Monday Connect: Explore German Folklore (translated and CC0) at Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles

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It’s Monday and here is a monday-connect activity! Why not start the week with a small contribution/exploration here in OEG Connect? How can you possibly resist visiting a site titled Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles? Do not be scared of the act of clicking reply or the poodle!

Illustration style image of young explorers in coats and hats, holding flame torches in a stone corridor, they approach a large shaggy dog wth glaring eyes.
Illustration style image of young explorers in coats and hats, holding flame torches in a stone corridor, they approach a large shaggy dog wth glaring eyes.798×199 89.5 KB

Banner image from Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles

Thia site published with MediaWiki includes a vast collection of German folk tales that have been translated into English and includes a map view of where the tales take place.

What was interesting is that this was a resource we shared here last October noting that the tales were shared into the public domain under CC0.

As it should go, in the discussion that followed, we were asked about the license as it was not clear if it meant the whole site or the translations. Since I had spotted it shared in Mastodon by its creator Jürgen Hubert , I asked about this and he kindly responded that it was the translations he had written that were CC0.

Jürgen was kind enough to message me last week in Mastodon that he had added a clear CC declaration in his wiki but also that he was interested in getting more ideas for creating educational materials under CC since he was not strictly an educator.

My usual response when I get direct questions is why ask just me when you can ask a broader pool of expertise in this community. I am pleased that @Juergen_Hubert is now here and has posted his community question.

This is how a community should work, right? (I am glancing at certain folks!)

That was a long way around gertting to this week’s activity. You have choices!

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I explored the Sunken Castles, Evil poodles folktales map to find something of interest. Since I had one visit to Germany for a Volcanology conference in 1990 as a grad student in Geology, I zoomed in Mainz where the conference was hosted, but remembered going on a field trip northwest beyond Koblenz to a region of circular lakes that were former craters such as Laacher See.

The closes I found led me to stories of Eternal or Wild Huntsman that read as various town/region tales of a mythical, fearsome creature that roams the forests, chopping down trees and making noises. Often the tales report the Huntsmen as having loud dogs with him:

Fishermen from Kyllburg tell that, when they fished in the Kyll river between Kyllburg and Sankt Thomas on holy nights, they had often seen a figure in the shape of a man which was as tall as the tallest tower. Immediately afterwards they heard the barking of dogs and the sound of shots. But then they always went home, for they had lost all hope of catching fish. This huntsman is known under the name “The Long Huntsman”.

It looks like each wikipage loads a random banner image that links to something of interest, you can explore this by using the Random Page link on the left (one of this great features built into every site running MediaWiki software).

I had notice on a previous visit one banner offering a gateway to more folklore at WikiSource- so if you seek even more folklore from around the world, it’s a great reference.

I am looking forward to seeing what others discover at Sunken Castles, Evil-- hey what is that loud sound coming from the forest out my back door? I better go check.