Legend tree in Brochterbeck
      Legend tree in Brochterbeck





The legend tree was set up by the historical association in 2000 in the village center. Five old Brochterbecker legends are represented in pictures form.

1.Picture: The well - When one wanted to clean a deep well in Brochterbeck, none knew how to be begin. Therefore they asked the intelligent  Herm from Wechte, a peasant from Brochterbeck. He advised - full pride: you must lay over the well a young oak tree. On it hang the strongest chap you can find.  Hanging on to his legs put another and another, on second third and so on, until you can reach the bottom of the welll. The last man must scoop the water with a bucket, and pass it in sequence upward. " All Brochterbeck villagers were pleased with this good advice and began to execute it.  However when they came to the 6th man down hanging from the branch, the load of the first was too heavy and he it released his hold on the tree.  They then all fell to the bottom of the well. Noone wanted to tell Herm that his advice was bad.  But the famous Herm  laughed and said;  I  had not thought that you were all so stupid. " There famous Herm to laugh again, and his fame, as the most intelligent man in the whole country grew ever more.

2. Picture: The king chair - At the Hermannsweg about half hour walk from Brochterbeck to Ibbenbueren, there is a broad rock disk, which drops on the right of and left perpendicularly. As a powerful column rises up this rock up, surrounded by dark firs. When the clouds wrap the steep rocks in the moonlight the landscape appears an old ghostly king sittong on a rock. In its white hand he holds a sparkling Zepter and on his head shines a golden crown. Beside him sits his wife, the queen, whom he robbed in the valley. It is unfortunate over the fact that you can not return to her parents. Therefore she cries in moonlight and clouds outlawing quietly for itself. When the wind blows through the dark fir trees, you can  sometimes her pain complaints. Because of this nocturnal appearance the rock disk is called the king chair.

3. Picture: The spirit lock After the bloody war, which Karl the large one had led for approximately twelve hundred years against the Saxonia, many families mourned because their fathers and sons died in the battles. The people, who had sacrificed to the old Gods, did not want to convert to the Christian religion. They again and again pleaded to their old Gods for help. A Saxonia virgin from noble prince who had served as high Priest was to be sacrificed at the celebrations. She escaped her pursuers and hid in forests of the Teutoburger of forest. She tore the clothes from the thorns and climbing up. When she looked down once on its nocturnal migrations of the height of the Brochterbecker of mountain in the bucking valley she was seized with despair. She called to god Wodan for assistance. There came Ross the spirit king brew-transmit by air ridden, took her into his arms and kidnapped her into a spirit lock, which was on the height of the mountain. On dark, stormy nights the virgin leaves black horses on their the rock's building and rides by the valley. The rock all  around tradition, and showers and howling of the storm mixes the wails of the High Priestess.

4. Picture: The Duewelskerke (= devil church) thirty years Saxony fought the Franconia emperor Karl the large in very bloody wars. Widukind, the Saxonia duke, was baptized. A large part of his people followed his example and converted to the Christian faith. But all did not want to give their heidnischen god faith up. At night schlichen the trailers of the Gods Wodan and Donar secretly into a remote ravine in the valley on the way from Brochterbeck to Ibbenbueren. There they brought sacrifices to their old Gods. They solemnly praised with the blood of the sacrifices to continue be loyal to the old gods. The baptized Saxonia became wary of the ravine with its secret place. None dared to there themselves. They called the place?Duevelskerke ". This name was preserved until today.

5. Picture: The bat cave. At the southern mountain slope from Brochterbeck to Tecklenburg there is a cave, which is called by the people today the bat cave. Hundreds of bats hunt at night beetles, night butterflies and other bugs. When the morning comes, they hide themselves again in the cave, where no humans can see them.

Before time Roloff settled helpful earth fairies in the cave at the mountain-slope near the farm. These dwarves were liked humans. They performed all work free of charge which humans could not do: They hammered and other types of carpentry, they dug and planted, they sewed and repaired. The lazy farmer Roloff felt that they did not perform enough work. Therefore he would malign and grumbled about the small dwarves. From that day on the shy dwarves would never come to the work again. The farmer became furious and decided to raechen itself at the earth fairies. It untied its ferocious dog and went with into the bat cave.  He rushed the dog on the frightened dwarves. Full frightening and cowering in fear of death, they hid themselves in the narrow rock columns. The dog chased the dwarves. The columns became ever closer and closer. A small narrow course opened itself. Also in these the furious dog on its search for the dwarves squeezed itself. The dog had soon clamped itself in such a way that it could creep neither forward nor backwards. He barked and wined in the tightness and heat of the cave and suffocated.

About this time, the women on the Roloff farm came to cook dinner in the open stove fire. They heard the dog wining and barking. They did not know what it was, and thought it was the devil trying to get out.. They left everything untouched in their fear and ran crying outside. After some time a few strong, courageous men returned to the house when everything was quiet and calm. The industrious earth fairies had dug the narrow course of the cave under the stove place of the farmer, in order to warm itself there during the cold season. Since this time however the friendly fairies never returned