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Felsenburg Neurathen – history and legends
The rock castle of Neurathen lies right beside the Bastei above Kurort Rathen and is reached across the Basteibrücke. It is considered the largest medieval rock castle in the region. Because it was built almost entirely of timber, what you see today are mainly the grooves for the beams, rooms cut into the rock and the cistern; owing to restoration work, it can currently only be viewed from outside.
Bohemian fief and feuds
The castle is mentioned indirectly in 1261 and explicitly in 1289, in an exchange agreement of King Wenceslas II of Bohemia; together with Altrathen, which lay lower down, it formed a double castle. In 1406 the Berka of Dubá bought Rathen, and in 1426 the bailiff of the Königstein captured the castle for Saxony. When Hans von Oelsnitz turned it into a robber knight's lair from 1466, Saxon troops besieged it for more than a year and took it in May 1469.
Cistern, stone balls and legends
The cistern held up to 135000 litres and filtered the water through a bed of gravel – unique in the region. The stone balls found here came from the attackers in 1469; since 1986 a replica of a stone-throwing catapult has stood in the castle. An inscription in the rock recalls the Great Northern War: “1706 war der Schwede im Lande, es kostete viel Geld” – “In 1706 the Swede was in the land, and it cost a great deal of money.” That the castle was destroyed in the Hussite Wars, on the other hand, is merely a legend.
Legend The Martertelle
Two castles are said to have once stood near Rathen. According to the legend that Meiche wrote down in 1894, Germans stormed the stronghold of Altrathen in the 10th or 11th century and wrested it from the Sorbs; many of the defenders are said to have plunged into the nearby abyss. Because people later claimed to have found bones, spurs and arrowheads there, the spot is called the “Martertelle” – roughly, the “ravine of torment”. Historically, though, the castle is only documented from the 13th century onwards.
Legend The Honigstein
Between the Feldstein and the Kleine Gans near Rathen stands the Honigstein, the Honey Rock. Once upon a time so many bees lived in its crevices that people came to gather honey there. The cruel knight of Rathen forbade it, and when he caught two old people collecting honey, he set his dogs on them. At that the bees fell upon him in dense swarms; in his desperation he leapt from the window and was killed. Ever since, they say, no snow will lie on the spot where he struck the ground.
Legend The leather bridge and the Nonnenstein
The bridge that once linked Neurathen with the rocks opposite is said to have been made of leather – the same tale was told of a bridge between the Hockstein and Hohnstein. Opposite the Bastei, near Weißig, rises the Nonnenstein, the Nun's Rock. A pair of lovers, separated by jealousy, are said to have entered two monasteries on either side of the Elbe; every morning the nun climbed her rock and gazed across to the Mönchsstein, the Monk's Rock, where her former sweetheart stood.
Links to other places
Neurathen belonged in turn to the King of Bohemia, the Lords of Michelsberg and the Berka of Dubá before it passed to the Wettins; the conquest of 1426 was launched from the castle of Königstein. In 1469 Rathen became part of the district of Pirna, but remained under Bohemian feudal overlordship until 1806. The stone Basteibrücke of 1851 replaced an older wooden bridge.
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