Adorfer Klippen

Diemelsee-Adorf (51.374230 | 8.812449)

The inner child

Former ironstone open pit mine and significant Geologischer Aufschluss.

Barefoot I crept up. Not a sound. Not to step on a branch that could crack and betray me. It is already dawn. Behind a small hill I lie in wait. Grass and moss, a soft stalk. I have the two entrances of the roof castle firmly in view. Will the stealthy digger with the black and white fur show himself tonight? Nearby is a cornfield, there lure crunchy cobs, which he likes to gnaw. Let's see. The longer I lie and lurk, the more the scenery of the "Red Cliffs," a natural monument near Adorf, blurs. Images of my childhood are superimposed on it. The huge boulders of ironstone, 350 million years old, become the walls of a canyon. The burial holes, left over from medieval mining, turn into hiding places of the Indians from the approaching cavalry. The dense ring of wild roses that frames the red stones in green gives my tribe protection from invaders.

I am Brown Bear and am to be the successor of my father Great Eagle. One day a wise chief, I hope. Father passes on all his knowledge to me. About the earth that feeds us, about the plants that grow in our home near the Red Cliffs, about our neighbors, the animals. The badger, he explained to me as we lurked by the badger fort, is not a pure herbivore. He prefers to eat earthworms. For a little while we leave the stalking post and walk through the valley basin surrounded by rocks and thorn bushes. In this place our tribe feels protected and safe since generations. Small campfires burn in front of the tipis. Lots of flame, little smoke, so as not to be seen from far away. That's how we learned it.

In front of us lies a red stone the size of a fist. Phew, it's heavy! That's because, father says, it's more than half iron. On the slope, where sun, rain and frost have been working the rocks like a carving knife for thousands of years, we look for fossils in the rubble. Look closely! Indeed, I find animal traces, ancient, fossilized. Cephalopods and corals, three-lobed crabs and crinoids.

Father explains that there was a sea here in prehistoric times. I can't imagine that. Yes, it was. In the sea there were huge fire-breathing monsters that melted rocks and spat them up to the sky in liquid form. These were the volcanoes. They are the reason why our country is richly blessed with iron. It lies in layers right up to the surface of the earth. This is almost nowhere else. Our ancestors didn't even have to dig shafts to get to it. They just had to dig hard into the ground and they came across the red iron stones.

A few meters further on we discover a butterfly, miraculously colored pale blue. That's a pretty tricky one, my father coaxes me. I am curious: Why? - It lays its eggs right in front of anthills. And the ants carry them into their nest. There the eggs grow into larvae; they can perfectly imitate the smell of the ants, so they are fed and cared for by them. - Just like the cuckoo lays its egg in the nests of other birds? - Exactly! - As we walk along, Big Eagle points to plants and tells me the stories about them. This purple one is called Musk Mallow, it not only looks good, you can eat it. There, wild thyme, also a tasty herb. The one with yellow petals there is called ragwort, if cattle eat a lot of it, they will die of broken liver, just like people who drink too much firewater. Another one is called round-leaved bellflower, but it doesn't have round leaves at all - at first sight. When I look more closely, they are narrow and pointed at the top, but round at the bottom.

Looking, however, becomes more and more difficult. It is almost dark. The fires in front of the tipis have gone out. The scenery of the Indian land is fading. I rub my eyes. I am still lying in the soft grass opposite the roof fort. Nothing stirs at the two football-sized holes. Somewhere in the corridors behind them, buried several meters deep in the ground, the lord of the castle is hiding. When I can barely make out anything anymore, I vacate the observation spot. I am not a bit disappointed. I haven't seen a badger, but discovered that there is still a little boy in me, with a vivid imagination, always ready to stalk and play and explore. The Red Cliffs are a good place to let the inner children run free.