Teufelsmauer (Harz)
Encyclopedia
The Teufelsmauer is a rock formation made of hard sandstone
s of the Upper Cretaceous in the northern part of the Harz Foreland in central Germany
. This wall of rock runs from Blankenburg (Harz) via Weddersleben
and Rieder
to Ballenstedt
. The most prominent individual rocks of the Teufelsmauer have their own names. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben is also called the Adlersklippen ("Eagle Crags").
Many legend
s and myths have been woven in order to try to explain the unusual rock formation. It was placed under protection as early as 1833 and, in 1852, by the head of the district authority in order to prevent the much sought-after sandstone being carted away for the construction industry. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben has been protected sine 1935 as a nature reserve
and is thus one of the oldest nature reserves in Germany.
northwest of Ballenstedt and is continued in the shape of the Teufelsmauer which runs from south of Weddersleben
to Warnstedt. Here, the formations of the Königstein, the Mittelsteine and the Papensteine rear up from a line of rock about 2 km long running from southeast to northwest. Away to the northwest it continues as a ridge between Timmenrode and Blankenburg (Harz) which includes the Hamburger Wappen
, the Heidelberg (331.5 m above NN) and the crags of the Großvater and Großmutter (317 m above NN).
s from the various epochs of the Upper Cretaceous
. The predominantly clayey and limy strata of the Upper Cretaceous are intercalated by harder sandstones such as Neocomian
, Involutus and Heidelberg Sandstone, as well as limestones. In addition, quartzitation caused by the ingress of silicic acid
has produced extreme hardening of the sandstones, restricted to just a few metres of the formerly horizontally-oriented strata.
The layers of rock, like all the strata on the northern edge of the Harz, were sharply tilted or folded over by the uplifting of the Harz up to the Cretaceous period, so that the surface layers are now upside down. A hiatus
in the strata between the lias
and the Lower Cretaceous and the discordant, overlapping layering of the Upper Cretaceous up to the muschelkalk
indicate that activity took place at different times, particularly on the Northern Harz Boundary Fault
.
The subsequent erosion
of softer rock exposed the hard rock strata as prominent ribs that form crags and pinnacles up to 20 metres above the surrounding area. Some were subsequently destroyed by the action of rivers or ice age
glacier
s. As a result there is a number of gaps in the Teufelsmauer today.
The individual elements of the Teufelsmauer are not exactly the same age. The Gegensteine near Ballenstedt has been weathered from a silicified sandstone stratum of the Emscher
epoch. The steeply inclined bands of rock near Blankenburg comprise quartzitic sandstones of the Santonian
. The jagged ridge of rock that forms the Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben, by contrast, consists of younger, and therefore undisturbed, deposits of higher-lying Senonian strata. This reaches its greatest height in the Mittelstein (185.2 m) and the Königsstein (184.5 m) and stands some 50 metres proud of the Bode Gorge
.
and the Bronze Age
.
and lithic leptosols
which are poor in nutrients.
and Grey Hair-grass, the pioneer vegeation of open, sunny, sandy terrain outside littoral regions. The grasses are in places rich in colourful herbs such as Breckland Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), Sheep's-bit (Jasione montana) and Carthusian Pink (Dianthus carthusianorum). In the open areas of sandy soil there are also species of flower normally found in fields of crops and on roadsides. The vegetation is also characterised by numerous warmth-loving plants such as Viper's Bugloss
(Echium vulgare), Flixweed (Descurainia sophia) and St. Lucie Cherry (Prunus mahaleb) as well as many common subcontinental species like Hoary Alison (Berteroa incana), Field Eryngo (Eryngium campestre), Field Mugwort (Artemisia campestris), Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) and Asparagus
(Asparagus officinalis).
The sandstone rocks themselves are lightly covered in crustose
lichen
s.
Several of the rocks in the Teufelsmauer at Blankenburg may be climbed.
There are checkpoints in the Harzer Wandernadel
hiking system at various points along the Teufelsmauer: at Gasthaus Großvater, the inn below the Großvater rocks, (no. 76), by the Hamburger Wappen
(no. 74) and on the south side of the ridge at Teufelsmauer Weddersleben
(no. 188).
From the Brothers Grimm
"On the Northern Harz, between Blankenburg and Quedlinburg, one sees an area of rocks south of the village of Thale that the people call the Devil's dance floor, and not far from there is the rubble pile of an old wall, opposite which, north of the village, stands a large ridge of rocks. Those ruins and that ridge are called by the people: Devil's Wall [Teufelsmauer]. The devil fought long with our dear God for dominion over the earth. (actually the devil built it in order to share the world with Him. But since he was only given a certain time and the whole wall was not completed within the time limit, the evil one in his anger destroyed a great deal of his work again, so that only a few pieces of it were left.) At last, a division of the land then inhabited was agreed. The rocks, where the dance floor now is, were to separate the border and the Devil built his wall with loud cheers and dancing. But soon the insatiable one started new quarrels, which ended in him also being given the valley at the foot of the rocks. There is added a second Devil's Wall."
The first variant of the legend has a market woman from Cattenstedt coming to a small village near Blankenburg with a cockerel: "God and the devil were fighting for the possession of the earth, they agreed that God should keep the fertile plains, the Devil, the ore-bearing Harz Mountains, if he had completed a boundary wall by the time the first cock crowed. He built it up to the edge of the Harz. Meanwhile a market woman from Cattenstedt, who was on her way to Blankenburg, came by carrying a cockerel in her basket. With a stone still missing from the wall, the cockerel crowed. The Devil's work had been in vain and he destroyed his wall in a fit of rage."
The second variant has a farmer's wife from Timmenrode appearing: "In a gray time the Devil came to an agreement with the Lord over a division of the estate. He wanted the Harz, however, to be his dominion. So they bet each other that he might have the mountains, if he managed to build in one night a wall as high and strong as the buildings of the emperor. Said and done, the wall rose up in the dark. Then the Lord had a farmer's wife from Timmenrode walk to market with her cockerel and stumble over a small pebble. Whereupon the rooster stretched his neck in the basket and began to crow. The Devil thought the night was over and flung the keystone furiously against his wall, leaving only fragments of it standing."
These two variants of the North Harz Teufelsmauer legend involving wagers and a cockerel are similar to several versions from the Lower Bavarian Danube region.
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
s of the Upper Cretaceous in the northern part of the Harz Foreland in central Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. This wall of rock runs from Blankenburg (Harz) via Weddersleben
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale....
and Rieder
Rieder
Rieder is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2011, it is part of the town Quedlinburg....
to Ballenstedt
Ballenstedt
Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the northern rim of the Harz mountain range, about 10 km southeast of Quedlinburg. The municipality includes the villages of Badeborn and Oppenrode...
. The most prominent individual rocks of the Teufelsmauer have their own names. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben is also called the Adlersklippen ("Eagle Crags").
Many legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s and myths have been woven in order to try to explain the unusual rock formation. It was placed under protection as early as 1833 and, in 1852, by the head of the district authority in order to prevent the much sought-after sandstone being carted away for the construction industry. The Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben has been protected sine 1935 as a nature reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
and is thus one of the oldest nature reserves in Germany.
Course
The band of rock that forms the Teufelsmauer outcrops at three places between Ballenstedt in the southeast and Blankenburg (Harz) in the northwest, over a distance of 20 km. It begins with an outcrop known as the GegensteineGegensteine
The Gegensteine are crags near the town of Ballenstedt on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains in Germany. There are two: the Großer Gegenstein and Kleiner Gegenstein . They are striking, free-standing rock pinnacles and outliers of the Teufelsmauer...
northwest of Ballenstedt and is continued in the shape of the Teufelsmauer which runs from south of Weddersleben
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale....
to Warnstedt. Here, the formations of the Königstein, the Mittelsteine and the Papensteine rear up from a line of rock about 2 km long running from southeast to northwest. Away to the northwest it continues as a ridge between Timmenrode and Blankenburg (Harz) which includes the Hamburger Wappen
Hamburger Wappen
The Hamburger Wappen is a highly unusual rock feature on the Teufelsmauer rock formation not far from Timmenrode in the Harz Mountains in central Germany....
, the Heidelberg (331.5 m above NN) and the crags of the Großvater and Großmutter (317 m above NN).
Geology
The rock outcrops of the Teufelsmauer are formed of hard sandstoneSandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
s from the various epochs of the Upper Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
. The predominantly clayey and limy strata of the Upper Cretaceous are intercalated by harder sandstones such as Neocomian
Neocomian
In geology, Neocomian was a name given to the lowest stage of the Cretaceous system. It was introduced by Jules Thurmann in 1835 on account of the development of these rocks at Neuchâtel , Switzerland. It has been employed in more than one sense. In the type area the rocks have been divided into...
, Involutus and Heidelberg Sandstone, as well as limestones. In addition, quartzitation caused by the ingress of silicic acid
Silicic acid
Silicic acid is a general name for a family of chemical compounds of the element silicon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with the general formula [SiOx4-2x]n...
has produced extreme hardening of the sandstones, restricted to just a few metres of the formerly horizontally-oriented strata.
The layers of rock, like all the strata on the northern edge of the Harz, were sharply tilted or folded over by the uplifting of the Harz up to the Cretaceous period, so that the surface layers are now upside down. A hiatus
Hiatus
Hiatus may refer to:*Recess *Hiatus, a small difference in pitch between two musical tones *Hiatus , a phonological term referring to the lack of a consonant separating two vowels in separate syllables, as in co-operation*Hiatus , a break of several weeks or more in television scheduling*Hiatus...
in the strata between the lias
Lias
Lias may refer to:*In geology:**The Lias Group, a group in the stratigraphy of Great Britain, formed during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic epochs. It includes the Blue Lias and White Lias...
and the Lower Cretaceous and the discordant, overlapping layering of the Upper Cretaceous up to the muschelkalk
Muschelkalk
The Muschelkalk is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic age and forms the middle part of the Germanic Trias, that further consists of the Buntsandstein and Keuper...
indicate that activity took place at different times, particularly on the Northern Harz Boundary Fault
Northern Harz Boundary Fault
The Northern Harz Boundary Fault is a geological fault where the Harz Block, which consists of rocks formed during the Palaeozoic Era and folded in the course of Hercynian mountain building, borders on the Subhercynian Basin or Harz Foreland...
.
The subsequent erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
of softer rock exposed the hard rock strata as prominent ribs that form crags and pinnacles up to 20 metres above the surrounding area. Some were subsequently destroyed by the action of rivers or ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
s. As a result there is a number of gaps in the Teufelsmauer today.
The individual elements of the Teufelsmauer are not exactly the same age. The Gegensteine near Ballenstedt has been weathered from a silicified sandstone stratum of the Emscher
Emscher
The Emscher is a relatively small river and tributary of the Rhine, flowing through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its total length is 84km with an average discharge near the mouth into the lower Rhine of 16 m³/s .The Emscher has its source in Holzwickede, east of the...
epoch. The steeply inclined bands of rock near Blankenburg comprise quartzitic sandstones of the Santonian
Santonian
The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous epoch or Upper Cretaceous series. It spans the time between 85.8 ± 0.7 mya and 83.5 ± 0.7 mya...
. The jagged ridge of rock that forms the Teufelsmauer near Weddersleben, by contrast, consists of younger, and therefore undisturbed, deposits of higher-lying Senonian strata. This reaches its greatest height in the Mittelstein (185.2 m) and the Königsstein (184.5 m) and stands some 50 metres proud of the Bode Gorge
Bode Gorge
The Bode Gorge is a long, ravine that forms part of the Bode valley between Treseburg and Thale in the Harz Mountains of central Germany. The German term, Bodetal , is also used in a wider sense to refer to the valleys of the Warme and Kalte Bode rivers that feed the River Bode.At the Bode Gorge,...
.
Archaeology
Archaeological finds on the Teufelsmauer show traces of the Old Stone Age, Linear Pottery cultureLinear Pottery culture
The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic, flourishing ca. 5500–4500 BC.It is abbreviated as LBK , is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, and falls within the Danubian I culture of V...
and the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
.
Soils
The soils formed from the sand of the various sandstones are regosolsRegosols
A Regosol in the FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources is very weakly developed mineral soil in unconsolidated materials. Regosols are extensive in eroding lands, in particular in arid and semi-arid areas and in mountain regions...
and lithic leptosols
Leptosols
A Leptosol in the FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a very shallow soil over hard rock or highly calcareous material or a deeper soil that is extremely gravelly and/or stony. Leptosols cover approximately 1.7 billion hectares of the Earth's surface. They are found from the tropics to...
which are poor in nutrients.
Flora
The sandy soils have been settled by nutrient-poor grasslands of Elijah Blue FescueFescue
Festuce is a genus of about 300 species of perennial tufted grasses, belonging to the grass family Poaceae . The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, although the majority of the species are found in cool temperate areas...
and Grey Hair-grass, the pioneer vegeation of open, sunny, sandy terrain outside littoral regions. The grasses are in places rich in colourful herbs such as Breckland Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), Sheep's-bit (Jasione montana) and Carthusian Pink (Dianthus carthusianorum). In the open areas of sandy soil there are also species of flower normally found in fields of crops and on roadsides. The vegetation is also characterised by numerous warmth-loving plants such as Viper's Bugloss
Viper's Bugloss
Echium vulgare is a species of Echium native to most of Europe, and western and central Asia. It is also common in North America....
(Echium vulgare), Flixweed (Descurainia sophia) and St. Lucie Cherry (Prunus mahaleb) as well as many common subcontinental species like Hoary Alison (Berteroa incana), Field Eryngo (Eryngium campestre), Field Mugwort (Artemisia campestris), Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) and Asparagus
Asparagus
Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...
(Asparagus officinalis).
The sandstone rocks themselves are lightly covered in crustose
Crustose
Crustose is a habit of some types of algae in which the plant grows tightly appressed to a substrate forming a biological layer of the adhering organism...
lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s.
Tourism
The rock bands of the Teufelsmauer are all accessible by footpath. They are among the attractions of the towns of Thale and Blankenburg. In order to conserve protected plant species, it has become necessary to implement measures for visitor management in the Teufelsmauer nature reserve. The rocks may be reached from hiking trails and vantage points are protected by safety railings.Several of the rocks in the Teufelsmauer at Blankenburg may be climbed.
There are checkpoints in the Harzer Wandernadel
Harzer Wandernadel
The Harzer Wandernadel is a network of checkpoints for walkers in the Harz mountains in North Germany. It includes a system whereby the hiker can earn badges at different levels by walking to the various checkpoints in the network and recording them...
hiking system at various points along the Teufelsmauer: at Gasthaus Großvater, the inn below the Großvater rocks, (no. 76), by the Hamburger Wappen
Hamburger Wappen
The Hamburger Wappen is a highly unusual rock feature on the Teufelsmauer rock formation not far from Timmenrode in the Harz Mountains in central Germany....
(no. 74) and on the south side of the ridge at Teufelsmauer Weddersleben
Weddersleben
Weddersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt, in the Harz area. Since 1 January 2009, it is part of the town Thale....
(no. 188).
From the Brothers GrimmBrothers GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
collection
"On the Northern Harz, between Blankenburg and Quedlinburg, one sees an area of rocks south of the village of Thale that the people call the Devil's dance floor, and not far from there is the rubble pile of an old wall, opposite which, north of the village, stands a large ridge of rocks. Those ruins and that ridge are called by the people: Devil's Wall [Teufelsmauer]. The devil fought long with our dear God for dominion over the earth. (actually the devil built it in order to share the world with Him. But since he was only given a certain time and the whole wall was not completed within the time limit, the evil one in his anger destroyed a great deal of his work again, so that only a few pieces of it were left.) At last, a division of the land then inhabited was agreed. The rocks, where the dance floor now is, were to separate the border and the Devil built his wall with loud cheers and dancing. But soon the insatiable one started new quarrels, which ended in him also being given the valley at the foot of the rocks. There is added a second Devil's Wall."The legend of the three elves
"Once upon a time a soldier had been given of land behind Thale, up to the Teufelsmauer, as a reward for his services. This he cleared by the sweat of his brow. He had almost finished his day's work. The tree-trunks lay criss-crossed, their branches hung limp. Only three trees were still standing against the evening sky and he was too tired even to lay hands on them. As he fell into a slumber, however, it seemed to him that he heard moaning and groaning, and he saw little female figures, gleaming like clouds of mist, in the branches, who wailed that they should now lose their lives like their sisters. "You shall see no harm done", he cried, and kept his word. But when, many years later, a descendant of his chopped off these branches too, the soil dried up and the wind carried it away and with it his wealth. This happens to all those who do not respect the little spirits and look after nothing other than themselves and their own greed."The Devil and the cockerel
The legend of "the Devil and the cockerel" in the Harz region has two variants:The first variant of the legend has a market woman from Cattenstedt coming to a small village near Blankenburg with a cockerel: "God and the devil were fighting for the possession of the earth, they agreed that God should keep the fertile plains, the Devil, the ore-bearing Harz Mountains, if he had completed a boundary wall by the time the first cock crowed. He built it up to the edge of the Harz. Meanwhile a market woman from Cattenstedt, who was on her way to Blankenburg, came by carrying a cockerel in her basket. With a stone still missing from the wall, the cockerel crowed. The Devil's work had been in vain and he destroyed his wall in a fit of rage."
The second variant has a farmer's wife from Timmenrode appearing: "In a gray time the Devil came to an agreement with the Lord over a division of the estate. He wanted the Harz, however, to be his dominion. So they bet each other that he might have the mountains, if he managed to build in one night a wall as high and strong as the buildings of the emperor. Said and done, the wall rose up in the dark. Then the Lord had a farmer's wife from Timmenrode walk to market with her cockerel and stumble over a small pebble. Whereupon the rooster stretched his neck in the basket and began to crow. The Devil thought the night was over and flung the keystone furiously against his wall, leaving only fragments of it standing."
These two variants of the North Harz Teufelsmauer legend involving wagers and a cockerel are similar to several versions from the Lower Bavarian Danube region.