Glashütten des Spätmittelalters im Isergebirge - Nemo

Karpacz (Krummhübel), the latter being the strict centre of the Wurzelmänner, Lady Lodron
was keenly interested in herbalism and folk medicine and treated the local herbalists and herb
doctors with grace and kindness. Unfortunately, at the crossroads of life and death she missed
immortality and passed away in 1807. Historians say that happened either in Berlin, Duchcov
(Dux) or Karpacz. But is that for sure if they don’t know where she is buried? The recipe was
inherited in turn, they say, by a local distiller from Stonsdorf (Staniszów), Christian Gottlieb
Koerner, who rented the former inn between the Prudelberg (Witosza) and the church,
converted it into a distillery and started producing the liqueur. Just like Countess Lodron, he
failed to discover the missing link and shared her fate by dying in 1813... Or perhaps not?
I’m standing under the three oaks and savouring the taste of the specific, which travellers
treated themselves to on their way to immortality. From here the road goes to Warmbrunn and
Schreiberhau. I look through the bottle’s glass bottom and see Ulysses and his companions
leaving the Drei Eichen and disappearing beyond the horizon of the Izerian Mountains on their
way to Ithaca. It’s time for me too. Cieplice on my way. The town’s origins have become lost
in the mists of time. Its warm springs were probably known to our ancestors of the Bobrzanie
tribe, for whom bathing in springs had religious significance. Legend attributes the discovery of
the town of Calidus Fons to the Silesian prince Bolesław I the Tall who, in 1175, ventured into
the area in the pursuit of a stag he had wounded. By a spring where he saw the stag
miraculously healed, he built a hunting lodge that eventually gave rise to a settlement. On 18
March 1281, Duke Bernard of Lwówek donated the Warm Springs to the Knights Hospitaller
of the Strzegom Commandry. It to them who are thought to have started to mine the quartz
deposits on the Izerskie Garby, as a result of which travelling glassworks mushroomed around
the area. One evidence of this are the glass chandeliers in Cieplice’s Church of St. John the
Baptist, which were made by the Josephine Glassworks in Szklarska Poręba (Schreiberhau).
They cast their glass charm on me. Unique and one-of-a-kind, marked by their creator’s
individuality. A ray of light – and magic starts happening. For centuries fortune-tellers have
looked into glass balls and little girls into light-decomposing prisms to see the future. Perhaps
they’ll find the answer? Leaving the church walls, I take a look at the epitaphs. The sculpted
figures of the Schaffgotsch and Zedlitz nobles look at me with their dead, stony eyes. Saying
nothing. I leave Warmbrunn – Cieplice and head towards the Izerian Foothills.
The crossroads at the Cold Pass (Kalte Höhe) were divided by a cross. Such crosses stood at
the entry to almost every village, serving as a sign and an important reminder that faithful
people lived there. They were also erected at the end of the village to remind the passer-by:
you’re going out into the world. Remember whence you come. They were put at the
crossroads to ask: left or right? Which way do you choose? Before them, there were holy trees
and a god of a deathly pale face with a burning torch and a lion on his shoulder. He showed the
souls where they should go. Resurrecting some and letting others into his kingdom, where he
descended into the world of the dead at dusk and returned to that of the living at dawn. That’s
my way. Through Nebelberg, the Fog Mountain. Its northern side was known as the Black
Slope and, during the times of the forgotten gods, regarded as a holy mountain. According to
legends, a temple stood near the Owl Stone (Eulenstein), right by the Witches Place
(Hexenplatz). I’m standing now in the very middle of this forest clearing, from which seven
roads head in different directions. Questions suggest themselves. Left or right? Which way do
you take? White or black? Day or night? Full moon or new moon? Ahead or back? And if
ahead, then without going back, because the doorknob is o one side only. So back perhaps?
People tell stories about women praying to the moon here, receiving power in this way to
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