| Lorelei | |
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Other Names |
Lorelei, Loreleï, Lore Lay, Lore-Ley, Lurley, Lurelei and Lurlei |
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First Appearance |
German Myth |
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Created by |
German Myth |
Origin[]
Lorelei is siren of Germanic mythology, of great beauty and delicious song, who was placed on a rock on the Rhine and with her song seduced the navigators.
In Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutte, she was decribed as an enchanting woman betrayed by her sweetheart, is accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Rather than sentence her to death, the bishop consigns her to a nunnery. On the way thereto, accompanied by three knights, she comes to the Lorelei rock. She asks permission to climb it and view the Rhine once again. She does so, and, thinking that she sees her love in the Rhine, falls to her death; the rock ever afterward retaining an echo of her name.
In the poem Die Lorelei, the eponymous female as a sort of siren who, sitting on the cliff above the Rhine and combing her golden hair, unwittingly distracted shipmen with her beauty and song, causing them to crash on the rocks. In 1837 Heine's lyrics were set to music by Friedrich Silcher in the art song "Lorelei" that became well known in German-speaking lands.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Godwi oder Das steinerne Bild der Mutte (1801)
- Die Lorelei (1824)
Public Domain Comic Apperances Inspired by Lorelei[]
- Fantastic Worlds #6:The Lorelei planetoid is a barren, rocky planetoid with an enormous face of a beautiful woman carved on its surface. Captain Jark Hudson sees the monument, recalling the Greek legend of the Lorelei who lured Ulysses. Like the legend, he is hopelessly lured into the planetoid.
Notes[]
- The Lorelei also the name of a 132-metre-high (433 ft), steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany, part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has been an infamous maritime disaster site since its first records during the 10th century, with a varied mythos, ranging from dwarfs to a siren trying to explain the high number of ship wrecks and the loud echo inside the passage.
- The Kanto Elite Four Member, Lorelei, from the Pokemon Series is named after this mythological creature.