Hollenkammer


Useful Information

Location: North of Lütersheim. From the sports ground some 350 m to the north, signposted V8.
(51.3792510, 9.1167027)
Open: No restrictions.
[2023]
Fee: free.
[2010]
Classification: Speleologyerosional cave
Light: n/a
Dimension:
Guided tours: self guided
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: no
Bibliography:
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History


Description

The Hollenkammer north of Lütersheim is called a cave by the locals. It is actually just an abri or shelter, or simply an overhang. It is located in the face of a 15 m high cliff, some 5 m above the ground. There are traces of man on the walls, so there is a theory that the place was inhabited by a hermit once. The holes in the wall would be the places where the timbers of his hermitage were fixed. There are several huge rocks in the forest, which are the result of the erosion of iron bearing sandstone. The resulting rocks are so weird, the locals invented several legends about this place. One about the Hollenkammer explains the name.

In the holes and crevices of the sandstone, once the Hollen lived. These are small gnomes or goblins, as big as dolls and black, which are said to bring fortune. They are able to become invisible when people are nearby. There is the story of a farmhand from Lütersheim, who was working nearby. When he heard strange knocks, he guessed the Holles were baking cakes, and shouted: "Holle, bake a cake for me!" Soon he found a cake on a rock and hesitated to take it. He heard someone saying: "if you do not take it, we will scratch your eyes out! You ordered, and now you eat!" So he took the cake hurriedly and ate it. But while the cake was rather good, he was very scared and never again ordered a cake from the Holles.

Another explanation of the name is the hypothesis that here once was a pre-Christian place of worship. The name is explained as the name of the wife of Wotan, who was named Frigg or Frija. She is also known as Holda, Freke or Berchta. She is the Goddess of household and marriage, protects domestic work, and helps with children. She also punishes the lazy and rewards the hard-working. With this last feature she resembles both the Holle dwarfs and the Frau Holle from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm.

According to legend, the former cave dwellers of the "Hollenkammer" near Lütersheim were the Hollen, who lived in the Saxon part of Waldeck. There are different opinions about the age and size of the Hollen, some say they were as small as dolls, others think they were five feet tall.
Traces of the Hollen can already be seen at the entrance to the cave. The niches carved out on the right and left were their storage cupboards. The grooves visible in the rock are said to have come from the Hollen's long fingernails.
The Hollen could make themselves invisible by putting on a small hat. If their offspring was ugly, the Hollen would swap their babies with those of the humans. Against the evil exchange of children, a light was placed in the child's bedroom to keep the Hollen away until the child was baptised.
In some families, the dwarves were considered lucky charms: where Hollen visited, there were said to be no accidents. In friendly families they performed good services, while they stole grain and other things from hostile people and then gave them to friends.
The Hollen's haunting is said to have ended at the point when they were increasingly disturbed by people. But whether the Hollen really left the Hollenkammer on the Tentenberg is something that every visitor should see for himself.

Quite informative, if somewhat turgid, is the following summary:

The Hollenkammer
A romantic rock cave
Off the beaten track, about 1 ½ hours away from Volkmarsen, on Waldeckian territory, lies the Hollenkammer, a strange geological formation, which by its nature and romantic surroundings arouses the lively interest of the observer.
A rocky gorge, crossed by a small brook, whose steeply sloping walls, like the surrounding terrain, are littered with numerous boulders, which are stored between pine trees and bushes and tower up here and there to form entire cliffs, leads to two mighty rock obelisks facing each other. For the mineralogist, these weathered and fissured boulders, interspersed with huge parallel iron blocks, are particularly noteworthy with their detectable oxidation stages, which give the simple landscape its characteristic character.
The right rock wall, about 15 meters high, contains a cave at floor level, which narrows inward and holds about 5 people, the actual Hollenkammer. In addition to two wall cupboards carved into the rock, at the entrance of the cave there are several depressions at different intervals, which apparently served as storage for beams and indicate that the natural cave was once used by man for a practical purpose. However, history does not provide any information about the purpose of this peculiar cave, leaving much to the imagination of the explorer. Thus, there are attempts to see in the Hollenkammer an ancient cult site and to trace its name back to the pagan Holba, the benevolent wife of Wotan, whose name is also reminded by a spring located in the vicinity.
On the other hand, it is believed that a hermit once lived here and contributed to the spread of Christianity in this region in the age of Boniface.
However, the folk tale has dealt with the Hollenkammer in a rich way. According to this legend, the cave was inhabited by the Hollen, goblin-like people whose character is said to have been essentially benign. For cooking and baking they often borrowed pots and pans from the inhabitants of the village of Lütersheim: "Leihet us jugge Pöttken, leihet us 'ne Panne!" When they returned them, using the darkness on the way there and back, they brought a cake in thanks. The light they shunned. Whoever surprised them with one, they "blew out his eyes". They were kind to good people, but they often played tricks on the bad and lazy ones, taking away their grain or kidnapping the little unguarded children from the field.
The Hollenkammer is still associated with an eerie legend that circulates in nearby Volkmarsen. Many years ago there lived a shepherd, Kurt Katte by name, who loved to graze the community herd in the area of the Hollenkammer. According to old customary law, any animal that died belonged to the shepherd. Katte maliciously exploited this right by driving the cattle so close to the steep cliffs that often a piece fell off and died. When the inhabitants of Volkmarsen discovered this disloyalty of their shepherd, they summarily put him on trial and handed him over to be burned at the stake. Since that time the cliffs have been called "Katten Kurt's Klippen". They have become a popular place for excursions in the surrounding area.
Thus, Frau Sage has taken possession of the Hollenkammer, and in the solitude of the wildly romantic rocky sea, the stones of her diadem flash in the rays of the summer sun.
Dr. A. Hüneberg, Kasseler Neueste Nachrichten, 1926 (Sonderseite Heimatland)