Emperor Frederick, the Redbeard of Kyffhaeuser
Emperor Frederick made crusades to the holy land, in order to rescue it from the Turks, thence he never
returned. Some time later all sorts of rumours were told that he didn't die as the tidings reported, but that he was
still alive, possible returned. So he was said to be sitting in a mountain spellbound and
enraptured. Mostly this mountain should have been the Kyffhaeuser. Some meant the Untersberg near Salzburg, others meant
a rock near Kaiserslautern. He is said to have cursed himself, his daughter and all servants until the time
of return. There he is sitting in his castle, accompanied by his supporters in a shining hall, at a golden table
and wearing a golden crown on his head. The Emperor beard has grown through the table and is long enough to twine the table twice. If the beard will be as long as to be winded around the table tree times Barbarossa will come up and claim the empire, will change the government and will rescue the country with the Holy Sepulchre from the Turks. Then he will hang up his shield on the dry branch of a pear tree growing on the Ratsfeld and he will go into
battle when the tree turns green and blooms. The Emperor doesn't sleep really, he only is nodding and blinking his
eyes. He is in a light slumber and sends up a dwarf every hundred years to check if the ravens are still
flying around the old Kyffhausen Keep.
If the dwarf returns saying that they are still flying the old Emperor becomes sad as before and goes on
slumbering.Many have seen him this way.
Ludwig Bechstein in "Thüringer Sagenbuch" 1836