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...