A Mausoleum for Blind King John

After writing about the creation of a monument to Blind King John of Bohemia, I thought I understood the pomp and circumstance that had transferred his mortal remains from Mettlach to Kastel, across the Saar River from Serrig.  I wrote about it in my book.  Than, in 2004, I had a chance to take another look - a good look.  Now I understood why it took ten young men who alternated the carrying of a small box containing King John's bones from the Saar River to the magnificent mausoleum that had been built to house them.  The bluff was magnificent in autumn and much higher than I had imagined.  See for yourself.

The Klause rests high above the Saar River

The rock ledge near the Klause looking toward the small church at Taben Rodt 

A side view of the Klause Mausoleum

The windows are an architectural artwork

The sarcophagus without King John's bones, which are now in Luxembourg

Looking down from the Klause to the Saar and the village of Serrig

Steep vineyards below the Klause

Forest flowers in Mid-May

What a variety of flowering plants spring up in the forests of my Heimatland. Josiane has sent her latest offering. Each one shows a beauty that often goes unnoticed. One flower in particular has a well-known fairy tale connection.

According to legend, it was the plant "Phyteuma spicatum" that led, in the classic German fairy tale, to Rapunzel's imprisonment. It was the obsession of Rapunzel's mother-to-be with the rampions in the garden of an old enchantress that led her husband to steal some spikes of the plant. His wife made them into a salad and asked her husband to bring more. Eventually he came face to face with the old enchantress who made a bargain with the couple. They would be spared her punishing wrath, but the unborn child would be taken by the enchantress. So at the age of 12 years, Rapunzel was locked in a tower and we all know the rest of the story. In Germany this plant is called Rapunseln, in English speaking countries it is called a spiked rampion.

Wild Rose called a Heckenrose in German

Honeysuckle known as Geißblatt in Germany

Oxeye Daisies

Cephalanthera Also Known as Helleborine

Trees Surrounded by Spring Flowers

"Flowers" of the Maple Tree

Horse Chestnut Tree Flowers

Blue-Spiked Rampion Also Known As Rapunzel

The Fields of Oberzerf

Oberzerf is the birthplace of my great-great grandmother, today a village not much bigger than it was at the end of 1827 when she was born there.  It is about 8 miles from the city of Saarburg and 5 and one half miles from Irsch, the village of the man she would marry.  Thick forest land lies to the east and south, mostly out of my camera range as we drove along the highway.  Coming into town, there is a flowing stream and a small church, almost a chapel, at the top of a little hill.  The church built in the 1950s, the paved highway, and the automobiles parked here and there - these are a minor distraction from the setting of a village that is more than 1,000 years old.

Thickets still separate the tillable land.

The fields at the end of the harvest time

Catching a glimpse of the forest

The water of the Grossbach stream once powered the village mill

The main road to the small Catholic church

A remodeled barn house on the Hauptstrasse dates from 1848

"Already it is Green Behind the Fence." Poet Ernst Thrasolt

In late spring, the forest land is a place of color and growth as more and more plants struggle out from winter rest into the sunlight and vegetation becomes lush and tall.  The pictures that follow remind me of the lines by the poet, Ernst Thrasolt, who lived in Beurig, across the Saar from Saarburg and only a little over a mile from Irsch.  He simply called his poem "Spring" and wrote "Already it is green behind the fence and soon also im the meadow..."  Josiane has been out taking more pictures as she walks and has shared her knowledge and thoughts about them, backing up Thrasolt's lines about the coming of the spring season.

One of the first aquilegia (columbines) of the year

beauties on the old wall

Chelidonia on the old wall ; the juice treats warts

First Flowers of the Broom Shrubbery 

Daphne has its fruit

Wild daisies known as Gänseblümchen - used for children's flower crowns

Orchids in the grass

Ernst Thrasolt, "Already it is green behind the fence and soon also im the meadow..."

They Were Wearing...

At the beginning of the 19th century, clothes told the story of who you were.  It was the style of clothes as well as the materials from which the clothing was made.  The Simeonstift Museum in Trier has a representative collection of "what they were wearing" when our ancestors lived in the Trier or Saarburg Kreis.

Let's walk around the museum display cases and look at a few of the exhibits.

Town Woman's Day Dress

Young Woman's Cotton Muslin Town Dress

Older Girl's Dress

Woman's Special Occasion Dress

Outerwear of a Well-Dressed Town Man

Farm Wife's Sunday Dress

Young Farm Girl's Sunday Finery

Farmer's Work Tunic

Country Women's Sunday Church Shawl

When Summer Comes Early

It has been a very warm "summer-like spring" in Germany this year and growth is early, often looking more like late May rather than late April.  Josianne has been hiking the fields of Lorraine and the German Saar lands, her camera in hand.  Once again she has found rare wildflowers and also a landscape filled with green, white and even gold - because there is a rape field already in bloom.

Solomon Seal

Gromwell -any of various plants of the boraginaceous genus having small greenish-white, yellow, or blue flowers, and smooth nutlike fruits

Apple tree in full bloom

Trees in their meadow

Rape field already in bloom

Irsch - Almost As It Once Was

There are some old postcards that show Irsch in earlier times.  They are black and white and often a bit rumpled and time worn.  But from early and to late spring, color gradually becomes so vibrant that there is a need to show views from modern times.  Then one can let the imagination dissolve the village's modern expansion.  The old, central part of the village stands alone once more - to let us picture the hue of the spring days and nights of long ago.

Here and there a hint of green wakes in the village

Above the city, wild herbs and plants lurk, waiting to appear

Green brightens the old mill site

"In der Lay," seen on a sunny day, is one of Irsch's oldest sections

The trees again have leaves in May

The sky is always as it was in olden times