The Lorelei

Where the River Rhine narrows and curls beneath a great slate rock near St. Goarshausen, the water runs deep, fast and treacherous, and boatmen have drowned here for centuries. From that danger grew the legend of the Lorelei: a golden-haired maiden who sits upon the cliff at dusk, combing her hair and singing a song of unbearable sweetness. Sailors, hearing her, forget the current and the rocks, and lift their eyes to the summit instead of the river. Their boats splinter on the reef below, and the echo the rock throws back was said to be her mocking voice. In some versions she is a betrayed woman who threw herself from the height and became a spirit of the water; in others a Rhine nymph luring men to their deaths. The name and much of the tale were shaped by the poet Clemens Brentano in 1801 and made famous by Heinrich Heine, yet the rock, the echo and the drownings are entirely real. Today a bronze figure marks the spot where the siren's song was said to rise.