Rübezahl

What it is

Rübezahl belongs to the folklore of the Giant Mountains, a range shared by the Czech Republic and Poland. In German, Polish and Czech tales he is a mountain spirit, sometimes described as a woodwose: a wild man of the woods. He can take any shape he wishes, appearing as an old woman, as a monk or as a giant who crosses the range in a single stride. Storytellers disagree about his temper. He teaches medicine and hands out presents to people who treat him well, but anyone who mocks him meets a hard revenge. Czech speakers know him as Krakonoš, and in Czech tales he is the guardian of the mountains.

Where it comes from

The tales are said to reach back to pagan times, and no one agrees on where the name comes from. One account, in a story by Johann Karl August Musäus, explains Rübezahl through turnips: Rüben are turnips, zählen means to count, and early English translators rendered the name as Number Nip. The etymologist Friedrich Kluge instead traced it to Middle High German Ruobezagel, turnip-tail, referring to pictures of a tailed demon. Others link it to a personal name, Riebe, plus zagel, tail. The Polish form Liczyrzepa is a straight translation of the German and came into wide use in Poland only after 1945.

Tools and materials

His signs are simple ones. In legend he may walk as a monk dressed in a grey frock, holding a stringed instrument known as the storm harp, and his tread is heavy enough to make the ground shake. In Czech stories he gave people sourdough, the starter used for the regional soup called kyselo, and he is credited with inventing that soup. A mountain in the range is named Kotel, meaning cauldron. When mist climbs out of the valley below it, local people say Krakonoš is cooking kyselo.

What it is for

Nothing is asked of him in a formal way, but the stories give him work to do. He guards the Giant Mountains and, in later tellings, watches over the poor who live there. He is said to test a traveller at any moment, often by appearing as an old woman in need of help, to learn whether that person's heart is pure. Those who pass are said to be shown the way to treasures buried deep in the mountains. He also stands against harsh lords: German landlords who mistreated Czech people, and invaders.

Peoples and places

The same figure is told in three languages, with a different name in each. German speakers say Rübezahl; Polish speakers say Liczyrzepa, Duch Gór or Karkonosz; Czech speakers say Krakonoš or Rýbrcoul. Silesian households kept the tales, and Czech collections of local legends from the Giant Mountains date from 1618. After 1945, when former German territories in Lower Silesia became part of Poland once more, Polish settlers met these stories. The writer Józef Sykulski recast Rübezahl as a Slavic spirit who shielded mountain people from oppression, giving ordinary folk Slavic names and the lords German ones.

What people believe

Behind the tales lies an old idea of a spirit who owns the weather. He sends lightning, thunder, fog, rain and snow down from the heights, sometimes while the sun is still shining. The figure has been compared to the Wild Hunt and, in his grey monk's dress, to Wotan. He has no fixed body: he may appear as an old grandmother one moment and step across the range the next. Over time his character widened. What began as a demon of storms and deep snow turned into a guardian of the poor, a tester of hearts and a keeper of hidden treasures.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Scholars treat Rübezahl as a figure whose story changed with its tellers. The first gathering of the tales was made by Johannes Praetorius in 1662, in a Latin work usually shortened to Daemonologia Rubinzalii Silesii. The etymologist Friedrich Kluge argued for a Middle High German source for the name, and Musäus's literary version of 1783 gave English readers the label Number Nip. Henning Eichberg's 1991 study examines the figure's shifts over time and current shamanic readings of him. A 2000 exhibition catalogue by Stephan Kaiser covers similar ground.

Compare and confuse

He is often set beside the Wild Hunt, and some scholars have linked his grey-clad walker to Wotan. In Poland he is Liczyrzepa, Duch Gór or Karkonosz; in the Czech lands, Krakonoš, a name taken straight from the mountains. Nineteenth-century British writers, following Musäus, called him Number Nip. Czech tradition keeps its own strand of the story, in which he is named for the range itself.

Today

He still appears in museums, songs and on screens. A museum in the German town of Görlitz, opened in May 2005 through the work of Ingrid Vettin-Zahn, is given over to him. Near Jelenia Góra in Poland, an annual series of opera performances, Muzyczny Ogród Liczyrzepy or Rübezahl's Musical Garden, reached its thirteenth run in 2016. A brewery in Trutnov sells Krakonoš beer, and Krakonoš is the main character of the children's television series Krkonošské pohádky.

Questions people ask about Rübezahl

Good reading and sources

• Rübezahl on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data