What is the Lorelei?
The Lorelei is the name of a rocky cliff about 130 m high towering over the middle Rhine near Sankt Goarshausen in western Germany, and of a beautiful maiden said to appear on top of it. Combing her golden hair, the maiden sings in a beautiful voice, and boatmen entranced by her crash their boats into the rocks and sink, it is said.
How the legend took shape
Around the Lorelei the river is narrow, the current fast and there are many reefs, so it has long been known as a dangerous spot for boats. It is also a place where sound echoes off the rock, and one theory says the name means something like “murmuring rock.” In 1801, the poet Clemens Brentano wrote a ballad about a maiden connected with the rock, and after Heinrich Heine published his poem “Die Lorelei” in 1824, it became firmly established as a legend.
The song “Die Lorelei”
In 1837, the composer Friedrich Silcher set Heine’s poem to music, and it became one of Germany’s best-known songs. In Japan, a translated version was made in the Meiji period, and it has long been loved as a school song. As a waterside maiden who entrances people with song, she shares features with the Sirens of Greek mythology and the Slavic rusalka.
