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icarus_chained) wrote2015-07-13 09:57 pm
icarus_chained) wrote2015-07-13 09:57 pm
Walpurgis Nacht Notes
These are just about 1700 words of rough notes, mostly outlining, research and associations, that I did in preparation for the Walpurgis Nacht story. Normally I wouldn't post these, but the stuff about the Harz and the Piper is really kind of interesting, so I thought I'd throw them up as well. The actual story shifted a bit from this outline as I was fighting with it (seriously, there were five separate drafts and two months of fighting involved), but since they're only rough notes I figured I'd leave them.
Walpurgis Nacht Notes
Crossover between The Pied Piper of Hameln & Vampire Folklore/Dracula.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin/Rattenfänger von Hameln
Set in Hameln on the River Weser (NB), in 1284. Versions by the Brothers Grimm & Robert Browning.
Linked to the Totentanz/Danse Macabre/Death Dance in medieval folklore. (Dance of death where all, from rich to poor, are proved equal - strong theme in the aftermath of the Black Death, to which theories also link the Piper).
Lueneburg Manuscript (1440-50)(oldest account of story):
"In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul, on June 26, By a piper, clothed in many kinds of colours, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen." (koppen = hill)
1559-1565 Count von Zimmern included the first version with the plague of rats in his Zimmerische Chronik.
1605 Richard Rowland Verstegan gives as version with the rat plague & the children showing up later in Transylvania. Also first to say 'Pide Piper', BUT also gives date of event as 1376, so maybe two piper events. This version was repeated by Wanley in 1687.
The Brothers Grimm wrote their story in 1816, using multiple sources and again a reference to the Transylvania connection.
Robert Browning's poem of the event was written in 1842 using the Verstegan/Wanley date and version.
The Browning version, Verses V/VI:
"Come in!" -- the Mayor cried, looking bigger
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smile went out and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire.
Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"
He advanced to the council-table:
And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and the toad and newt and viper'
And people call me the Pied Piper."
[...]
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June from his huge swarms of gnats,
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats:"
Dracula/Vampire/Transylvania:
Aside from the vampire connections from the Piper story itself (children in Transylvania, ridding Asia of vampire bats), there are some from Dracula. The excluded first chapter of Dracula, reprinted as a separate short story "Dracula's Guest", involves an Englishman on a visit to Munich on the way to Transylvania. He wanders away from his hotel and carriage on Walpurgisnacht and finds an abandoned 'unholy village', after his carriage is frightened away by a 'tall thin stranger on the hill'. He stumbles across a cemetary and a tomb hours later in a valley, the tomb of Countess Dollingen of Gratz in Styria, died 1801 (also the inscription "The dead travel fast."). The tomb is marble with a great iron stake driven through its roof. He is saved from the vampire by a supernatural storm, supernatural wolf with eyes of flame, and supernatural riders, all implied to have been sent by Dracula.
Gratz/Graz and Styria are in southern Austria. So she wandered quite a ways. Munich is in Bavaria in southern Germany. Both are a ways from Hameln, but that's not necessarily the point. The point is Walpurgisnacht.
Walpurgisnacht, the night of Saint Walpurga (8thC German abbess), May Day Eve, April 30th-May 1st. Celebrated by bonfires and the Witches' Sabbath. The witch meeting in folklore takes place on the Brocken, the tallest peak in the Harz mountains between the rivers Elbe and Weser. The Brocken is noted for the 'Brocken Spectre', a magnified shadow observer thrown onto cloud banks when the sun is low. It was observed and described in 1780 by Johann Silberschlag, and entered folklore in the area ever since.
Wernigerode, in Saxony-Anhalt, is the town that links up to the Brocken. Opposite the Brocken, due south across the valley of the Kalte Bode, is the Wurmberg mountain, at the top of which lies a carved triangular offering cup (Opferschale) associated with the Wild Hunter (Wilden Jäger).
Backing up a touch and going sideways, there's also the folklore surrounding vampires, rats, and running water. Folkloric vampires had shapeshifting properties, and Dracula's vampires had the ability to control rats. Add in the fact that vampires cannot cross running water, and the Piper drowning rats in the Weser River takes on some interesting connotations. (Sidenote: Decapitation was the favoured vampire-killing method in Germany, though incineration is generally considered good as well, and drowning will work for both folkloric and Stoker vamps). Also interesting note, vampires in European folklore (as opposed to Stoker folklore) were ruddy rather than pale - Browning's description of the Piper, pale-haired with swarthy skin, is interesting.
Castles in the Upper Harz:
Wernigerode Castle, which was built first in the 12th/13th centuries by the Counts of Wernigerode. Became seat of general administration by the county in 1429 when the Wernigerode line went extinct. Became a Count's residence again in 1645, but the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) meant they couldn't occupy it immediately. It wasn't until 1710 when Count Christian Ernest moved in and had the castle rebuilt in the Baroque style. It was rebuilt again in the 19thC by his descendant Count Otto, finished in 1893, in the Neo-Romantic style.
Ruins of Anhalt Castle, oddly made of brick, built 1123, rebuilt in 1147 by Albert the Bear into one of the most impressive fortifications of the period/place. Occupied until 1300, fell into ruin henceforth.
Ruins of Königsburg Castle, small hill castle, located above the confluence of the Warme Bode & the Kalte Bode with a view of both Brocken and Wurmberg. Site mentioned first in 1312, mentioned again 1324, then no mention until describing the ruins in 1709 as 'Konigsburg'. Was rumoured to be the lost palace of Bodfeld in the early 20thC (Paul Hofer, 1898-1901 publications), but almost certainly disproved based on dates of nearby town being way too late (the palace is actually on the Schlosskopf in the Drecktal valley). But! Interesting legend? Further down the Bode is the Bode Gorge and the Hexentanzplatz plateau, again a witch rite area. (Bode flows in the Saale, which flows into the Elbe, other side of the Harz from the Weser).
Quote From "Dracula's Guest":
I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.
"Tell me," I said, "about this place where the road leads," and I pointed down.
Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered, "It is unholy."
"What is unholy?" I enquired.
"The village."
"Then there is a village?"
"No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years."
My curiosity was piqued, "But you said there was a village."
"There was."
"Where is it now?"
Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said. Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in their graves; but sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened,men and women were found rosy with life and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls!--and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived and the dead were dead and not--not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear--white-faced, perspiring, trembling, and looking round him as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain.
Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried, "Walpurgis nacht!" and pointed to the carriage for me to get in.
Quick Dates:
Browning's Piper poem: 1842
Bram Stoker's Dracula: 1897, with 'Dracula's Guest' published posthumously in 1914.
Brocken's name: 1100s
Harz's name: in High German version 'Hartingowe' from the 800s AD
Hameln Piper story: set 1294 or 1376, depending.
Dracula story: set late 19th C
Konigsburg castle mysterious period: between 1324 and 1709
Walpurgisnacht: St. Walpurga was 800s AD, German term recorded first 1603 (as Walpurgis Abend) and then 1668 (as Walpurgisnacht). Assoc. with witch sabbaths also 17th century.
Overall Point:
There are several thematic and geographic links between the stories of the Pied Piper and Dracula. Geographically, there's the Transylvania connection, and also the River Weser and the link to the Harz Mountains, Walpurgisnacht, and then to Dracula's guest, though that's set in south rather than central Germany. Thematically, there's the connection of rats, water, enthrallment, and we can add in Walpurgisnacht.
So. Take the following elements from the above: Walpurgisnacht, the Harz mountains, the mythology of vampires and rats, the ruined castle (Konigsburg, thinly disguised, I like Konigsburg) under the Brocken, the unholy village from Dracula's Guest, the offering cup from the Wurmberg, the bonfires of Walpurgisnacht, and the Piper, wandering south along the Weser into the Harz, coming to the village to rid them of rats as he did Hameln and finding them beset by a different plague. Throw in the Totentanz, aristocratic vampires from the castle being shown that death comes to all, the Piper as the Wilden Jager? Knowing of vampires from his contact with Transylvania from Hameln. (Dracula as Vlad Tepesh was 1430s-1470s, so Hameln predates Dracula himself, but we'll say vampires in general).
To free the village, the Piper has them put the Walpurgisnacht bonfires at the confluence of the Kalte und Warme Bode, and lures the vampire revel from the castle ruins at Konigsburg with his music to immolate themselves in the fires.
"Lay the fires for Walpurgisnacht, and by morning I will have played you some dancers to leap over them."
Crossover between The Pied Piper of Hameln & Vampire Folklore/Dracula.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin/Rattenfänger von Hameln
Set in Hameln on the River Weser (NB), in 1284. Versions by the Brothers Grimm & Robert Browning.
Linked to the Totentanz/Danse Macabre/Death Dance in medieval folklore. (Dance of death where all, from rich to poor, are proved equal - strong theme in the aftermath of the Black Death, to which theories also link the Piper).
Lueneburg Manuscript (1440-50)(oldest account of story):
"In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul, on June 26, By a piper, clothed in many kinds of colours, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen." (koppen = hill)
1559-1565 Count von Zimmern included the first version with the plague of rats in his Zimmerische Chronik.
1605 Richard Rowland Verstegan gives as version with the rat plague & the children showing up later in Transylvania. Also first to say 'Pide Piper', BUT also gives date of event as 1376, so maybe two piper events. This version was repeated by Wanley in 1687.
The Brothers Grimm wrote their story in 1816, using multiple sources and again a reference to the Transylvania connection.
Robert Browning's poem of the event was written in 1842 using the Verstegan/Wanley date and version.
The Browning version, Verses V/VI:
"Come in!" -- the Mayor cried, looking bigger
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red,
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smile went out and in;
There was no guessing his kith and kin:
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire.
Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire.
Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"
He advanced to the council-table:
And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and the toad and newt and viper'
And people call me the Pied Piper."
[...]
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June from his huge swarms of gnats,
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats:"
Dracula/Vampire/Transylvania:
Aside from the vampire connections from the Piper story itself (children in Transylvania, ridding Asia of vampire bats), there are some from Dracula. The excluded first chapter of Dracula, reprinted as a separate short story "Dracula's Guest", involves an Englishman on a visit to Munich on the way to Transylvania. He wanders away from his hotel and carriage on Walpurgisnacht and finds an abandoned 'unholy village', after his carriage is frightened away by a 'tall thin stranger on the hill'. He stumbles across a cemetary and a tomb hours later in a valley, the tomb of Countess Dollingen of Gratz in Styria, died 1801 (also the inscription "The dead travel fast."). The tomb is marble with a great iron stake driven through its roof. He is saved from the vampire by a supernatural storm, supernatural wolf with eyes of flame, and supernatural riders, all implied to have been sent by Dracula.
Gratz/Graz and Styria are in southern Austria. So she wandered quite a ways. Munich is in Bavaria in southern Germany. Both are a ways from Hameln, but that's not necessarily the point. The point is Walpurgisnacht.
Walpurgisnacht, the night of Saint Walpurga (8thC German abbess), May Day Eve, April 30th-May 1st. Celebrated by bonfires and the Witches' Sabbath. The witch meeting in folklore takes place on the Brocken, the tallest peak in the Harz mountains between the rivers Elbe and Weser. The Brocken is noted for the 'Brocken Spectre', a magnified shadow observer thrown onto cloud banks when the sun is low. It was observed and described in 1780 by Johann Silberschlag, and entered folklore in the area ever since.
Wernigerode, in Saxony-Anhalt, is the town that links up to the Brocken. Opposite the Brocken, due south across the valley of the Kalte Bode, is the Wurmberg mountain, at the top of which lies a carved triangular offering cup (Opferschale) associated with the Wild Hunter (Wilden Jäger).
Backing up a touch and going sideways, there's also the folklore surrounding vampires, rats, and running water. Folkloric vampires had shapeshifting properties, and Dracula's vampires had the ability to control rats. Add in the fact that vampires cannot cross running water, and the Piper drowning rats in the Weser River takes on some interesting connotations. (Sidenote: Decapitation was the favoured vampire-killing method in Germany, though incineration is generally considered good as well, and drowning will work for both folkloric and Stoker vamps). Also interesting note, vampires in European folklore (as opposed to Stoker folklore) were ruddy rather than pale - Browning's description of the Piper, pale-haired with swarthy skin, is interesting.
Castles in the Upper Harz:
Wernigerode Castle, which was built first in the 12th/13th centuries by the Counts of Wernigerode. Became seat of general administration by the county in 1429 when the Wernigerode line went extinct. Became a Count's residence again in 1645, but the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) meant they couldn't occupy it immediately. It wasn't until 1710 when Count Christian Ernest moved in and had the castle rebuilt in the Baroque style. It was rebuilt again in the 19thC by his descendant Count Otto, finished in 1893, in the Neo-Romantic style.
Ruins of Anhalt Castle, oddly made of brick, built 1123, rebuilt in 1147 by Albert the Bear into one of the most impressive fortifications of the period/place. Occupied until 1300, fell into ruin henceforth.
Ruins of Königsburg Castle, small hill castle, located above the confluence of the Warme Bode & the Kalte Bode with a view of both Brocken and Wurmberg. Site mentioned first in 1312, mentioned again 1324, then no mention until describing the ruins in 1709 as 'Konigsburg'. Was rumoured to be the lost palace of Bodfeld in the early 20thC (Paul Hofer, 1898-1901 publications), but almost certainly disproved based on dates of nearby town being way too late (the palace is actually on the Schlosskopf in the Drecktal valley). But! Interesting legend? Further down the Bode is the Bode Gorge and the Hexentanzplatz plateau, again a witch rite area. (Bode flows in the Saale, which flows into the Elbe, other side of the Harz from the Weser).
Quote From "Dracula's Guest":
I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.
"Tell me," I said, "about this place where the road leads," and I pointed down.
Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered, "It is unholy."
"What is unholy?" I enquired.
"The village."
"Then there is a village?"
"No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years."
My curiosity was piqued, "But you said there was a village."
"There was."
"Where is it now?"
Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said. Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in their graves; but sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened,men and women were found rosy with life and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls!--and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived and the dead were dead and not--not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear--white-faced, perspiring, trembling, and looking round him as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain.
Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried, "Walpurgis nacht!" and pointed to the carriage for me to get in.
Quick Dates:
Browning's Piper poem: 1842
Bram Stoker's Dracula: 1897, with 'Dracula's Guest' published posthumously in 1914.
Brocken's name: 1100s
Harz's name: in High German version 'Hartingowe' from the 800s AD
Hameln Piper story: set 1294 or 1376, depending.
Dracula story: set late 19th C
Konigsburg castle mysterious period: between 1324 and 1709
Walpurgisnacht: St. Walpurga was 800s AD, German term recorded first 1603 (as Walpurgis Abend) and then 1668 (as Walpurgisnacht). Assoc. with witch sabbaths also 17th century.
Overall Point:
There are several thematic and geographic links between the stories of the Pied Piper and Dracula. Geographically, there's the Transylvania connection, and also the River Weser and the link to the Harz Mountains, Walpurgisnacht, and then to Dracula's guest, though that's set in south rather than central Germany. Thematically, there's the connection of rats, water, enthrallment, and we can add in Walpurgisnacht.
So. Take the following elements from the above: Walpurgisnacht, the Harz mountains, the mythology of vampires and rats, the ruined castle (Konigsburg, thinly disguised, I like Konigsburg) under the Brocken, the unholy village from Dracula's Guest, the offering cup from the Wurmberg, the bonfires of Walpurgisnacht, and the Piper, wandering south along the Weser into the Harz, coming to the village to rid them of rats as he did Hameln and finding them beset by a different plague. Throw in the Totentanz, aristocratic vampires from the castle being shown that death comes to all, the Piper as the Wilden Jager? Knowing of vampires from his contact with Transylvania from Hameln. (Dracula as Vlad Tepesh was 1430s-1470s, so Hameln predates Dracula himself, but we'll say vampires in general).
To free the village, the Piper has them put the Walpurgisnacht bonfires at the confluence of the Kalte und Warme Bode, and lures the vampire revel from the castle ruins at Konigsburg with his music to immolate themselves in the fires.
"Lay the fires for Walpurgisnacht, and by morning I will have played you some dancers to leap over them."