Rambles in the Black Forest

Front matter

RAMBLES IN THE BLACK FOREST Vetoes : South Counties Press Limited. RAMBLES IN THE BLACK FOREST BY HENRY W WOLFF LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST i6tn STREET 1890 All rights reserved CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Introductory... ... ... ... ... i II. Porta Hercyniæ ... ... ... ... 24 III. Wildbad 36 IV. The Valley of the Murg 44 V. Hornisgrinde and Allerheiligen ... ... 69 VI. Kniebis and Harmersbach ... ... ... 89 VII. Black Forest Peasants ... ... ... 106 VIII. A Black Forest Wedding 116 IX. Black Forest Customs ... ... ... 127 X. The Valley of the Kinzig ... ... ... 144 XI. Triberg 160 XII. Among tlie Clockmakers ... ... ... 173 XIIL Triberg to Constance ... ... ... 186 XIV. Simonswald and the Kandel ... ... 201 XV. Freiburg ... ... ..210 XVI. Round about Freiburg ... ... ... 221 XVII.

Alt-Breisach 235 XVIII. The Kaiserstuhl 243 XIX. Badenweiler ... 254 XX. The Wiesenthal .'..267 XXI. The Valley of S. Trudpert 293 XXII. Todtmoos and Wehra 301 XXIII. St. Blasien and Hauenstein ... ... 310 XXIV. The Feldberg

Chapter I. Introductory

The Black Forest is, I am afraid, not altogether as familiar to our English travelling public as it deserves to be. The Black Forest historian, Dr. Bader — writing, it is true, some decennia ago — complains that we are disposed to look upon his country as genuine backwood, and to picture to ourselves its inhabitants as real, wild savages. That holds good, of course, no longer. Nevertheless, to but too many among us the Forest is still something like a Hercynian wild — credited, indeed, with natural attractions, but not magnetic enough, in its supposed sameness of silvan scenery, or its roughness of accommodation, to make those attractions effective. We travel past it — shoals of us do — every year. Trains, closely packed, run by it, carrying our migrating flock of human sheep to those recognized Alpine pastures, to which accepted bell-wethers still lead them — on which, amid familiar surroundings to eye and ear — English faces, English newspapers, English advertisements, and English speech of various accents — travellers may " change their sky " though in truth they change little else.

Good speed to them on their journey ! I have nothing to say against their choice. But is there not some virtue still in that old schoolboy proverb — variatio delectat ? Must a mountain trip be to Switzerland or B INTRODUCTORY. 2 nowhere ? Some English travellers, indeed, will now so far vary their route as at any rate to pass by rail through the picturesque Forest, some even condescending to break their journey — though it be for a night only — at Triberg, to see the waterfall, illuminated by the electric light. None of these seem to regret their deviation from the regulation route. Some will venture from Baden-Baden as far as Gernsbach, or spend a few weeks of retirement at Badenweiler or St. Blasien. Americans are growing more adventurous. Their new-English speech is becoming familiar, and innkeepers are learn ing to look out expectantly for Transatlantic guests.

One American family every summer pitch their tent for a few weeks on the heights of the Blauen, beyond the reach of most luxuries of life, to inhale there the pure mountain air and admire the Alps at a distance. But on the whole the English voice is still rarely heard among the black firs of the Silva Marctana, which has in its changeful existence echoed in their turns a very Babel of tongues — Latin, German high and low, Frankish and Swabian, Swedish, Spanish, French, Slav, even Hunnish — since its Celtic inhabitants were first dis turbed by Allemannic intruders in their peaceful possession of its hills and dales. And yet for a holiday trip or pleasant summer sojourn — for exploration historical, ethnographical, geological or botanical — or for an expedition in quest of subjects for the canvas — the Black Forest has a deal to recommend it.

I know of no country which at first sight strikes the visitor more pleasingly, or " grows upon him" more — as the saying is — on longer acquaintance. There are few districts within such easy reach, in which one may so fully combine the sight of fine scenery with INTRODUCTORY. 3 forgetfulness of home — be so freely alone with Nature in all its beauty — so little under restraint. Its mountains must, of course, not be measured against the Alps. But, then, size is not the only standard of beauty. There are violets as well as dahlias, alike in landscape and garden. There are ambling nags of pedestrianism as well as drudging pack-horses. Now for these the Black Forest is the country of all countries. It has rightly been dubbed the " paradise of pedestrians." Time was, when it was indeed accessible to none but pedestrians who were man enough to climb their mountain as a matter of course, and trust to walking as their main means of locomotion.

Those were the days of pure, unadulterated Nature indeed, and of such mar vellously cheap prices as it is now difficult to realize — when the Rhenish florin (somewhere about eighteen pence) would find the traveller in night's lodging, breakfast, dinner and supper (including capital trout) for twenty-four hours together, and sometimes leave a balance over. But time has changed all that. You may walk now — and walking is always best in the Forest. You can walk from end to end, ninety miles one way and over forty another, climbing over mountain tops, or keeping in the valleys, measuring your exercise exactly to your taste — walking when you like, stopping when you like — making sure that everywhere you will find clean quarters and decent food — and all amid scenery of unquestionable beauty — beauty richly varied, but never broken.

But you need not depend upon your legs as a matter of necessity. Railways have been built, roads have been made. Both the Baden and the Wurtemberg Governments have laboured freely and judiciously to open up the country. And now INTR OD UCTOR Y. 4 there is scarcely a point of any importance which cannot be reached by carriage. The florin would not go quite so far as it had gone in the early days referred to, when I first set foot in the Forest — nine-and-twenty years ago. But Nature was still but little encroached upon. And I well remember how charmed was my young mind with the dark green forests, the bright meadows, the well-kept gardens, the picturesque cottages, and the rare abundance of moun tain streams, brooks and rills — those silvan waters so largely accountable for the freshness, the beauty, the peculiar charm of this country.

They give life to the scene. Their rippling glitter is like so many rays of light scattered over the landscape. And they seem never to leave you. They are with you wherever you turn. It must be here, one would think, that S. Bernard conceived that happy illustration with which in one of his letters he tempts the wavering candidate for monastic orders: — "In the place of men, for companion you will have the babbling brook." S. Bernard, we know, was no stranger to these parts. It is a glorious country, no doubt, this forest of dark silver firs, which have given it its modern name. Its hills are not as colossal as those white giants which even from here are seen rising majestically above the horizon, forming in the early and late hours of the day a frame glittering like burnished gold and silver.

But they are beautiful, nevertheless, in their picturesque and varied outline, and in the rich play of colour brought about by the effective combination of a very mosaic of rocks, contrasting strikingly with the mass of surrounding foliage. There is a remarkably impressive effect in the black leaves of the tall silver firs — those kings of INTRODUCTORY. 5 coniferæ — growing to a height of 160 and 180 feet — be they massed in whole mountains by themselves or mingled with the brighter green of oak and beech — (beech is the next predominant tree) — which looks lighter by the contrast, presenting thereby to the mind the idea of perpetual spring. These same dark firs of the Forest are the " black spruce " of which Ruskin writes with such rapturous admiration, owning them to be his " favourite tree," the tree of strength as well as of beauty, and which of all trees " has had most influence on human character."

(" Modern Painters," Vol. v., pp. 81-87.) There is luxuriant growth and un fading freshness everywhere — except where the naked rock juts out ruggedly, by way of contrast — and where the high tops rise barely above the forest, in an altitude which forbids all growth except of grass and shrubs. Involuntarily do Mr. Ruskin's apt words in praise of granite and crystalline countries recur to one's mind. Granite, in combination with gneiss and porphyry, only locally overlaid with red sandstone, forms the mountains here. And Ruskin's praise of the granite-country people seems as applicable. You can tell by the look of their quaint and picturesque houses houses with heavy overhanging roofs, bright rows of glittering windows, carved verandahs, and spouting springs — that their inmates are a distinct and peculiar race — a people with "a force and healthiness of character definitely belonging to themselves."

You can tell it all the more when you see them emerging in their gay and many-coloured dress — the women with neat little pointed caps on their heads, from which dropdown those massive plaits for which the Black Forest is famous, with their embroidered bodices and bright skirts and INTRODUCTORY. 6 aprons — even the men wearing what red they can, be sides bright buttons and curiously-shaped garments. One should not attach too much importance to descent. But it is impossible to be long among these good-tempered children of the Forest without becoming aware that they spring from a different stock than do the denizens of Northern Germany. The latter are, I be lieve, mainly Semnones and Hermunduri, maybe Frisians and Saxons, with a strong infusion of Slav blood — Wendish, Polish, Polabic, Litthuanian, etc.

These Black Foresters are Allemannians, with a good deal of Celtic blood in them — hence the prevalence of dark features. To this in later times has been added Burgundian and Franconian. The Franconian character — ever bright and cheerful — shows itself very distinctly in the West — in speech, manners and temperament; the Swabian, more heavy and deliberate, in the East. The Bur gundians, sturdy of mind as of body, and peculiarly tenacious of such remnants of old self-government, once general throughout these regions, as advancing time has left them, predominate on the Swiss border. It is rather curious to trace those relics of home rule. They are very clearly observable in the Hauensteiner Land. But thev may be discerned also in other parts. People still talk of the old Dinggericht of Istein and of the Simonswald — providing for jurisdiction by popularly elected Courts.

Also of the Marianische Rath — which, I believe, still survives in some places — a local tribunal, purely elective, adjudicating upon small offences between neighbours, and maintaining authority over the young. Home rule in the past has bred a manly sense of independence, such as never fails to impress its own lasting stamp upon the character, even though the circumstances be changed. INTR ODUCTOR Y. 7 They have changed — but something has always been left to keep alive the sense of comparative freedom. For Baden has somehow in respect of its political insti tutions and political life managed to keep in advance of other German monarchical States. In the two Baden universities the light of Liberalism has always burnt brightly. And the Grand-Duchy was the first German State to receive a Constitution.

The Black Forester's peculiar hilarity and sense of humour few travellers can fail to note. It shows itself in daily intercourse. And it shows itself very plainly in the character of feasts and of that multitude of local customs, many of which at present live only in memory, though not a few survive. The most grotesque, indeed, are gone — like that quaintly comic " Fool's Court " of Stockach. But there are many peculiarly local, and peculiarly merry customs still surviving. One need but witness a genuine Black Forest wedding, or a fair, or, best of all, a carnival, to satisfy oneself how much constitutional predisposition to mirth is left. Talking of the Black Foresters' peculiar character, as contrasted with other Germans, it ought to be borne in mind that North German influence is in the South- Western corner of Germany of very modern origin.

It only began in 1866. Up to that time the Black Forester and his neighbours took their cue, not from Prussia, but from Austria and France. Vienna had long been their capital. And to the light-hearted Black Forester — says the rector of Freiburg, the Rev. H. Hansjakob, who knows the Black Forester as few else know him — " the gay mirth of the equally light-hearted Austrian is far more congenial than the calculating coldness of the Prussian." Austria has been the ruling power in the INTRODUCTORY. Black Forest for a longer period than any other. France has also held political sway there. And socially it was up to 1870 all but supreme. There is something of a set-off — not of course an equivalent — to the glories of the great war, as Black Forest innkeepers and tradesmen in candid moments allow — in the painful void left by the absence since then of those hosts of well-paying French men who used to overrun the Black Forest in an annual pleasure campaign.

Baden-Baden was of itself a little Paris. And to the rural or silvan Black Forester, Strassburg — German Strassburg, it is true, but distinctly Frenchified Strassburg — was the beau-ideal of a city. The see of Strassburg had played so important a part in Black Forest history, and owned so much property in the country, that to the Black Foresters the town had become almost a distinctive capital of their own. To Strassburg flocked holiday-makers from the Forest. And from Strassburg must come dresses, and bonnets and the like for the Black Forest bun's and tradesmen's wives and daughters, if they were to give satisfaction. Recent times have changed a good deal. Austrian and French influences have been effaced, and in Baden now everywhere Prussia is writ very large. There are Prussian soldiers — really " Prussian " — Prussian postillions, Prussian postmen.

The Prussian "mark" has taken the place of the Baden florin. Among the local officers you hear the Prussian dialect a good deal spoken. And the monuments of 1870 which have been reared in every village, have an unquestionably Prussian aspect. The change was bound to come, and is probably for the best, though some local people do not like it. One thing, however, has not been altered. The genial and cheery disposition of the Black Forester has remained. INTRODUCTORY. 9 And long may it do so ! It may leave the people, as the Prussians object, deficient in " strammheit," in ramrod rigidity and official applomb. But it makes them much pleasanter people to deal with. It is a curious coincidence that both early in the first empire and at the foundation of the second it should have been a Duke of Zahringen — more or less a son, therefore, of the Black Forest — who rendered signal service to his Emperor, and became his son-in-law.

Many centuries ago a German Emperor found himself wandering in the forests of Baden — defeated, pursued, without power — without followers, excepting his young daughter. The thick trees afforded him a temporary hiding-place. His daughter, seeking for food, came across a rude charcoal-burner, to whom she boldly revealed herself. The man proved true, summoned his fellows, pointed out a treasure concealed in the wood, and so became the saviour of the empire. The Emperor rewarded him with the dukedom of Zahringen and the hand of his daughter. Many centuries after, the direct descendant of that charcoal-burner, the present Grand- Duke of Baden, found himself in the same personal re lationship to his chief. And if Fortune did not call upon him actually to save the empire, it enabled him more than once to render it most valuable service — once in furthering materially by loyal and unselfish action the union of the divided country, and again by solving by his " mild wisdom " and personal popularity in the adjoining Republic a troublesome little imbroglio which excess of ministerial zeal had needlessly brought about.

But I must return to my subject of the Black Foresters. Their characteristic intelligence and aptness at work has supplied their country with one of its most distinctive INTRODUCTORY. features. Since the days of the Celts — so it is said — the Black Forest has been more or less a country of curious handicrafts. The local wood-carving and wood turning is affirmed to be a direct bequest from the Celts. We know Black Forest industries best by those familiar clocks which strike the hours in cuckoo calls. But that speciality is, after all, only one of many products. The Black Foresters seem to be born artificers. Trades with manual workmanship appear their natural calling. To perfect themselves in these crafts, or else to turn them to account, the Black Foresters have early taken to travelling.

They have a regular class among them known as " Hollandganger " or "Englander" — for to our own coasts, as to the best market — at any rate in bygone times — they have most readily turned their steps, not as a rule to remain (though a good many have remained), but generally to return after a time — enriched in means, if possible, certainly enriched in knowledge. On the other hand, no homesick Switzer could be more roman tically attached to his country or more eager to return home. As a consequence of their travels, you find the Foresters well versed in what goes on beyond their borders, and in their most industrial towns, at any rate — as, for instance, Furtwangen — pretty familiar with our language. [Persons anxious to trace links with ourselves will be able to detect more besides this one.

To begin with, the Guelphs, of whose family is our Queen, came originally, one may say, from the Black Forest. The Guelphs of Herrenhausen and of Windsor were originally the Weiss of Altdorf in Swabia (the present Ravensburg). In the Black Forest lay some of their principal ancient possessions, and nothing was done in that country in INTRODUCTORY. 11 those days in which they did not, as one of the very few influential feudal families of early times, take a pro minent part. Of this family is S. Conrad, some time Bishop of Constance, and still patron saint of the Black Forest and of as much country beyond it as belongs to the Diocese of Freiburg. Next, as I shall show, we have been mainly instrumental in converting the Black Foresters to Christianity — and our early ecclesiastical relations with them mav be accountable for the fact, doubtless most interesting to Churchmen, that instead of being placed, as in the rest of Germany, under "superintendents" — whose title has an ugly ring of Scotland Yard about it — their Protestants are ruled, like the members of our Established Church, by "rural deans."

It is curious to note, furthermore, that as the accepted virginal flower our own orange blossom seems to be crowding out the distinctively German myrtle. And if things be carried into minute particulars, those of our countrymen who delight in cucumber will find it easier to make themselves understood where that vegetable goes by the name of " cucumer " than in the rest of Germany, where it is called " gurke."] The crafts for which the Black Forest is particularly noted are in the main such as go by the name of " small industries" — industries carried on in the workers' house and giving free scope to his individual taste and skill. Among ourselves, I fear, there would be too many afraid ofthe "sweater" — who, of course, finds his best oppor tunities in such trades — to care to extend them. But the Government of Baden thinks otherwise.

It is the small industries which have helped to make the Black Forest prosperous. And accordingly the Grand-Ducal Government now does its best to maintain and even INTRODUCTORY. 12 advance them, in the face of difficulties. What with clock-making, wood-carving, spoon-making, straw-plaiting, brush-making, spinning and weaving, the "house industries " are still a substantial institution in the Black Forest, and one affording many a curious and interesting spectacle. The Black Forester's proficiency in agriculture has been done less justice to than his aptness at mechanical trades. But it needs not much examination of his fields and meadows to tell you that he is a most careful cultivator — • a husbandman from whose painstaking practise of the petite culture at any rate even we agricultural prizetakers might learn something.

Ordinary agriculture was well advanced in the Black Forest, as chronicles of the fifteenth century inform us, even in that early age. The meat of Black Forest cattle was then — and long after — reported superior in quality to either Hungarian or Polish, Bohemian, or even Swiss. To the present day Black Forest irrigation meadows are perfect models. But it is now rather in respect of small husbandry — the husbandry begotten of small peasant properties — that the Forest more especially shines. It is a curious coincidence that in this small corner of Germany, by a decree of capricious Fate, three different forms of the land system should have been concurrently developed and carried to an exceptional pitch of per fection — two of them forms which in this country various people look upon as specifically desiderata — and the third, the most successful of all, one which has here not yet even become a desideratum.

It may be as well to explain in brief words how this has come about. Like the rest of Baden, the Black Forest is a patch- INTRODUCTORY. 13 work of whilom independent States. In these different — now united — areas very different laws and customs prevail. But we may note one common feature in respect of land tenure, and that is, the entire absence of such feudal institutions as have found their way — with a very firm grip, too, upon their possessions — not only into the whole of Northern Germany, but also into our own country, where they now give us much trouble in attempting reforms. We may laugh at petty " free town " villages under the late German Empire, such as Zell and Gengenbach, and at princelets such as those of Fiirsten berg. But these small Governments have rendered their nations one very valuable service.

Be the cause selfishness or enlightened wisdom, they have effectually stood up for the people, and prevented the common from being stolen from the goose — the feudal overlord from becoming the absolute owner of the land. The owner tried hard at one time to baulk them — and in trying, he happened in two ways to benefit his country. First, he sent cultivators into the distant parts of his estate where cultivation by himself would have been out of the question. And thus he helped to form the class of independent large owning peasants who correspond to our own extinct yeomen, but have, in the absence of feudalism, become anything but extinct. Secondly, to increase his receipts from poll tax, he made villeins work at handi crafts, and so furthered one main source of national wealth. But further he was not permitted to go.

The land always remained the peasant's property. And when in 1783 serfdom was done away with, the abolition to be followed in due course by the removal of all onera, the overlord disappeared, and the peasant remained full owner. What large properties there now are in Baden INTR OD UCTOR Y. — and they amount only to 15 per cent. — are the pro perties of whilom sovereign families, of the Church and of Communes — not of nobles and squires as we under stand them. The Crown owns only a poor five per cent of the land. The peasant properties are properties entirely per se, peculiar to the Black Forest, owing their distinctive status wholly to the " particular law " of the once in dependent principalities. They are retained in the family by a system of devolution corresponding to our own borough-English, but which is said to be in Baden a relic of old Celtic law.

And either by law or by custom they are kept indivisible. I shall have something to say in the body of this book about these properties. On the large estates of the Black Forest the allotment system, which we are now so anxious to extend in this country, is fully developed. And it works well. The landlords are liberal, even generous. The cultivation is good. The land is made to yield fairly, and the allotments are admitted to be a great boon to the small folk. But yet upon them the full ideal of small cultivation is not attained. Be the landlords ever so generous, it has been found — I am quoting from an official publication of the Agricultural Department in Baden — that competition and the absence of a full sense of responsibility on the part of tenants, drive rents up beyond what leaves an adequate margin for remunera tion of the cultivator.

The real " three acres and a cow " — the genuine ideal of small husbandry, alike beneficial to the community and the individual — has been found to be embodied in that system of cultivating ownership which prevails, and has prevailed for centuries, wherever Frankish law, INTRODUCTORY. 15 requiring subdivision, is the law of the land. One has no idea here what infinite pains the cultivating owners of Baden bestow upon their plots — how they toil early and late — how they force double and treble crops from a not always willing soil. Looking at the carpet of strips and patches spread out before one, bearing eloquent testimony to indefatigable toil and docile judgment, one cannot help feeling the truth of Arthur Young's well-known words : — " The enjoyment of property must have done it. Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden ; give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert."

Ministerial Councillor Buchenberger, of the Agricultural Department of Baden, in his admirable summary of the official Report on the agriculture of the Grand-Duchy, says the same thing in different words. He points out that renting — paying little or no money down, taking over only an indefinite future obligation, which in the worst case can be got rid of by quitting — fails to produce an adequate sense of responsibility, and therefore prompts keen competitors to bid recklessly. Buying, on the other hand, brings home to the purchaser in the fullest measure his responsibility. It makes him bid carefully and calculatingly. Once owner, he finds himself under a new stimulus urging him on. Hence this perfection of petite culture. How little ownership makes people think selfishly only of themselves may be judged from the large extent to which that peculiarly German custom, the heimathsrecht and gedingerecht — which make owners provide for their old and infirm, instead of burdening with them the resources of others — has been developed in the Forest.

There is also evidently no serious danger of excessive INTRODUCTORY. subdivision. The present system of subdivision is known to have prevailed for centuries. There are dis tricts in which the land was as fully subdivided as at present in the early Middle Ages. And yet only in very few places has it even now been carried to prejudicial lengths* One conspicuous feature in the Black Forester's character is his signal devotion to his religion — Roman Catholic or Lutheran, as the case may be. In the larger portion of the Forest the popular creed is still Roman Catholic. Two-thirds of the Forest — the more populous and more picturesque part — belongs to Baden, in which quite two-thirds of the population are Roman Catholic. From a decorative point of view this is all in favour of the Forest. For whatever may be urged against Roman Catholicism on other grounds, it certainly helps to make a country picturesque.

Full scope is given in the Black Forest to its adaptability to this purpose. What with ornamented churches, and neat chapels, and crucifixes; and stations of the Cross, and pilgrimages, and religious images on the walls of houses, herrgbti les within and herrgottles without, private altars in each peasant's dwelling, and stoups for holy water at every cottage door — of the external apparatus of religion there is plenty of evidence. And it makes the country so pretty. Those quaint little wayside chapels — some of them venerable with age, others picturesque with their tiny spires and curious carving — are little gems in a landscape. And when one sees the people turn in piously to offer a brief prayer in perfect privacy, one must be a * I am quoting from pp. 397 and 398 of Herr Buchenberger's pamphlet, which is based upon the official Report " Erhebungen, etc."