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Case of Balbronn, in the 1800's:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1800-00-00-BALBRONN-1

Summary:

In the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit issue 237-238, in March 1984, Frédéric Dumerchat published an article which aimed at showing that there is a ufological interest in looking into folklore; it quotes a good number of Alsatian stories collected by the folklorist Auguste Stober in the years 1840-1890.

One of those he mentioned said that in Balbronn in the Bas-Rhin, young people played at giving each other pledges. One of the boys had to invite the "man of fire" to kiss him; he opened the window and called him. They then heard footsteps and a violent knock at the door. They went out to see what had happened. A trace of fire, in the shape of two hands, was drawn on the door.

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[Ref. asr1:] AUGUSTE STOEBER:

In English:

[Ref. ldl1:] FREDERIC DUMERCHAT - LDLN:

Discussion:

Some ufologists or Fortean researchers focus, for various reasons, to looking in old texts, dated before the "flying saucers era", for stories that would relate to this topic.

Among their reasons, some are contradictory. Some seek to demonstrate that "flying saucers" cannot be a "modern hype" since ancient stories from before this supposed hype were already reporting UFOs. Others want to show that "flying saucers" are indeed the modern version of old nonsense such as religious appearances or stories of "flying coaches" whose only connection with the UFO question is that nonsense always existed.

Some of these researchers have become specialists in such ancient stories, foaming libraries to find in old newspapers or books of legends texts recounting alleged facts more or less obviously suggestive of "flying saucers". We can think of Jacques Vallée, Jean Sider, Chris Aubeck and many others, including the Alsatian Christian Valentin who listed some stories of this kind in my area - with caution, as I do.

To be clear, I do not think any argument can be seriously held from such documents. These are not established "facts", there is almost never any contemporary investigation or verification, it is usually too late to try to establish any "truth" in it. Sometimes, however, we can show that the "case" was only a misinterpretation, sometimes a hoax, usually we can only pronounce that the story cannot be taken at face value, that nothing can demonstrate that it is a factual narrative.

So then I would not have to mention cases like the one I'm filing here.

But that would expose me to a critique regularly made by some ufologists who think that a priori rejection of such material is to be "blind" or close minded or in denial of this or that thesis.

So as I don't want to be subjected to this sort of criticism, I document, and evaluate, this case.

The local legend:

Although autumn had arrived for several weeks, the villagers had taken up the tradition of the "Kunkelstub", the chatty eve. Neighbors gathered to spend the time telling extraordinary stories. One of the topics was the "Fiirmanner", the "men of fire", supposed beings who wander endlessly in the countryside, their bodies constantly consuming themselves. It was said that they were dead people whose crime was too heavy for their conscience and therefore could not sleep "in the peace of the Lord."

One evening, the young people of the village also met for a "Kunkelstube", and played riddles, with a pledge for each wrong answer. Everyone of course had this legend in mind. One of the young people was given a rather special pledge: he had to invite a "man of fire" to come and kiss him. Everyone thought he would cave, that one do not joke with this. But the brave young man leaned out of the window of the "Stùb" to shout into the night: "Man of fire, kiss me!" After repeating it three times, each time louder, he began to close the window, and it was then that a heavy steps outside in the gravel of the courtyard were heard, with the sound of chains that seemed to be dragged around. The footsteps sounds approached inexorably, then there was a dull thud against the door. In the "Stub", silence had come, the young people did not dare to move, especially the youngster who had shouted. When finally some of the bravest dared to open the door to check what was going on outside, they saw, deeply burned in the wood of the door, the traces of two human hands, fingers spread. The incinerated wood had resisted, but "the man of fire had indeed come!"

Of course there are variations.

In most versions the "young people" are clearly referred to as "children."

In some versions, it is not a young man who challenges a "man of fire", but a young girl, and the man of fire returns a year later to get his kiss. He kisses the girl, burning her entire cheek and killing her.

The moral, because this is a bogeyman-style moral story for young people, was: beware of your bravado and your wishes, sometimes they come true. In Alsatian it is said like this: "Mol d'r Deifel net àn d'r Wànd", do not draw the devil on the wall - because he could show a hoof.

Drawer effect:

As I explained above, some authors, sociologists, ufologists, who have commented on a relationship between "ufology" and "folklore", for various and sometimes opposite reasons, all make the mistake of selecting from folklore stories that eem to validate the thesis they propose. The general ideas are, hardly caricaturing: "there are stories in folklore as there are stories in ufology, all of them are false, they are only stories"; or "in folklore, we find the same encounters with extraterrestrials as in ufology, so everything is true"; or "we used to see fairies, now we believe in UFOs"; or "These are neither fairies nor aliens, but stagings devised by a superior / alien intelligence to manipulate us for the purpose of (you name it)".

But if you do not "filter" the folklore, these ideas become more specious. In reality, folklore is not a dozen stories that we can thus select by the virtue that they would have of being "related" one way or another to the UFO sighting reports. There are thousands of stories in every region, every village, and their variety is quite challenging. I want to give some brief examples taken from the folklore of the Balbronn region:

• Never follow the sheep of Marlenheim, because they lead you to the river where you will drown.
• You should never walk through the Kronthal after dark because there are ghost animals in the rocks, for example singing snakes, a black dog guarding a cave where treasure is supposedly hidden, a black ghost and his ghost wolf that kill and eats people.
• A young man who was walking towards Marmoutier saw a tearful person with his hands on his face, the young man asked the cause of this sadness, the person then removed his hands from his face, which was a skeleton face, because this person was Death, and the next day the lifeless body of the poor young man was found on the road to Marlenheim (we are not told how his encounter became known, by the way.)
• At the Kronthal, you can meet the real Magi, because they are buried in the crypt of Koln Cathedral, and at each Epiphany, they come out of their tomb, go up the course of the Rhine to Strasbourg, and go at the Kronthal. From there, they leave for the Champ du Feu, which they purify of all evil spells.
• Also in Wasselonne, Charles the Bold, killed in Nancy in 1477, wanders the streets as a ghost. One day he met a man on horseback, whom he called out to ask him the way to a cemetery to rest his bones there. The man laughed and offered to share a good bottle instead. But once home, when Charles the Bold took off his coat, his new friend didn't laugh anymore, because all he saw in front of him was a skeleton.
• In Wasselonne on the night of May 5 to 6, 1821, the watchman was walking through the streets, and saw a man seated, in whom he recognized his predecessor, a former grenadier of Napoleon' army, decorated with the Legion of Honor, and dead for a few years, who then announces to him the death of the Emperor.
• In Westoffen, you can sometimes hear the rooster when you walk on the Rohracher, a barren and wet ground in the middle of the meadows. But there's no point looking for the animal, because it lies six feet underground, where there was once a convent of depraved monks, who ate meat instead of fish on a Friday. The convent had then been engulfed by the earth and all that is left to hear is the voice of the rooster rising from the depths of the earth...
• In Dangolsheim, there is a ghost in the washhouse in the form of a Roman soldier. One evening in 1914, the locals were chatting around the washhouse, they heard a noise in the tunnel of the washhouse which was an old Roman underground. It was the Roman soldier, who then passed through the bars that barred the entrance to the tunnel if they had been made of cotton, and stopped in front of the villagers. He raised and arm and saluted silently, tears in his eyes, then turned around and disappeared. A few weeks later, WWI started. One had already seen it in 1870, and he appeared again in 1939.
• "A long time ago", Rémi was madly in love with a beautiful girl from Wasselonne. One night he rode his white horse to join her. But his rival who was waiting for him killed him and threw his body into the Mossig River. Since then, every night, Rémi's white horse has returned to neigh at the scene of the crime.
• The heir to the castle of Scharrachbergheim could not have supper in peace, because each time a lord from the old days appeared, with his four children, his wife, and her lover. The lord killed the children and the lover to take revenge on his unfaithful wife.
• Etc. etc...

I would therefore leave it to those who hold the "folklore and UFO commonalities" theses to 1) read the dozens of other stories in this region alone and 2) explain the so-called "commonalities."

For the case that concerns us here, my explanation (until a different, btter and argumented explanation should come up) is that this is not a "fact", nor even a "distorted" fact, but purely and simply a moral story for children.

And a story really unrelated to the issue of UFO sightings, and offering nothing that can shed any light on the latter issue in any manner.

Evaluation:

Not UFO-related.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [asr1] * "Die Sagen des Elsasses, getreu nach der Volksüberlieferung: Erster Teil: Die Sagen des Ober-Elsass", book by Auguste Stoeber, Heiss and Mündel publishers, Strasbourg, pp 63-64, 1892.
• [ldl1] * "En passant pr l'Alsace. Note sur l'intérêt du folklore (2 - Suite et fin)", article by Frédéric Dumerchat, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #237-238, page 5, March / April 1984.

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This page was last updated on February 22, 2023.