St. Märgen, Blick vom Kapfenberg

The people who have made collections of legends are earnest people who "listen hard to what people say", who enjoy listening to old people retelling stories their forefathers had retold to them. On long winter evenings, people would sit together in the spinning room, at the spinning wheel or at the cutting trestle on which roof shingle was to be cut for the house, the stable and the threshing room. This was a time when people loved to hear what deeds were done by fantastical beings, both good and evil.

Wetterbuche

There were "re-apparitions", such as the two monks from St. Blasien: they had "mercilessly oppressed" the abbey's subjects and, after their death, had to "haunt the monastery". They were banished by a devout Capucin monk from Staufen, who exorcised their ghosts, captured them in sacks and threw them from the Feldberg mountain into the Feldsee lake.

There were "Erdmännlein", helpful dwarves, who helped out wherever it was necessary. Cruel people, such as Knight Ruprecht von Bärenfels for one, hate such helpers. "His sister, whom he intended to force into marriage with Knight Bruno von Steinegg, was unhappy and deeply troubled. When she fled and was pursued by her brother and the furious knight, the dwarves showed her the way to their secret cave. The pursuers drew nearer along the narrow cliff, but were struck dead by falling lumps of rock."

The secret hiding-place was the dripstone cave in Hasel in the southern Black Forest. Of course, there were female dwarves as well, but more often than not, the legends tell of wicked women; weather-witches, herb-witches and cattle-witches did their evil handiwork in all parts of the Black Forest. What is so terrible about the fantastical witches stories is that they were extorted under torture - as statements in countless legal transcripts of witch trials.