Abentanzer of the Forest

Long ago, before the Romans ever encroached upon Teutoburger Wald , the fae of the forest passed freely into the earthly realm, and interactions with humans, though rare, were amicable, and the people who inhabited towns and settlements near Teutoburger Wald occasionally traveled into the forest to seek the help of the fae, most famously for help against the Romans on that fated attack. After the attack, the fae sealed all entrances in the forest to Lithandria and cut off all communication with humans, but one woman got lost in the middle. She is the Abentanzer of the Forest.

Stories say that she was out wandering in the swamp when the fae closed their borders. A deep fog descended on the swamp and she was unable to find her way home. By the time the fog lifted, she was stuck, unable to enter Lithandria or to leave the forest to return to human civilization. She appears to lost travelers in the forest, sometimes in the swamp, sometimes elsewhere, and always appears to be dancing. She is a benevolent creature and is not known to have harmed any passersby, and occasionally has helped a traveler who was brave enough to seek her help. Travelers are unable to help her, however. All stories about people trying to rescue the Abentanzer end with her apparition vanishing, never to be seen again.

The two main versions of this myth concern the origin of the Abentanzer. Was she a human who got stuck in Lithandria, or a fae who got lost in the human realm when the passage was locked down? Some stories, especially those involving a human trying to "rescue" the Abentanzer, claim that she was a human (variously of Germanic or Roman extraction) who got caught up in the enchantments meant to lock down Lithandria and trapped her in the forest where she was granted a fae-like immortality. Other versions claim she came from the fae and missed the last chance to re-enter Lithandria before it was locked down. These stories state she is lost, always searching for the remaining portal to Lithandria in the darkest depths of the forest, but never able to find it.

An alternate myth conflates the story of the Abentanzer with another myth of a great evil that is said to inhabit the swamp on the south western edge of Teutoburger Wald. In one variation , the Abentanzer was trapped by the evil (so the dense fog in the story was malicious) and that is why she is stuck and unable to return home. One version even states that she is the evil in the swamp, though the majority of reported encounters with the Abentanzer, at least in the past couple of centuries, are reported to have been peaceful, so it is unlikely that the Abentanzer is the evil in the swamp. More likely, they are two separate myths that have become conflated in some circles.

The Abentanzer has become something of a ghost story in communities surrounding the forest. In Paderborn especially, she is viewed as a witch who might capture naughty children or careless hikers who might get lost in the swamp. Several accounts of Paderborn citizens encountering the Abentanzer have emerged over the past century. They differ depending on whether or not the teller believes the Abentanzer is benevolent.

Early 9th Century

The earliest encounter with the Abentanzer in recent history took place during the time of Charlemagne, when the region surrounding the Teutoburger Wald was still being conquered by the Franks. A Frankish soldier was separated from his cohort while marching along the southern border of the forest and became lost in the swamp. A dense fog descended all around him and he wandered for hours before he was forced to make camp and spend the night. While he was sleeping, he awoke suddenly to a sound of singing, or maybe crying. It might have been the wind. When he awoke fully, a menacing woman stood before him, cloaked in fog, and she was dancing. The soldier became entranced and couldn't leave. He couldn't even look away. He was found by some troops several days later, starving and delirious. After her recovered, the only thing he remembered about his time in the swamp was watching the woman dance.

Ghost Story Version

The most commonly-circulated ghost story in Paderborn is about the witch that will kidnap children and take them into the forest if they don't respect their parents and do their chores. The origin of this ghost story is believed to be the tragic disappearance of three young children in 825. The children were found inside the forest after a search party looked for them for two days straight. The older two were dead with no physical wounds, and the youngest, a toddler, was still alive. The toddler kept saying, "Witch! Witch!" and then once said, "Dancing!" which caused locals to associate the incident with the Abentanzer. As the toddler grew up, he remembered the event only as a bad dream and did not remember he had a brother and a sister at all, but the story became enmeshed in Paderborn culture.

Aenor's Grandmother

Aenor's grandmother told her a story of the time she encountered the Abentanzer of the Forest when she was a young mother, foraging on the edge of the forest with her six daughters who were all under the age of ten. She was singing to herself as she always did -- sometimes the kids sang along -- but while they were in the forest, she noticed another voice join in that did not sound like the voice of a child. When she looked up, she saw another woman singing along with her. The other woman looked neither young nor old -- or perhaps both young and old at the same time. Her face seemed to be enshrouded in mist, and every time the grandmother went to get a better look at her face, it changed. The oddest thing about her was that the children didn't seem to be able to see her or hear her voice.

Aenor's grandmother went back into the forest alone several times to meet the woman, who never spoke to her, but always sang. When she sang in the moonlight, the moonbeams seemed to materialize into threads that she weaved with her hands. In time, Aenor's grandmother learned to call on the moonlight with her own singing, and weave the threads herself. Once she learned the art of Moonweaving, the Abentanzer stopped appearing to her. She kept her skill and the Abentanzer a secret for years, as none of her children or grandchildren could latch onto the moonlight with their voices. Until her youngest granddaughter, Aenor, exhibited such a capability. Only Aenor knows that it was the Abentanzer who taught her grandmother how to weave with moonlight.