Stock im Eisen


According to a footnote in Nerval's "Pandora," the Stock im Eisen "was the trunk of a tree reputed to be part of the forest that originally stood on the site of Vienna."

*

The Stock im Eisen (German: staff in iron) is the midsection of a tree-trunk from the Middle Ages, a so-called nail-tree (Nagelbaum), into which hundreds of nails have been pounded for good luck over centuries. It is located in Vienna, Austria, in Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, now part of Stephansplatz, at the corner of the Graben and Kärntner Straße and is now behind glass on a corner of the Palais Equitable.


History

The trunk section is 2.19 m (7 feet 2 inches) tall and is held in place by five iron bands; the iron bears the date 1575[1] and the initials HB, presumably for Hans Buettinger, the house owner who had the iron replaced. The tree was a forked spruce which started to grow around 1400 and was felled in approximately 1440,[2] as was revealed by examination in 1975.[3] There was regrowth in the middle of the trunk after blows from an axe. The first nails were inserted while the tree was still alive (thus before 1440).[2] The first written mention of it dates to 1533;[2][4] in 1548 it was already located on the wall of a house in what became Stock-im-Eisen-Platz.

The Palais Equitable, which was built on the site in 1891, incorporates the Stock im Eisen in a niche. It stands on a base made of Czech hornblende granite. Wrought iron vines were added, and the building has Zum Stock-im-Eisen (At the Stock im Eisen) carved above the door and a bronze sculpture group of locksmith apprentices and the tree trunk, by Rudolf Weyr, in the tympanum.[5] In addition there are a pair of representations of the legend by the same artist on the doors.

[ From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_im_Eisen]

Comments

Post a Comment

POPULAR POSTS

Kafka and Rilke

Kafka remarking (in a letter) on Rilke's words re Kafka's work: Incidentally, back in Prague I remembered Rilke's words. After some extremely kind remarks about "The Stoker," he went on to say that neither Metamorphosis nor "In the Penal Colony" had achieved the same effect. This observation may not be easy to understand, but it is discerning. The footnote on this passage reads (in part): Rilke and Kafka probably never met personally. Kafka may have heard of Rilke's opinion about his works through Eugen Mondt. Since "In the Penal Colony" was not printed at the time, Rilke, who then lived in Munich, must have seen the manuscript which had arrived in Munich on September 30 and discussed it with Eugen Mondt....   Rilke followed Kafka's work with great interest; in a letter to Kurt Wolff of February 17, 1922, he says, "Please put me down especially for anything that appears by Franz Kafka. I am, I might assure you, not his ...
Read more

TÜBINGEN, JANUARY by Paul Celan

T Ü BINGEN, JANUARY Eyes talked in- to blindness. Their  -- "a riddle, what is pure- ly arisen" --, their memory of floating H ö lderlintowers, gull- enswirled. Visits of drowned joiners to these plunging words: Came, if there came a man, came a man to the world, today, with the patriarchs' light-beard: he could, if he spoke of this time, he could only babble and babble, ever- ever- moremore. ("Pallaksch. Pallaksch.")* * Pallaksch A word that H ö lderlin, spending his last years in the home of a T ü bingen carpenter, was given to uttering in his dementia; it could signify Yes or No. [Poem Translated by John Felstiner; the explanation of Pallaksch is also from his "Notes" in Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan ]  
Read more

Edinburgh: St. Cuthbert's: Thomas De Quincey's Grave

Image
We were in the Ibis just off the Royal Mile. I had walked halfway around the castle on the first night and I knew basically where St. Cuthbert's was. I woke early, checked the "big board" (a magical electronic map in the hotel) in terms of details, and was off. Of course, once there, it took me a little while to find De Quincey (I even Googled to get a look at his stone and adjacent stones -- this helped immensely). Luckily it was a pretty small graveyard. Pics: "on the way to" and "within" the churchyard/graveyard of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. *                                    
Read more

The Parlograph

Image
Felice worked for the Carl Lindstrom Company. From Kafka's Letters to Felice : Here, by the way, is a rather nice idea: a Parlograph goes to the telephone in Berlin, while a gramophone does likewise in Prague, and these two carry on a little conversation with each other. *** Carl Lindström A.G. was a global record company founded in 1893 and based in Berlin , Germany . Founded by Carl Lindström (1869–1932), a Swedish inventor living in Berlin , it originally produced phonographs or gramophones with the brand names "Parlograph" and "Parlophon" and eventually began producing records as well. It became the holding company for Odeon Records , Parlophone Records (originally "Parlophon"), Beka Records and Okeh Records . Lindström sold the company to Max Straus (Odeon co-founder), but Lindström remained with the company as an engineer and inventor. World War I caused the company to cut back its holdings closing the United Kingdom branch of O...
Read more