- Invented legends
2. Transmitted legends
3. Something strange at the wayside
The Comenius-Team:
Ahlers, Kristin (Drawings)
Beck, Marcel (Layout)
Büker, Nadine (Drawings)
Gillis, Catherine (Ass.)
Henkel, Friederike
Jütten, Juliane
Keuthage, Gregor (Layout)
Rempel, Sabine
Schmidt, Werner (Ass.)
Sinemus, Nadine
Szeponik, Andrea
Weitekamp, Elena
1. Invented legends
A picture of the virgin Mary
Hidden between the two ponds behind the former Jesuit-College, there is an old picture of the virgin Mary, between the deep shrubbery.
A long time ago two little children were playing on a frozen pond behind the Jesuit College. It was in the middle of the winter and the ice appeared to be strong enough for skating.
Suddenly, the ice broke and the two children fell into the cold water. After a while the children were rescued, but due to their frostbite, they died after a few days.
To remind other people about this accident, the Jesuit-Padre fixed a picture of the virgin Mary on a tree, which was near the two ponds.
The carved picture can still be seen today. It has two “faces”: one side of the face is smiling and the other side is crying. The picture can only be seen in the winter, because at this time there are no other plants to hide the image.The people who walk by the ponds are warned of the dangers of the thin ice.
Sabine Rempe
Behind the beautiful Jesuit Church, young married couples were photographed next to a bridge.
An old legend says that the pairs, who cross this bridge together, would
remain together for their entire life.
Nadine Sinemus
The Adam- and Eve-tree
In Büren, where the Alme and Afte rivers fuse together, an amorous couple often met secretly.
They had to meet secretly, because their families were against their love. Many years ago everyone was friendly with each other, however a big conflict took place between the families and so any association was forbidden.
But the affection of the two people was so strong, that they didn't listen to their parents or the rest of their family. When the young boy and girl met each other, they did it in dispatch and fear. There were always people who could see them and blew their cover.
In the time they spent at home, they often behaved
strangely and appeared to be depressed.
Their parents often asked themselves whether they did something wrong,
and so they looked for some clues.
One day they found out everything about the love story of their children
and the two fathers decided to follow them on Valentine's Day.
The couple embraced affectionately when they met at their special place.
The young lady's father got very angry as he saw them kissing impulsively, and so he sprang out of his camouflage and shouted very angrily, but he didn't want to cause what happened as a result. He frightened the two so violently that they became frozen. The other father who observed this ran as fast as he could to the place where this happened.
They both tried everything to restore them to life,
but it didn't work, and so they broke out in tears bitterly. Their tears
fell down to their children's feet and suddenly a big piece of tree bark
enclosed the two lovers.
The sun was setting and tinged the clouds into a deep red. Some birds
were sitting in treetops and singing their sadest melody.
It seemed as if everyone wanted to pay one last respect to the couple.
From this day forth two big lime-trees stand on this place. After all the years, the tree branches entwined each other and it looks like as if they are embracing.
This is a sign that true love last for eternity.
Andrea Szceponik
2. Transmitted legends
The bloody street in Bueren
The following story is still told today in Büren:
One evening, when it was already getting dark and nobody was outside in the streets, a young Jewish girl started to go to the church. There, she went quickly towards the altar, broke open the tabernacle and put some consecrated hosts into her bag and disappeared. Being back home, she did not wait long and stabbed a host with a knife.
It is said that blood flew out of Christ`s body like a miracle now. The young girl tried to stop it desperately, but it continued running into the street, where other citizens could also see it. Quickly everybody knew who did it. The following night, citizens from Büren killed the young Jewish girl and her relatives.
This legend is historical, but wrong and is supposed to have happened completely different:
Some Jews lived in the little village of Büren and, like in every town and every village at that time in the Middle Ages, marked off the other inhabitants. The few Jews, who lived in Büren, had their little houses side by side at the market place.
They had modest furnished houses and met with each other often for discussions. With the exception of each other, they did not have any friends. If they were in town, they reaped only hostile views.
Most of the Bürener citizens were poor farmers, who had to feed a big family and lived from their farming. Often the crop was unsuccessful and the Bürener inhabitants suffered from hunger. The Jews mostly lived from deals. They tied trades to other dealers in big cities and so they lived a very carefree life. For what they did, they had good trades even when they were humiliated.
After some years, when the envy and the hate between the Bürener inhabitants and the Jews moved on, the news spread that all the Jews were murdered and discovered in their flats the evening before. As punishment for the murder of the Jews, the Bürener inhabitants had to build a little punishment chapel on behalf of the bishop of Paderborn.
But after this chapel burned down, the Bürener inhabitants built a new chapel in baroque style. This building stands in the Jewish alley and reminds us of the Jews.
But the inscription „In honour of the “Altsakrament”and for the resuscitation of the memory of the Eucharistic wonder, which happened against the Jews at this place.”reminds us not of the innocent death of the Jews, but of the Jews hate of the Bürener inhabitants.
Friederike Henkel / Elena Weitekamp
Haunting Nuns
Earlier at the ancient millditch in Büren, next to a running brook off of the Alme river, there were three mills. Two mills, the middle- and the lowmill, are obtained till this day.
Once there lived a poor miller alone
in the middlemill. He hadn't had much- just his daily
subsistence from his mill.
Sometimes he spent the whole day in the mill. His mill really
meant the world to him. The day before St. Nicholas the
miller laid his shoes in front of his door. He hoped that
St.Nicholas would give him some money or sweets, often people hoped to
get something.
Sometimes rich people did this if they wanted the poor to be happy.
Suddenly, about half past three, the
millman noticed a loud sobbing. He asked himself whether
this could be a rich man in the carpeting of St. Nicholas, but he wasn't
so sure and tried to doze off again. A little while later
he was woken up again by a loud sobbing.
Now he was so curious, that he stood up and walked to the window to look at who or what could be outside. Cold air streamed towards him, he looked down, but he couldn't recognize anything, there was fog everwhere.
Silence filled the area.
He tried to listen accurately and after a while the sobbing resounded again. He was sure that it came from the bridge, which was next to the mill. The miller decided to ascertain something about this strange noise, so he put on his clothes and went outside.
In front of the door his black shoes still stood, sighing he put them on and then hit the road. When he arrived at the bridge he discovered two white figures. Anxiously he approached them and they turned and looked at him straight into his face. Their inanimate eyes suddenly filled with an ambition that he had never seen before.
One said: “Come nearer, my friend. We have got a petition for you.”Her voice was filled with a innocent, endearing tone and she smirked.
The other said: “We are cursed because we didn't adhere to our promise. We should have brought 10 gowns to the holy grave, but we failed to do this. For one hundred years we have searched for a person who could scratch our back. You could bring the gowns to the grave for us, couldn't you?”
The nun who spoke first added: “For your attendance you'll get a fourth of the money.”
However the millman opposed: “No, no, my ladies. I must stay here in my mill. Who will take care of it when I'm away? I don't think this is a good idea.”
With these words he turned and left the nuns alone.
Today, close to the bridge, you can still hear the voices of the nuns who wait for their release.
Andrea Szceponik
The spinner from the Oken-Valley
About five kilometers from Büren there is the Oken-Valley. There are only a few houses there and the people there talk about “the story of the spinner from the Oken-Valley”.
Once upon a time there was a spinner in the Oken-Valley. Her house was
very old and she lived alone there with her cat. It was a half-timbered
and she had only three neighbours, because she lived far away from
the village of Hegensdorf. All around there were just fields. Since
her husband had died, she spinned like crazy.The night before Easter
there was a terrible thunderstorm.The shutters made a noise and
the old oak in front of the neighbour´s house bent in the
wind.The woman sat in a little room, that was just lit by three
candles and a fireplace.One candle was standing on the spinningwheel,
one in the clock and one on a small, round table which stood near
the window. It was already half past ten the night before Easter.The
cat suddenly went away from the fire in the fireplace and rolled
itself up in the corner.
With a bang the lightning hit the old oak, and the old woman was shocked.
At a glance the woman saw that it was half past eleven, but she wanted to finish spinning the cotton. Then the candles went off and the only light came from the fireplace.Time went by, but the woman kept spinning.
Suddenly there was silence, the thunder was quiet, and she was able to hear the church bells of Hegensdorf, which were ringing for the Easter night. But she didn´t care about that. She kept on spinning. Suddenly the spinner let the spindle fall on to the floor, when a dark voice sounded ”What have you done? You have broken the Third Commandment! Now you have to spin until Judgement Day.”
Today you can sometimes hear the sound of the spinning wheel at twelve o´clock in the night.
Juliane Jütten
The Ringelsteiner Forest Friar
Once upon a time there was a solitary friar who lived in the Ringelsteiner Forest. Whether it was illegal or not, he would often shoot the wild animals. But he didn't kill the game for himself, he did this because of the poor families who would otherwise die of starvation. The poor couldn't afford buying aliment and earlier they had hunted wild, because it wasn't illegal then.
As time changed, the state decided to protect the wild because they were becoming more rare.
But nobody thought of the poor who were damned with this fortune
Although the families were very thankful for the friar's work, he still had to fear for his life and was always on the run.
As winter dawned, it became colder and colder every night, and the friar couldn't enjoy his Christmas, and so he went through the woods alone.
One day, close to Christmas, he came to the little village of Harth.
The capillary flavor of sweet biscuits and the garishly laugh of some kids made him very sad.
He sat on a stone for about one hour and listened to some nursery rhymes while he thought about his whole life. He had no wife, no children, only the poor people were there to solace him.
He didn't count how many miserable Christmas celebrations he had already had, tomorrow another one would follow. On the next day, Christmas Eve, the friar hunted for nearly the whole day, but all he got was a little rabbit. Soon the evening was there, and he heard the noise of the big church bells. It wasn't to miss. When he heard the church choir singing his eyes were filled with tears. He had to reminisce about the time when he was a little boy. How big the anticipation was then, how much it gratified him with the baking of bisciuts and the decorating of the Christmas tree. His thoughts were executed of the appetisingly Christmas dinner he and his mother had to confect with so much labor. The friar put his hands over the little fire he had made before. Slowly his hands got some colour again, it was bitterly cold.
He became sorrowful, nobody was there to celebrate Chistmas with him, and so he put down his head.
He felt as if he was an outsider and he wanted to be alone while the other people were together in happiness. Christmas was the time when rich and poor, old and young were combined, but he wasn't with them. In church he went to the last pew, and afterwards he wanted to go ino the forest and forget the festivities. On the way he met a woman from hunble homes and she commiserated with him and invited him to come with her. It seemed that the bleak and impassible eyes of the friar turned bright and shiny. He was full of gratitude.
When they went into the woman's house, it was filled with the smell of warm goose. In the little house he felt at home and when the children got their presents he was excited in almost the same manner as they were. He couldn't stop thanking the family and they invited him to stay the night. Before he went to sleep he looked out of the window, there were no clouds and the stars were shining brightly like diamonds. He made the sign of the cross and then went into bed. As he fell asleep there was a blessed smile on his face.
On the way in the Molmschen forrest
About 2 km east of the village of Weiberg, there is a piece of forest called "Molmscher Wald".
There are two crosses, which shall remember two deaths. The "Klaus Kreuz" (Klaus cross) remembers a forester, Klaus, who was found dead more than 200 years ago lying in his blood on that place. The perpetrators have remained unrecognized and could not be hunted down.
About 500 m away from that place there is the "Lettenkreuz" (Letten cross). In the year 1946, an important state officer of the Lettish forest-administration came there to die. Before the Soviets came nearer, he ran away from his hometown Balticum, and after he had lost everything, he came to Büren. He found a room in the Ringelstein forest house. Sometimes the local German forest people fetched their Lettish colleagues from their loneliness and invited him to hunt with them. One day the Lettish guest took part in the search after an ill deer. Afterwards, he had climbed the steep slope of the “Nettetal”, he succumbed there, and a cross now stands there.
If you follow the way, you come to the "Russenstein ", which shall remember the Russian prisoners of war during the Second World War. In the summer of 1943, ten prisoners worked here, who were asked by the forest firm to replace the former war employees. Every morning the prisoners came as fast as they could up the steep mountain way, which went from their prison in the old paper factory, into the forest. Most of the Russians worked on building a road through the forest near Weiberg. When the workers come across some big stones, the head forester of the district piled the stones as a pyramid. Beside the pyramids two little life trees grew, which are really big today.
For this reason, the “Russenstein”reminds us of the happenings more than 60 years ago.
Nadine Sinemus