Morgenbrodstal
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| Geographic Coordinates: 51° 46' 12.37" N, 10° 26' 11.39" E 45° 26' 15.00" N, 12° 20' 9.00" E |
1. The Morgenbrodstal (“Breakfast Valley”) lies close to the Papenberg mountain. Allegedly a monk has been carved into a stone there, but it is no longer possible to find him.
2. The Venetians ate in the Morgenbrodstal, and they drank from the Morgenbrodswasser (“Breakfast Water”).
3. There is a spring in the Morgenbrodstal at the Brocken mountain. Once, a stranger stood in front of it, held a sieve beneath the water, and then there were a lot of pearls within it. He put them into a knapsack, and when the knapsack was full, he washed his hands and said:
“I wash myself in the Morgenbrodstal,
and I dry myself in Venice.”
A man who live near the Brocken had seen and heard all this. When the stranger suddenly vanished, he walked to the spot, picked up the pearls the stranger had dropped and left behind, and then he too said:
“I wash myself in the Morgenbrodstal,
and I dry myself in Venice.”
As soon as he had spoken this, he was in a wholly unknown city. He was very startled about this, and was unable to get his bearings. After a while, he encountered a man on the street who asked him how he had gotten here. He told him everything, and the man said that he was lucky that he had told him the truth. Did he not recognize him? He was the stranger whom he had eavesdropped on in the Morgenbrodstal.
Then the stranger took him home and brought him to bed, and the bed was so precious that buttons made out of gold and silver were on it — and all of these had been pulled out of the Morgenbrodstal. When the man from the Harz mountains rose from his bed, he was given washing water, had to wash his hands, and then he had to say:
“I wash myself in Venice,
I dry myself in the Morgenbrodstal.”
And then he was immediately back in the Morgenbrodstal. But when he returned to the place where he had lived, he learned that he had gone for many years, even though he believed that it had only been a single night since he had left.