A German Folktale

German bedtime stories are a little more gruesome than American ones (check out the original story of The Little Mermaid…)

I am visiting my friend in Germany. Here is the “cute” fairytale story she and I went to see. We had heard we could read parts of a German fairytale as we went through a forest . As we went further we would read more and more of the Germany fairytale.

It was not what we expected..

My friend translated it for me as we went and we were shocked. I have used the handy google translator to translate the story for you here on my blog … here it is.

The robbers from the Mordkuhlenberg – retelling the legend in shorthand

Once upon a time long ago, common robbers raged in the beautiful Dammer mountains. You can also read the legend at the scene of action, at the Mordkuhlenberg observation tower. A book with the legend and predatory poems as well as a radio play CD are also available.

The Miss Anna Maria Wieferich

At the height of their misdeeds, they kidnapped a young girl from Steinfeld named Anna Maria Wieferich. She had to keep the robbers housekeeping for many years, and every year the robber captain gave her a child. The robbers hung each newborn baby like a doll on a clothesline and bellowed: Knipperdoehnken, Knipperdoehnken, Well, young dancers drown. Knipperdoehnken, Knipperdoehnken, Well, young dancers drown.

The service on Easter Sunday

After seven years and countless requests Anna Maria was finally allowed to attend the service on Easter Sunday in Damme. She swore before the robbers the Christian and predatory oath, to be silent to the church visitors and to betray nothing of the cave. She promised, but secretly she had come up with a clever idea.

The lamentation

After the service ended, she stood by the wall of the church tower and told the walls as if they were the people, their story of suffering. She always whispered:

Church wall, I complain,

My name is Anna Maria Wieferich.

I sprinkle peas on my way

to where I’m going to sleep.

This whisper was echoed back from the walls and quickly spread among the churchgoers.

The cave of the robbers

Anna Maria returned to the robbers as promised. On the way she spread peas, so you could follow their trail. The attentive churchgoers informed the pastor in Damme and this the bishop in Osnabrück. The bishop immediately sent soldiers into the Dammer Mountains, and the field guard who had found the trail of the peas had a soldier disguised as a merchant. As the hooves of his horse fell into the fine strings, the silver bells sounded in the cave. The robbers sprang up and attacked the merchants, but the soldiers ambushed and arrested them.

The robbers are being made the process

The robbers were brought to trial in the Dammer court. Immediately after the verdict, the robbers were hanged and dangled like dolls in the wind on the gallows as the robbers had previously hung the newborn children on the clothesline.

Textual basis after the play “Die Räuber vom Mordkuhlenberg” by the Dammer director Bernd Kessens

It’s a pretty rough story, right ?! This forest is located in Damme, Germany which is part of Norther Germany , close to Diepholz.

Here were the little story paragraphs:

The end of the story was at a top of this wooden viewpoint . It wasn’t bad 😉