Case file · Folklore / legend
The Lorelei
Clemens Brentano's ballad of 1801 created the Lorelei, a woman on the Rhine rock whose beauty lures boatmen to their death; Heine's poem of 1824 made it famous.
1801 CE · 50.14, 7.73 · status: legend
The sceptical view
The legend is a Romantic invention, built on a real danger: rocks and currents at the narrowest point of the Rhine.