Faith and Fairy Tales: Mad Kings, Martyred Saints, and Masses of Tourist
By: Andrew Donaldson
Tags: History, Religion, Travel

Faith and Fairy Tales: Mad Kings, Martyred Saints, and Masses of Tourist

History, faith, and fairy tales all collide in a field in Bavaria containing a somewhat obscure church lorded over by one of the world’s most famous castles.

St Coloman Church, Schwangau, with Neuschwanstein in the distance. Photo by Blackphotos via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

When you turn on a Disney movie, or product — or nowadays the Disney+ App — you are greeted with the now-iconic logo of Walt’s namesake company. Depending on era, you will first be greeted with some variation of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and animation ranging from a streak of Tinkerbell framing the silhouetted turrets to the modern CGI long-pan with fireworks. The point is clear and the imagery unmistakable: this is the line where real is going to take a backseat to fairy tale for a little while.

Castles do that to the imagination. No wonder Walt made his version of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle the centerpiece to his Disneyland dream. When you see it, kids immediately know something big is happening, and adults feel like a kid again. Long after they ceased to be useful for military purposes castles continued to be built for the status and wonderment they could project. Real life places of fairy tales to impose upon the surrounding reality.

The best kind of fairy tale is taking something partially true, with a lot of imagination thrown in, and making it hard to tell where the line between the two is.

Castles aren’t the only buildings that do inspire awe and wonder, and buildings whose purpose is for worship have always fascinated me. Old buildings made nominally for worship particularly interest me. Europe, of course, is full of towering cathedrals and old churches hosting mostly tourists these days. Parts of America can have churches sitting across the street from each other, both rarely used while a third nearby is full. One of my favorite pictures of my father always piques this curiosity; he is the age I am now, standing inside the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which over the ages has been a church, a mosque, and now a museum.

Then there are the places I’ve seen, or wanted too. Mosques both little used and fully functional from the Middle East to my own native West Virginia range from soaring minarets in Kuwait City to the understated, almost office building look of the latter. The amazing Westend Synagogue in Frankfurt, built in 1910, endured through Kristallnacht, the Holocaust, and World War II, so its neoclassical dome sticks out in a city rebuilt from almost being burnt to the ground. Before I die I hope to see the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where Jews pray and gather at the Wailing Wall while Muslims gather at the Al-Aqsa Mosque above it and the whole world holds its breath each does so in peace for at least one more day.

While the mind might immediately think about religious buildings, those aren’t the only man-made structures made for the purpose of “expression of reverence and adoration,” as the dictionary defines the word “worship.” Many claim fairy tales and faith are the same thing. Some folks dedicate their whole lives trying to untangle all the places and meanings where fairy tale and faith intersect, and building things meant to invoke a sense of wonder often follows those lines of thought. I’m not sure, even after 20 years of studying theology & philosophy both academically and for my own enlightenment, I could tell you where those lines are in the realm of discourse.

I do know of a few places where the collision of wonder and real seem to physically happen in the form of buildings and the folks who built them. Perhaps more importantly, why they built them, and why we are drawn to them now.

The Colomanskirche is located near Schwangau, Bavaria, Germany. Photo by Andrew Donaldson

There is this church in the middle of a field in Germany. It’s just sort of there, for the uninitiated, far enough from anything else to prompt the mind to ask “why is that there?” The first few times I drove past it I didn’t really think much of it other than “oh, that’s interesting and somewhat out of place.” The backdrop of the alps really throws the scene of a white stucco church in a green field in sharp relief. Upon examination the church is even more curious: sort of Baroque style but with these funky stepped buttresses teasing gothic, but with an onion dome, and an indented and narrow choir. The building gives the impression of someone doing a “greatest hits” of church designs.

The curiosity deepens when you realize you are thinking the same thing the 1.5 million people a year who go past this little church do on their way to one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of Europe, easily seen in the distance lording over the valley this church has been sitting in for hundreds of years.

Turns out the little church in the German field has to do with an Irish guy, overshadowed by a world-famous tourist attraction bringing the masses hurtling by on bus after bus. Masses who might be missing out on part of the story of what makes this part of the world so revered and adored in the first place.

An Irishman Walks Into Austria, Forgot to Duck

Even for a club where the initiation requirement is gruesome death, St. Coloman still got kind of a raw deal as martyrs go. Heck, historians can’t even decide if it should be Colmán, or Koloman, Kálmán, Colman, or maybe even Colomannus. They are pretty sure he was Irish. They know he was traversing the Alps on his way to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. He definitely didn’t make it, having died in Stockerau, Austria in 1012.

Apparently what had happened was, various warring factions in the area noticed an Irish dude out walking the earth seemed out of place. Thinking he was some kind of spy, they tortured him for information, which he didn’t give them. It apparently didn’t occur to them the Irish walking dude might not speak any of the Germanic languages they could understand. Taking his Gaelic protestations as a sign of defiance and guilt, instead of the baffled protests of an innocent man they were, the Viennese hanged him with a bunch of other criminals.

Which is, according to both Eastern and Roman Church lore about the saint they each venerated, when things started to get weird.

“This is some BS right here…” St Coloman, probably. Portal des Doms von St. Pölten, Niederösterreich. Photo by BSonne via Wikimedia Commons

The legend goes the hanged and displayed body of Coloman didn’t decompose like his unfortunate gibbet-mates swinging in the breeze, nor did the birds and other animals bother him. This went on for 18 months — supposedly — to the point the scaffolding started to root, branch out, and bloom itself. Freaked out by this, the locals started to think it a sign they had killed an innocent man and entombed him properly, hoping to appease the God of the Irishman they had clearly angered. That seemed to do the trick, as — allegedly — miracles began to be reported near the tomb from folks praying to and around the remains of the unfortunate pilgrim. By 1014 the powers that be declared what was left of the Irishman holy relics and had him interned to a place of honor in the Melk Abbey.

What he lacked in respect in life, Coloman more than made up for in death. A virtual cult to the martyred pilgrim sprang up all over the Alps, and the legend spread. Chapels, churches, and memorials to the Irish walking dude sprang up everywhere. In Hungary, the tales grew to the point the ruling family of that country were naming their heirs after the dead pilgrim, along with taking his relics to the Cathedral of Székesfehérvá before they were eventually returned to Melk for good. Thus, an Irishman became one of the patron saints of Austria, along with the patron saint of diseased horses and cattle. Also the patron saint of people who were hanged.

Nobody said martyrdom was easy, or particularly good for your brand.

Meanwhile, in the small village of Schwangau, the locals looked to do more than just remember the soon-to-be St. Coloman. Legend has it the Irishman had rested and took to pasturing animals in a field there on his journey. He probably did; the area had been the northern end of the ancient Via Claudia Augusta from Italy through the Alps since the Romans opened it, and the southern end of the more modern “Romantic Road” tourism initiative. Commerce and tourism, whatever the reason for each, has been the lifeblood of the region ever since. So it made sense to dedicate a church to one of the more noted passers-through the area had seen.

No one knows exactly when the first church was built there, but there is a consecration document from 1495. The current church either replaced or rebuilt the previous gothic one. Plans were proposed in 1672 and the present building was consecrated in 1685. Meanwhile, another building on up the hill had its own drama building.

Hohenschwangau as seen from Neuschwanstein. Photo by Andrew Donaldson

There had been some kind of castle overlooking Schawngau since the middle ages, and by the time St Coloman’s present structure was built there were the makings or ruins of three overlooking the pastures and villages. The one known as Schwanstein was most prominent, and changed hands multiple times since its first mention in 1397. Modern tourists see the version completed in 1837 by Maximilian II of Bavaria. He had fallen for the site and ruins while on a walking tour and determined to rebuild it once he purchased it back. Mostly to spite his father, he and his family spent most of their time at the newly rebuilt and renamed Hohenschwangau.

It was from there his son developed designs on his own set of ruins to rebuild, to make his own legend in the world.

Mad Kings To Mass Tourism

The official story is on 13 June 1886, King Ludwig II of Bavaria committed suicide in waste deep water that somehow never managed to get into his lungs in Lake Starnberg. This happened while the doctor who was with him died from osmosis of said suicide by drowning himself after a very apparent and violent struggle with himself. This happened the day after Ludwig had been forcefully removed from his castle, detained, and declared insane, in what was supposedly just a wacky happenstance. Oh, and the doctor who died with him was one of the architects of said removal, which totally didn’t have anything to do with anything.

Yeah…nobody else believes any of that either.

Unlike Coloman, everyone in the Alps knew who Ludwig II was. Though he increasingly became reclusive as his life went on, he was not exactly subtle. Put on the throne at 18, he lost his kingdom in everything but name two years later to Prussia. For the rest of his life he was king of a kingdom fully controlled from the outside by his uncle. Ludwig responded to this setback by busying himself building a world as he wished it instead of dealing with the world as it was. He wanted to be a real king, not just subject to protocols and duties in Munich and elsewhere that were all form and no substance.

Ludwig II was possessed by the idea of a holy kingdom by the Grace of God. In reality he was a constitutional monarch, a head of state with rights and duties and little freedom of action. For this reason he built a fantasy world around him in which — far removed from reality — he could feel he was a real king. From 1875 on he lived at night and slept during the day. Idealized designs by scene painters for a “New Hohenschwangau Castle” high above the tranquil Hohenschwangau of Ludwig II’s father, a “Byzantine Palace” and a copy of Versailles were already in existence by 1868. From the beginning, Ludwig’s fantasy world embraced several different epochs. The “New Castle” (subsequently Neuschwanstein), was based on Christian kingship in the Middle Ages, and the new Versailles, built from 1878 on the Herreninsel, recalls the baroque absolutism of the Bourbon King of France. Linderhof in the Graswangtal, built from 1869, imitates a variety of styles, with the help of the latest technology. The latest technology was also used for the highly elaborate coaches and sleighs in which the king travelled at night, sometimes in historic costume. Ludwig spent more and more time in the mountains and correspondingly less time in Munich. His fantasy world was further maintained by “private performances” in the Hoftheater: operas and plays performed for the king alone. Wagner and his circle privately referred to the king as “Parsifal”, and his problems were incorporated into the drama of the Grail. Neuschwanstein, originally a monument to the minnesingers of medieval times, was reinterpreted as the Castle of the Holy Grail and the Throne Room was redesigned as the Hall of the Holy Grail — dedicated to the mystery of salvation for the world.

Wagner and company had financial reasons to lead the king on and indulge him, seeing as his patronage more than once bailed out the controversial Wagner. The real-world rulers and powers that be of the world as it really existed, and whom the king needed to keep on his side, were not amused. As Ludwig spent more and more money on building projects he also became more and more isolated. Fine for an epic poem, but not working as well in the complicated politics of late 19th Century Prussia. Already a vassal of little importance, Ludwig was starting to become something worse than an absentee king: an embarrassing one.

Neuschwanstein Castle. Picture by Andrew Donaldson

When the banks and kingdoms he was indebted to finally demanded answers in 1885, Ludwig ignored them. Even though he had initially used his own funds for his projects, his debt was straining the kingdom as a whole, and his creditors were threatening to seize his possession. He retreated to the still-unfinished Neuschwanstein and its 14 completed rooms for the last 18 months of his life.

It was the last straw. The ruling government had no legal recourse for removing the king, but nevertheless, in the night men came and removed him from his castle, taking him to Berg Palace after a panel of doctors who had never examined him declared him mentally insane. The next evening he and one of those doctors asked to go for a walk along the lake alone, and the boy who wished to grow into the Grail Knight passed into his own legend thereafter.

Meanwhile, what to do with the castles?

With Ludwig’s brother Otto unfit to rule due to his own mental illness, the title passed to his uncle, who maintained a mostly meaningless title while living in Hohenschwangau where Ludwig had grown up until his own death in 1912. His son took the title, and not being happy with the “regent” moniker formally deposed the still-living but still insane King Otto to become Ludwig III for all of 13 months. World War One brought an end to the German monarchy.

Tucked away in the Alps, the resulting conflicts left the valley mostly untouched by the two World Wars. Looking to recoup something, anything, the state and debtors began using the castle as a tourist attraction only seven weeks after Ludwig’s death. Today, 1.5 million come to the castles and surrounding area to marvel at the Fairy Tale Kings monument to an age that never really was. The unfinished Neuschwanstein and it’s 14 rooms get the attention and has the wow factor, but the fully lived in and longer history of Hohenschwangau might actually be the better of the two tours.

So it goes when real life collides with fairy tales. The interpretation isn’t always what you think it might be.

Faith and Fairy Tales

Like all good fairy tales, Walt Disney based his on a little bit of fact and a whole lot of imagination. Taking inspiration from Neuschwanstein for his centerpiece was in line with his retelling of timeless stories Disney used to build an empire of their own. Like Ludwig, he reveled in the power of those old stories. But unlike the unfortunate erstwhile Swan King, Walt managed to channel it, monetize it, and create something that looms just as large as any building or monument. Tens of millions flock to the various Disney parks, still awed by the fairy tale castles and all the magic the House of Mouse can muster.

But in death, Ludwig II proved his detractors wrong about his castles, if not himself. While their creation might have nearly bankrupted Bavaria at the time, the 130 million plus who have flocked to Neuschwanstein alone, not to mention his other monuments, have compensated. The modern tourist dollars the well-worn crossroads of the Alps sees annually has paid back those initial costs several times over. Ludwig had told his governess as a child “I want to remain an eternal mystery to myself and others,” and he accomplished it. Unfinished or not, his castle does indeed tower over his family’s Hohenschwangau below, and the lands he once ruled as king. For 364 days out of the year, Neuschwanstein is one of the most visited places in all of Europe.

Neuschwanstein Castle as seen from St Coloman Church. Photo by Andrew Donaldson

But one day a year, the picturesque church of the lesser known St. Coloman gets its day.

In the spirit of the Irishman’s pastoral interlude on his way to martyrdom, a tradition arose that lasts to this day around the church in the fields of Schwangau. On the Sunday before the 13th of October, the folks of the area converge on St. Colomans, along with their livestock. In the spirit of the patron saint of diseased horses and cattle, mounted and costumed riders surround the church, form up, and parade, while a priest on horseback blesses all who pass by. The tradition stems from 1552, and the predecessor of the current church, when the local lords were granted a “market day” festival by then-Emperor Karl V. It was a great honor, and economically important to the area, and showed the importance the place which had identified closely with the dead Irish saint. So much so, Coloman himself finally returned to the church in the valley, in a manner of speaking. Far from some miracle, the Abbot of Melk donated one of the relics of St. Coloman, which have since resided in the monstrance on the right side altar of the current church since 1720.

And so it goes in the valley below the famous castle. Tourists come and go in droves, locals abide, and the church and the castles remain, pivot points in which time and mankind seem to swirl around and through. Some come for the history of it all. Some come for the wonder such things were built in the first place. Many learn of the people who did so and wonder what made them pick these buildings, in these places, at those times. Coloman and Ludwig lived relatively short lives, but they managed to find a kind of immortality in the things they did, inspiring generations of folks after them to think of things like faith, and fairy tales, and how the real world collides with them. But if the story is a really good one, it becomes timeless. Like the Castles in the Alps. Like the church in the field. Like the travelers seeking out things that inspire them.

Someone should remind Disney of the place that inspired their logo. There are some stories to tell there, and the folks behind them, would make for a great movie or two. They should be able to do something with a wrongfully murdered man, a “mad” king, and something millions of folks already spend time and money on finding out about.

It’s the best kind of fairy tale in the making: partially true, with a lot of imagination thrown in, and hard to tell where the line between the two is.

Walt, and Ludwig, and Coloman all would fit right in.