couldn't perform their rituals. Instead it became the site of a Christian hermitage, a place for solitary monks to retreat, fast, pray and enter into personal combat with the devil - and what better place to do it than here, kneeling on the soft grass of the summit, looking across the valley to the embracing arms of Heilerbachtal, the Wichtelkirche and Helfenstein?

Looking north-east from Hasungen, across the Warme valley is the combe which has Helfenstein at its head (you can see the horn-like outcrops at the centre)

Yet Hasungen was just an outpost of Satan, a place where his deluded followers sacrificed to demons. The early hermits had not conquered the devil, but forced themselves into his direct line of sight when the solistice sun rose, menacing and red, from the crags of Helfenstein. Helfenstein was the real seat of the devil, and it will be the next stop on this tour.

The Devil's Crown part 1: Wichtelkirche

A couple of weeks ago I made a last-minute evening dash to a place called Helfenstein in the hope of finding some meaningful relationship between the natural rock formations and the solstice sunset that might strengthen my outlandish theory that this was a very special place when Boniface came to convert Hessia. No luck that day, but I was in for a surprise. But here's my theory.

This is part of the Warme valley, whose river flows from south to north. At this point it is joined by three streams with curious names: A) Heiligenbach ('holy beck'); B) Teufelsborn ('devil's spring'); C) Heilerbach ('healing beck').

Individual names might be random, but when you have a cluster of them like this, you know something is going on. Heilerbach runs from F) Helfenstein, the massive rock formation I visited on the solstice, past the foot of E) Wichtelkirche, a weird spire-like basalt extrusion that thrusts up some 25 metres from the valley floor.

The Wichtelkirche, 'gnome church', is what first poked me in the eye when I was poring over maps of the area about a year ago. There's a lovely old fairytale about how a gnome king (Wichtelkönig) built a church on this spot to impress a local shepherdess into marrying him. But when she jilted him at the altar, there was a tremendous clap of thunder and the church turned into solid black rock. Hence it is known as the Wichtelkirche.

Now, I'm not saying this story is necessarily wrong, but I had another idea that 'Wichtel' here doesn't actually mean 'gnome', but comes from the Old High German wih-tal, which means 'sacred valley'. Logically enough, the huge spire-like rock became known as the wih-tal-kirihe, 'sacred valley church', but over time wih-tal was confused with the word Wichtel, which, by sheer coincidence, means 'gnome'. Thus the story of the gnome king was born.

The Wichtelkirche has a kind of natural platform near the top where someone actually built a tiny wooden castle in the olden days (long since vanished). But you can still climb up, as I did with Carolyn, and enjoy the fine views over the Warme valley.

I would put money on the theory that this platform was once used for some kind of pagan-type activity. I would do so even if the only evidence were the rock itself, its name and the 'healing beck' that flows directly beneath it. But since coming here I've learned an awful lot more, and now I can see that the Wichtelkirche is only one part of a much bigger picture...

Deric

I first met Deric at Herr K's BBQ. He's in his late sixties, tall, ruddy-faced, with a cheerful and open manner that becomes more cheerful and open the drunker he gets. The first thing I noticed about him was his hat, an Afrika Korps-style tan field cap. During the raccoon discussion he told us about his gun, which he claimed was illegal, then corrected himself that the gun itself wasn't illegal, just the ammunition he had for it. At this point Herr K told me that he himself was the community representative, a kind of mini-mayor of Friedrichsaue, and another of the guests present was the local policeman. The policeman looked over and just shrugged. Clearly they are used to Deric's eccentric, vaguely militaristic inclinations.

They also seem used to his open racism. Now, I rarely meet racists, especially such amiable racists as Deric. My conversation with him slipped into racism so gently that I didn't even realise I was in a particularly racist pit until Herr K lifted me out.

This is how it happened. Deric asked me where I'd excavated outside the UK. I said Ireland and Mexico. He said how he wanted to visit Yucatan, and went on to describe his favourite holiday places, which included various places in South America and also Victoria Falls in Rhodesia, "or Zimbabwe as it's called now". We agreed that Zimbabwe was in a poor state thanks to Mugabe. Nothing racist so far, note: even The Guardian would concur there. Then he started talking about his relatives in South Africa, and how funny Afrikaans sounded to his Niederdeutsch ear. Then he mentioned his surprise that 'the blacks' in South Africa also spoke Afrikaans. Still not necessarily racist. But then he said that South Africa was also in a poor state, and that this always happened when the blacks took over.

This is the point where Herr K stepped in. He said, "Just so you know, these are just Deric's opinions, not mine. He's rather racist. I have nothing to do with these opinions."

Deric laughed and, unperturbed, cheerfully went on to talk about the deficiencies of die Schwartzen the same way he had half-joked about shooting the raccoons that broke into his yard.

"Really, how many blacks have you met?" demanded Herr K.

"I've met lots," said Deric. His mouth sank for a moment, and he shook his head. "But I must say I was disappointed."

Deric, like most unrepentant racists, has decided to dig his heels deeper into the sand against the social tide. He holds on to his racism in all its stubborn inconsistency. At times it blurred into simple xenophobia, the kind of casual distrust of foreigners and immigrants that has more to do with culture and language than race. When Herr K accused him of hating Turks, for instance, Deric vehemently denied it, saying that he loved visiting Turkey.

"But you don't like it when Turks come over here," Herr K said.

Well, of course; that was another matter entirely. Deric then brought up the problems Italy has with illegal immigration from North Africa. "You don't like them just because they're black," said Herr K.

"No, they're Arabs."

"They come from Niger too."

There followed a surreal exchange whereby Deric tried to prove that his was a particularly democratic form of xenophobia, in that he hated all non-Europeans equally, not just blacks. Yet the blacks were the object of his true racism. I've met bigots, anti-Semites and xenophobes before; but before Deric I'd never bodily encountered this peculiar, old-school colonial attitude towards race - not angry, flag-waving, skinhead BNP-style racism, but a kind of pedestrian belief that Apartheid was the most natural and logical form of social organisation in South Africa, that white rule was the best thing ever to happen to the black and brown races, and that sub-Saharan peoples never have, and never will, achieve anything of note in human history.

This was the very same attitude I'd seen portrayed in the novels of J. M. Coetzee and Doris Lessing. It is unthinking, seductive, rooted more in a perverse form of embattled paternalism than in fear or hatred, though it verges readily towards open frustration when permitted - the frustration, perhaps, of a father who has finally disowned his errant child. It is not a political ideology, but a world-view; an amoral acknowledgement of the 'natural' order of things which happened to put the white man at the top. It is, in short, the mentality that ruled the age of European colonialism, and has still not died out.

I'm suprised I didn't realise even sooner that Deric, who lives a quiet rural life with his Afrika Korps field cap, illegal rifle and collection of pith helmets, is basically a Boer frontiersman lost in space and time, as though he fell asleep in the veld fifty years ago and woke up here. And yet he was open-minded and progressive when we spoke about religion, saying that he was agnostic and always respected the beliefs of others. What's more, he was genuinely funny, charming and affable, and I'm sure that, were I black, he would have behaved just the same - he just wouldn't want me marrying his daughter...

Bear Mountain

The weeks are rushing by with distressing speed and I have three simultaneous deadlines all converging on me: a paper for the Leeds International Medieval Congress, an article for the Journal of Medieval History and the third chapter of the book. Luckily they're all about Anglo-Saxon things at least.

Yesterday I went with Frau K and her sister to Frankfurt, where I visited the archaeological museum. It was actually the first time I'd ever seen some of these archaeological materials in real life, even though I've spent almost five years studying them. This shows that I'm not a real archaeologist.

Frankfurt itself was highly impressive: a small city of Big Money. I've never seen so many Mercedes in one place.

Big Money

I've found an effective way of avoiding work by going for a run in the mornings, and fixed my ambitions on a hill that rises directly above the house, Bärenberg, which means 'Bear Mountain' (although I've only seen deer up there so far). Aside from the reassuring lack of bears, the hill is attractive because it's almost identical to Mt Currahee, the hill that the WW2 101st Paratrooper Division had to run up and down during their training in Band of Brothers. Now when I watch the TV series I feel closer to their pain.

The first time I tried to run up it just about killed me by the half-way point. There are no hills in York and my legs didn't know what was happening. Only on my fifth attempt last week, when I ran it with Edmund, did I make it all the way to the top without stopping, which was a glorious day indeed. Now it's getting slightly easier each time, and I've already shaved 11 minutes off my starting PB. Hurrah!

The view from the top makes it worthwhile, but best part is running all the way down in the searing heat and then going for a cooling swim in Herr K's pond. Then walking back through the garden orchard with the sun on your shoulders and a cooling breeze on your face. By god that feels good. Sure beats reading about Anglo-Saxon missionaries, much as I love those guys.

Raccoons

At Herr K's last night the talk was of ticks and raccoons. The ticks are in the news at the moment especially because a lot of them carry the lethal and insidious Lyme disease, and are doing their best to spread it across Germany.

Raccoons, known here by the inappropriately cute-sounding name of Waschbären, were introduced here around the middle of the twentieth century, and have since gone on to spread across the country, eating and killing everything smaller than themselves. This map shows their present distribution in Germany - I'm currently just north of Edersee, downtown Racoonville.

Frau K is currently looking after a baby raccoon who turned up mewling and helpless on the road outside the house. Like all mammals, it's unbearably cute when young. I petted its tiny little head and it tried to suck on my finger. Awww. Except of course it actually just wanted to bite me, but hasn't yet grown any teeth.

Bless!

And who can we thank for bringing this vicious plague upon the land's unsuspecting fauna? Why, none other than Hermann Göring. Herr K and his neighbour Manfred explained that when Hermann wasn't busy banning newspapers or strutting about in a toga, he partook of the aristocratic pursuit of hunting, but thought that the German countryside could use a little more variety.

"He imported some raccoons from America," Herr K said, "and set them loose so German hunters would have something to shoot at."

"Yeah," Manfred added drily: "If it had worked, the war would never have started."

It would be more refreshing that jokes about the war and the myth of Teutonic Rage are allowed in this circle were it not for another of Herr K's neighbours, whom we shall call Deric, who turned out to be the most likable racist you could ever hope to meet. More on him next time.

One and a half memories, one and a half dreams

i) A memory

I had to bend down to pick something up in the bathroom the other day, and as I rose my head passed close to the corner of a wall cabinet. Suddenly a memory popped up: I was nine or ten years old, on a caravan holiday on the Yorkshire coast, and one morning I somehow banged my head on the corner of a bedside cabinet, drawing blood.

Funny how memory works like that. For the briefest instant I was in a situation vaguely similar to one twenty years earlier, and my subconscious whipped out the memory quick as a flash. "Look!" it said. "Careful now! Remember what happened last time!"

How many of our memories are like that, lurking just beneath the surface, ready to appear at the speed of a firing synapse? It seems a very clever evolutionary trick.

ii) A memory and dream

Edmund, Nole and I were walking back from Zierenberg last night along a dead, dark road when a pair of car lights appeared some way behind us. We moved to the side and a minute later the car crawled by.

As I watched its red tail lights receding, something in the geometry of the moment - those two lights shrinking like eyes into the blackness - triggered not a memory, exactly, but a memory of a dream. In the dream I was at a jumble sale across the road from my Nan's house in Swindon and I bought a remote control car, which I raced up and down the backs.

There was an emotion bound up with this dream-memory that would take a book to describe. The dream has stayed dormant in my mind I don't know how many years - ten perhaps, fifteen. Remembered dreams tend to float around in time like that, unanchored to daily realities.

The dream isn't important, but why was it invoked at that moment, by those car lights, walking down that particular lane on that night? What peculiar complex of chemical sparks in my brain brought it back to life, when it might have remained buried for the next fifty years?

iii) A dream

This one is a little weird. I dreamed my own death last week, which has never happened to me before, although I'm sure it isn't that uncommon.

All I remember is that someone was holding a gun to my forehead and counting to three. I knew that death was certain, and my only thought was how badly I wanted to go on living. The figure with the gun (I think it was a woman, whatever that signifies...) reached number three and pulled the trigger. With my last effort, as I felt the breath drawing from my lungs, I uttered my final hopeless words - but again, there isn't room to go into that here.

Rather than everything going black, my vision was flooded with white flashes and spots. Nor was it quick, but slow and muted, like wading through treacle. I had the sense of making a terrible transition.

It was in fact that unreal No Man's Land between waking and sleep, the long moment when the brain slips into the dream world, or from the dream world back into the real one. I'd been there once before, but by the time I recognised this I was already awake. The shock of the bullet had jolted me out of my sleep.

It seems that our subconscious minds don't like the idea of dying any more than we do.