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.