The Lorelei is a 132-metre-high (433 ft) steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany… The name comes from the old German words lureln, Rhine dialect for “murmuring”, and the Old German term ley “rock”. The translation of the name would therefore be “murmur rock” or “murmuring rock”. The heavy currents, and a small waterfall in the area (still visible in the early 19th century) created a murmuring sound, and this combined with the special echo the rock produces to act as a sort of amplifier, giving the rock its name. The rock and the murmur it creates have inspired various tales. An old legend envisioned dwarfs living in caves in the rock. In 1801, German author Clemens Brentano composed his ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine… In the poem, the beautiful Lore Lay, betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so, and, thinking that she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death; the rock ever afterward retaining an echo of her name. Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth. In 1824, Heinrich Heine seized on and adapted Brentano’s theme in one of his most famous poems, “Die Lorelei”. It describes the eponymous female as a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks.
Appearance List Literature/song: Clemens Brentano’s ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine (1801), Heinrich Heine’s poem “Die Lorelei” (1824), Friedrich Silcher’s art song “Lorelei” (1837), et. al.
Sample Read A Book of Myths (1915) by Jeanie Lang [Internet Archive]
Description The Lorelei is a 132-metre-high (433 ft) steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany… The name comes from the old German words lureln, Rhine dialect for “murmuring”, and the Old German term ley “rock”. The translation of the name would therefore be “murmur rock” or “murmuring rock”. The heavy currents, and a small waterfall in the area (still visible in the early 19th century) created a murmuring sound, and this combined with the special echo the rock produces to act as a sort of amplifier, giving the rock its name. The rock and the murmur it creates have inspired various tales. An old legend envisioned dwarfs living in caves in the rock. In 1801, German author Clemens Brentano composed his ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine… In the poem, the beautiful Lore Lay, betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so, and, thinking that she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death; the rock ever afterward retaining an echo of her name. Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth. In 1824, Heinrich Heine seized on and adapted Brentano’s theme in one of his most famous poems, “Die Lorelei”. It describes the eponymous female as a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks.
