Ottenstein

About half an hour east of Schwarzenberg between the Schwarzwasser and the Pöhl not far from the road to Scheibenberg lies the Ottenstein outwork, which is said to take its name from an Emperor Otto who once stayed here. However, legend has other things to say about it.

It is said that a knight once lived at the fortress of Schwarzenberg who had a beautiful ward, who was courted by Count Otto von Siebeneichen, who came from the Rhineland. But because the guardian preferred to marry his ward himself, he harshly rejected the foreign knight's proposals. The latter then decided to abduct her. At that time, however, all the land around Schwarzenberg had been taken over by a lake that stretched as far as Untersachsenfeld. The knight now took up residence in a fisherman's hut, from where he informed the damsel of his arrival through the inhabitants of the castle and told her the day on which he would pick her up on a barge across the lake on a full moon evening. In the meantime, he often amused himself by sailing about on the water. Once, when he was still late at night, a beautiful female image came out of the water, sat down by his side and tried to entice him with caresses to accompany her to her crystal palace under the waves, where she was staying as the mermaid of the lake, but he pushed her back and said that he could not love any other woman, as he had already given his heart to another. Sadly, the beautiful mermaid left him and he himself did not return to the lake until the day came when he wanted to fetch his beloved. At last he appeared, the full moon cast its pale light on the mirrored surface of the water, he sailed happily [463] to the opposite shore, where his bride was waiting for him, but as they were returning, the waves suddenly seemed toHe was unable to keep the swaying boat in balance, it overturned, and although he seized his beloved and tried to save her by swimming to the opposite shore, invisible hands snatched her from him, he could not keep her above the water, she sank, but the waves carried him back to the fisherman's dwelling. He did not leave the area again, but built himself a hut in the nearby forest, where he lived from then on as a hermit and spent his days on the shore of the lake that had robbed him of his most precious possession. One day the fishermen found him floating dead on the lake; no one knew how he got there. They buried him on the shore and put a cross with his name on it. It has long since disappeared, the lake has found a way into the valley, but the mountain where his hermitage once stood still bears his name today: "Der Otte(n)stein."