page_title: Rübezahl
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Rübezahl / Name
caption_attribution_description: Märchenbrunnen im Berliner Volkspark Friedrichshain. Hermenfigur "Rübezahl" von Georg Wrba an einem Seitenweg neben dem Brunnen.
context_page_description: Rübezahl is a folkloric mountain spirit of the Krkonoše Mountains, a mountain range along the border between the historical lands of Bohemia and Silesia. He is the subject of many legends and fairy tales in German, Polish, and Czech folklore.
context_section_description: The origin of the name is not clear. One interpretation is from the story How Rübezahl Got his Name by Johann Karl August Musäus, which recounts how Rübezahl abducted a princess who liked turnips (German: Rüben, singular Rübe). The princess gets very lonely there in the mountains. To keep her company, Rübezahl turns the turnips into her friends and acquaintances. As the turnips wilt after a little while, so do the persons that were created by Rübezahl's magic. The princess asks him to count (zählen) the turnips in the field. While he counted, she escaped. Following this explanation, some early English writers translated his name as "Number Nip" (that is, "turnip numberer"), including the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
  Another proposed etymology is Riebezagel, from a combination of the personal name Riebe and the Middle High German zagel, meaning "tail", from his pictorial representation as a tailed demon. According to the etymologist Friedrich Kluge, the name is a contraction of Middle High German Ruobezagel, ‘turnip-tail’.
  Rübezahl is a name of ridicule, the use of which provokes his anger. Respectful names are "Lord of the Mountain(s)" (Herr vom Berge, Herr der Berge), "Treasure Keeper" (Schatzhüter) or among herbalists "Lord John" (Herr Johannes, Latin vocative: Domine Johannes). In one Silesian folktale, he is called "Prince of the Gnomes" (Fürst der Gnomen).
  The Polish name Liczyrzepa is a direct translation of the German name, introduced by Stanisław Bełza in 1898. It only became widespread in Poland after 1945 when Józef Sykulski started to translate tales of Rübezahl from German into Polish.
  The Czech name, Krakonoš, is simply derived from the name of the mountains.
caption: The Rübezahl statue in Berlin's Märchenbrunnen Fountain.
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