August Schnezler, A Collection of the Most Beautiful Legends, Stories, Folktales and Religious Tales from the Land of Baden
The parish village of Hasel is located in a pleasant little side valley of the meadow next to the Hasel Brook, only one and a half hours east of Schopfheim. The village is extremely old and in earlier times possibly belonged to the Lord Brenfels whose castle ruins still jut out of the local forest.
About five hundred paces southward from Hasel is the Dwarves' Cavern, a worthy counterpart to the famous Builder's Cavern in the Harz Mountains and the destination of many outings by foreign tourists and the inhabitants of the surrounding area. Whoever wishes to see it must be shown it by the school teacher of the location who is privileged to possess its key. He provides visitors with proper over clothing, since one can otherwise easily come to harm by dangerously catching cold.
The site in its entirety is comprised of several main halls, grottoes and side passages, full of a jumbled field of fallen masses of rock. The walls and ceilings are made of stalactites which display the adventuresome fantasy plays of nature. One of these stalactites, called "The Coat," is said to weigh a full six hundred-weights. Others form the so-called "Organ" on one side wall; on the other wall the stalactites are grouped so as to give the appearance of a pulpit. A strong stream flows through the main passages in the deep recesses of the cavern. A more distant cavern leads to a small underground lake which prevents any further forward progress. The most interesting cavern holds the stalactite formations called the "Prince's Crypt" and the "Sarcophagus."
In earlier times the Dwarves' Cavern was not well known. It was only more closely explored and made more accessible at the beginning of this century. Thus, in the year 1811 the Grand Duchess Stephanie apparently was able to inspect it closely. The whole area of Hasel appears to be undercut by many underground caverns. For example, there is a broad roomy cavern located under the Hasel Brook, extending from beneath the pastor's house to the church. Sunken ground at various locations in the area indicate the presence of many such caverns, such as the brooks between the Wehra and Wiese from Hasel to the Rhein, where an underground connection appears to exist. Also the brook which flows through the Dwarves' Cavern has no visible outlet, rather appearing to continue onward under the earth until the Rhein. In this manner the Eichener Lake and the Rhein River may also be somehow interconnected. A description of the Dwarves' Cavern, also including illustrations from six copper plates, was published in Basel in 1803 by the Land Commissioner, Lembke.
The imagination of the inhabitants is everywhere excited by such fantastic natural wonders to inhabit the same with creatures, namely with the dwarfish dwarf peoples. These dwarves are associated with mountains such as the Riesengebirge and the Harz Mountains, and play such an important role in their identity.
The cavern in Hasel was once home to a large number of male and female dwarves, from whom the cavern's name derives. These otherwise well-meaning and harmless creatures became shy due to the universal inroads of the expanding illumination our enlightening new era: They retreated back into the most far-removed underground locations, allowing themselves, at most, only to be seen by innocent eyes or by a Sunday's child.
However, many hundreds of years ago things were different: At that time these dwarves kept up lively neighborly communication with the inhabitants of the surface world. They were also more pious and naturally reverent than in our likewise religious, though shallower days. In those times they often came out from their grotesque rocky palaces, seeking out people in house and field, in kitchen and spinning room, willing and ready to lend a helping hand in all sorts of household activities. Sometimes they helped the very poor with gold and precious stones, raising them up from their poverty; sometimes they provided helpful advice and told entertaining tales to the boys and girls, relating poetic mysteries, such as those of Paris. Further, the harmless creatures asked of the farmers and mountain inhabitants no other payment for their services than permission to come into the little corner of an inhabitant's living room: Here, next to the warm stove, they could spend the night on a little bundle of straw or on their own mountain jar of Asbetis when the winter cold would push into the deepest palace halls of the underworld and turn the springs and brooks to ice.
These guests--so we are told by many an old mother in Wiesenthal--were most beloved little creatures, hardly a span or two high, but still mostly of pleasantly-adorned form and tenderly-pleasant facial features. They only possessed one unique characteristic: that no one could ever notice feet on them.
Once, several clever fellows from Hasel, wanting to prove to themselves whether the dwarves possessed feet or not, came upon the plan to strew ashes on the entire way from the Dwarves' Caverns up to the village. In this manner they hoped to see whether the dwarves would make any tracks. The otherwise good-natured dwarves, however, going on their way to visit the village, as they were want, discovered the plan and changed as a result. They responded with such disgruntlement that they did not allow themselves to be seen again by the inhabitants of Hasel. A long time thereafter, deep beneath the ground, a muffled roaring, rumbling and murmuring was heard, the only way in which the poor creatures tried to express their annoyance.
- Source: August Schnezler, Ed., Eine Sammlung der schönsten Sagen, Geschichten, Märchen und Legenden des badisches Landes aus Schrifturkunden, dem Munde des Volkes und der Dichter, 1. Abteilung: Vom Bodensee bis zur Ortenau, (Carlsruhe: Creuzbauer Verlag, 1846), pp. 221-224.
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