An unusual cupid, without arrows but with branches. A tree has lived in Germany for 500 years and according to legend it is able to make people fall in love
An unusual cupid, without arrows but with branches. A tree has lived in Germany for 500 years and according to legend it is able to make people fall in love.
While there are now so many apps and sites that promise to find a soul mate, the story of The Bridegroom's Oak, a 500-year-old tree located just outside Eutin, Germany, is undoubtedly more fascinating.
A mythical creature with its own postal address. Yes, because the oak receives something like 40 letters a day, sent by men and women from all over the world in search of love, about 1000 a year.
"There is something magical and romantic"
he said to the BBC the 72-year-old postman who delivers letters to the oak.
How was his legend born?
The oak became a kind of vegetable cupid over 100 years ago, when it found itself at the center of a legendary love story. In 1890, a nearby girl named Minna fell in love with a young chocolate maker, Wilhelm, but her father, who opposed their relationship, forbade her to see the boy.
Instead of giving up, the two lovers began exchanging love letters in secret, leaving them in a knot of the tree, now also nicknamed the groom's oak (Der Bräutigamseiche). After about a year, Minna's father found out about their relationship, but instead of punishing them, he gave them permission to marry. According to local history, the two lovers got married on June 2, 1891, under the branches of the oak which helped to keep their love.
The story and its happy ending spread beyond Eutin's borders. Soon other inhabitants of Germany, unable to find love in the conventional way, began writing romantic letters by delivering them to the tree. By 1927 it was already so popular that the Deutsche Post assigned it its own address and postcode, allowing people from all over Germany and even from abroad to send letters.
Love seekers visiting the groom's oak only need to abide by one simple rule. They can check all the letters in the node and take only the one they want to answer with them, but they have to make the others available to other people.
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"The tree receives around 1.000 letters a year," said Martin Grundler, a spokesperson for Deutsche Post. "Most of it arrives in the summer."
In 1988, postman Martens delivered a letter to the oak from a 19-year-old East German girl, Claudia, who was looking for a pen pal. A West German farmer named Friedrich Christiansen found it and wrote to her again. The two fell in love but unable to meet as one was in East Germany and the other in West Germany, the two exchanged letters for almost two years. When the Wall fell, the two met for the first time and married in May 1990.
The tree also boasts another legend: If a woman walks around the log three times under a full moon while thinking about her beloved, without talking or laughing, she will marry him within the year.
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Today the groom's oak remains thereonly tree in the world with its own postal address. Six days a week for the past 91 years, the postman has crossed the forest in rain, snow or sunshine and climbs the ladder to carry the letters to the tree.
Are you looking for love and do you love legends? You can also write a letter to the oak to the following Address:
groom oak
Dodauer Forest
23701 Eutin, Germany
READ also:
- The oldest oaks in Europe discovered in England (VIDEO)
- The only tree in the world to own the land in which it has its roots (PHOTO)
- The ancient Sioux legend that teaches us the meaning of true love
If you are in Germany or want to visit it and also want to admire the splendid centenary oak for yourself, you can do so by taking the B76 road from Eutin towards Plön, turning right at the Alex Münster distillery. There you will find a wooden sign indicating the tree.
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