The Spectacles near Lehe
In the Leher Heide heath, to the right of the path from Lehe to the Veermoor, there are two circular bogs a short distance away from each other which have a resemblance to a pair of spectacles. They are, thus, also called the “Brille” and are owned by the local Lutheran parish. A few hundreds of steps to the north of these bogs, there are two hills which are also next to each other, but which have already been partially stripped as part of the cultivation of the heath for agriculture.
In the days when there were still giants on the earth, a giant lived within those hills. He led a very simple life, but he kept a dwarf as his servant whom he used as a messenger and sent to the neighboring villages when he had become old and feeble himself. One day, he sent the dwarf to the village of Spaden. In the giant’s opinion, the dwarf was away for too long, for the old giant had covered this distance with only a few steps in his younger days, while the dwarf had to do several thousands of them. Full of longing, the giant waited for the arrival of the dwarf, but the dwarf was not yet visible. Then the giant thought: “Perhaps I can’t see him because he is so small and my eyes have darkened with age. I shall thus put on my spectacles and use them to see if he is coming.” He put his spectacles on his nose and took several steps forward into the direction of the dwarf. But, since he had to hold his nose high because of his spectacles, he did not see the bumps and holes of the heath at his feet. Thus, he stumbled and fell so clumsily on his knees that his spectacles flew from his nose. Out of rage, he grabbed them and threw them far away, as he saw them as the cause of his fall. And, he surely would have thrown the dwarf after the spectacles, for he was much enraged by the dwarf’s long absence. As a result, he stomped on the ground so heavily that it trembled.
However, the dwarf was not very far away now. But the giant had not spotted him while he had looked through the spectacles, just as the dwarf had not seen the giant due long heather shrubs on the side of the road which blocked his view. Thus, the dwarf believed that there was an earthquake as the ground trembled under his feet. The spectacles had fallen into a swamp and sank deeply into it, and while later the old giant would have liked to retrieve them, he was unable to fish them out of the swamp — for surely he would have sunk into it because of his weight. The dwarf, on the other hand, could hardly move the spectacles — let alone carry them. Thus, the spectacles had to remain there and probably still lie there today under a layer of peat which has accumulated in the centuries since the death of the giant, and which precisely show the locations where the lenses of the spectacles are. Between the two bogs, there is a small strip of heath where the nose bridge of the spectacles is buried. Beneath one of the two nearby hills the giant lies buried, but nobody can say beneath which one.
Source: Köster - Alterthümer, Geschichten und Sagen der Herzogthümer Bremen und Verden, p. 211f
 Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles: Commentaries on German folklore. Get the book for further context and explanatory commentary! |