The Brockenspectre

Product Information

Worthy of special mention is the bearer of the Badge of Honour of Saxony-Anhalt, Benno Schmidt (born 1932) – also known as Brocken Benno – of Wernigerode, who has climbed the mountain since 1989, almost daily, with more than 8,888 ascents (as of September 2020) and whose feat has been registered in the Guinness Book of World Records. The song "Born in a Burial Gown" by Cradle of Filth (from the album Bitter Suites to Succubi) contains an allusion to the Brocken's history as a witches' gathering-place.

Today's blockfields of Brocken granite, as well as other rocks in the Harz National Park, particularly in the Oker valley, are therefore at least 10,000 years old. The illusion is that this person or 'spectre' is gigantic and at a considerable distance away from them. In 2019 another hiker captured the weather spectacle in the Lake District, describing it as 'magical' and 'absolutely incredible'.German scientist Johann Silberschlag first observed the phenomenon in 1780 but since then they have been seen and recorded many times in the region. Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in. The subsequent erosion of the Harz mountains that followed the uplifting of the Harz during the Upper Cretaceous saw the disappearance of the protective hornfels summit, thus exposing the granite that had crystallized underground during the Upper Carboniferous. This makes the rather disorienting effect of a giant shadow moving in the distance,' the Met Office said. The mountain's summit is a subalpine zone with flora and fauna almost comparable to those of north Scandinavia and the Alps.

The term has been popularly used throughout literature, mentioned in works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll amongst others.In the town records ( Stadtbuch) of Osterwieck an entry for the Brocken was found in the year 1495 under the Latin name of mons ruptus, which means "broken hill". Another famous visitor on the Brocken, author Heinrich Heine, wrote his book Die Harzreise ("The Harz Journey") published in 1826.

A survey of the summit at the beginning of the 1990s based on the current reference system, however, gave the height as just 1,141.It can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, or even on some occasions, from an aeroplane. The true origin of the name Blocksberg, however, should not be seen as "block" in the sense of "mass", but rather the German word block (as in block of wood) in witchcraft. The garden does not just display plants from the Brocken, but also high mountain flora from other regions and countries. On the one hand, this explanation of its meaning can be attributed to the fact that the two mountains, "Kleiner Brocken" and "Großer Brocken", were formed by the breakup of a single massif. Chapin said she has witnessed other forms of atmospheric phenomenon before but last weekend's Spectre was incredibly significant.