Church bells

The "Enser Tor" in Korbach, one of the historic gateways into town

We have been back from our trip to Germany for little over a week, and no longer can the desire for an afternoon nap be explained by the lingering effects of jet lag. We have returned to our daily routines, read the mail and the weekly papers that had accumulated during our absence, and even Leo, our German Shepherd, seems to feel reasonably assured that we are not going to leave him again for three weeks every time we get in the car. 

It is hard to believe that such a short time ago we walked the streets of picturesque little towns, admired their neatly restored houses, and stood in awe at the architectural beauty of castles and churches. 

"Buchhandlung Urspruch", my favourite bookstore

At the end of our stay we returned once more to Korbach, the town where I went to school for nine years after finishing my elementary grades, where my parents moved more than thirty years ago and where my mother still lives. While I didn’t grow up there it is very familiar to me, and when I first see the characteristic spires of its two main churches, St. Kilian and St. Nikolai appear in the distance on my visits I always feel I am coming home. The town has many beautiful timbered houses worth looking at as well, and plaques explain about the history of important buildings. 

Ever since I was a child I enjoyed reading fairy tales, myths, and legends, and I was delighted now to find that a number of legends originating in the county of Waldeck, which has Korbach as its county seat, had been compiled in a book. The slim blue volume titled “Geschichten, Erzählungen und Sagen aus dem Waldecker Land” (Tales, Stories and Legends from the County of Waldeck), retold by Henning H. Drescher, contains some stories I heard or read as a child, but many so far unfamiliar to me. One of those is about the time when the two big churches were built. I hadn’t realized that they had been built at the same time: the construction of St. Kilian’s Church was completed in 1450, that of St. Nikolai’s Church in 1460. 

St. Kilian

St. Nikolai

Here is a translation of the story I found in the little book:

“Many, many years ago, it might be half a millennium now, the mayor of the “New Town” (founded by merchants when the Old Town became too small) left town through the “Berndorfer Tor” (Berndorf Gate) on a muggy summer evening. He came from the building site of the church of St. Nikolai. At that time the people in the old part of town were in the process of building a beautiful church in honour of their patron and protector St. Kilian. The citizens of the burgeoning New Town didn’t want to stand back, and so they began, almost at the same time, with the construction of the church of St. Nikolai. Thus the people from the Old and the New Town were in competition for a hundred years building their churches. The closer the building project of the citizens of the New Town came to its completion, however, the more they had to admit that St. Kilian’s church was much more beautiful than theirs. How high and mighty the spire of the church towered over the lands, and its wonderful portal was not to be matched. Even the generous donation of the Countess Elisabeth was not enough to keep up with the proud patricians of the town. 

Disgruntled and grumpy the mayor rode out toward the Homberg, paying little attention to the greeting of the guard at the gate. He wanted to check how things were going at the lumberyard of the town, even though in the west, behind the Eisenberg, heavy thunder clouds were gathering. Riding at a gallop, he had just reached the defensive dyke when the storm started to rage. Just in time he reached the edge of the forest where he could seek shelter from the pelting rain for himself and his horse under the wide crown of some mighty beech trees. He remembered an old weather rule: Beware of the oak trees, avoid all willows, don’t go near fir trees, but seek out beeches. 

He himself didn’t know the meaning of fear, watched the storm take its course, and calmly held the reins of his trembling horse. He would stay under the beech trees until the storm was over. Faster and faster lightning and thunder followed each other, and soon the whole wide country was veiled in weather clouds and pouring rain. 

Suddenly a blinding bolt of lightning, followed by an echoing, rumbling thunder! In the nearby quarry rocks tumbled down. With a huge effort the strong man held on to his trembling horse that was rearing up in fear. 

But then, suddenly, the wild force of the storm seemed to have been exhausted with that roar of thunder. 

When the finches in the crowns of the beeches started singing their sweet songs again the grumpy mood of the mayor had dissipated as well. Leading his horse by the rein he cheerfully walked toward the lumberyard. 

But what was that? Dishevelled and without moving a red haired old man squatted at the side of the road in front of him, and his tired, beseeching gaze said more than a thousand words could have done. “Hello, old man, you’ve been much shaken by this bad weather, haven't you?” When the old man nodded wordlessly the mayor took his hip flask from the saddle bag. “Redbeard, take this and drink it; it was supposed to be my nightcap, but you need it more than I do.”
 

The stranger took the cup and emptied it without setting it down. Then, as if sustained by a new life force, he straightened to his full height so that the mayor drew back a few steps in alarm, gave back the cup and said, “Thank you, noble gentleman. You helped me, and I would like to repay you. Can I do anything for you? Maybe you are worried about something?” The mayor suppressed a smile and thought, ‘you would be the proper one to relieve me of my worries.’  But since he was in a good mood he told him about his concerns about the church of St. Nikolai that was so much less impressive than its sister church St. Kilian. “If it’s nothing else that worries you, I know how to help you with this. Come and follow me!” Saying this, he walked toward the quarry, so fast that the mayor had trouble following him. Then he pointed to the spot where lightning had struck the rock wall. A thin, glittering zigzag line at the bottom showed where the lightning had entered the ground. With a golden hammer the stranger broke the shimmering  lightning trail from the rock wall, sparks flying, and gave the mayor a handful of the pieces he had broken off. “Take this and look after it well. And when you are about to make the bells for the tower of your St. Nikolai’s church don’t forget to give this to the bell founder: “der Glocke zu Nutz, dem Wetter zum Trutz, dem Turme zum Schutz” (of use to the bell, a bulwark against the weather, a protection for the tower).

The mayor took the golden fragments and carefully placed them in his saddlebags. When he turned around to ask this and that and to thank the old man nobody was there anymore. The old man had disappeared without a trace.

After this strange encounter the mayor started on his way home, and nobody ever found out about this wondrous hour. When the day of the bell founding came, however, he gave the founder the golden rock fragments and instructed him to smelt them with the other metals. From beginning to end he was part of the founding, and he could hardly wait for the day when the bells’ peal would sound from the bell-fry.  

It was a sunny day late in the fall when the new bells of St. Nikolai rang out powerfully over town and country. Right away the citizens of Old and New Town gathered in the streets and listened joyfully to the beautiful pure peal. As the song of the bells carried far into the distance, the people from many surrounding villages streamed into town to listen up close to the wonderful sound. Content and beaming the mayor and his councillors stood in the midst of the cheering townspeople. Many years have come and gone in the county of Waldeck, but to this day the bells of St. Nikolai tell with fervour and might about joy and pain, quiet sorrow, but also the happiness of young couples in this old and venerable town of Korbach."

I couldn't say if the bells of St. Nikolai sound any fuller or more beautiful than those of St. Kilian; I like them both. Church bells, for me, bring back the orderly world of childhood, of days governed by their mighty sound, from the morning peal at seven to the evening peal twelve hours later. Gone are the times when children had to be inside by the time of the evening bells, and it won't be long until nobody even remembers that it once was so.