Statue of Loreley at Sankt Goarhausen
Sankt Goarhausen seems like a sleepy little town which is along the Rhine. I would have agreed with your but it seems that there more to this town than just the beautiful scenery which surrounds it. Sankt Goarhausen and the entire area is known of this character named Loreley. I would actually see this name in some of the establishments at Sankt Goarhausen probably to cash in on the name. So who exactly is this Loreley person? I originally thought that she was some sort of old German mythological character but it seems that the origins of the character are more recent.
View of the Rhine at Loreley Rock
Clemens Brentano wrote a ballad which told the story of a woman named Loreley. She was betrayed by her lover and then accused of seducing men and causing their deaths. The Bishop decided to exile her to a convent, but along the way to the convent, she saw the rock here at Sankt Goaurhausen and asked that she may climb up and look at the Rhine one last time. Like any other tragic love story, thinking she saw her lover in the river, she jumped down to her death. The Loreley character has been use in various mediums in German culture to think her story began with the rock that now bears her name. I won’t be going to the rock right now but I would be going to visit a statue of Loreley that I saw from the opposite bank.
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