Desperate People Have Been Visiting This Tree For Over A Century With A Singular Purpose In Mind

As it happens, this individual’s far from the only person to march through Dodauer Forest towards this precise spot. In fact, this tree’s attracted thousands of visitors over the past century or so. That might seem a little strange, especially as it doesn’t look all that special at first glance.

The truth, though, is that this enormous, centuries-old tree really isn’t like any other. It has an almost mystical reputation, with many individuals believing that it has the ability to help them. These folk are trying to escape a certain kind of anguish, which ultimately leads them to this forest.

A lot of myths have attached themselves to the tree over the centuries, meaning that it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what’s true and what isn’t. If anything, though, that only adds to the allure of the tree and the forest that surrounds it. Walking around this place, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d slipped into a fairytale.

Dodauer Forest’s hardly the only woodland in Germany to give off a kind of fairytale vibe. After all, many of the tales we hear as children are intrinsically tied to this nation and its trees. The Black Forest, in particular, is at the very heart of that storytelling tradition.

The Black Forest’s situated in the southwest of Germany, encompassing thousands of square miles. A curious place, the forest’s name is a reference to the darkness that seems to be present throughout it. That’s because sunlight struggles to break through the thick lines of trees overhead, meaning an almost perpetual gloom reigns.

The Brothers Grimm were strongly influenced by the Black Forest when they compiled their books of fairytales. Stories associated with the pair such as “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rapunzel,” and “Hansel and Gretel” all reputedly have close links to this famous woodland. And given the darkness and spooky mist that often rises there, that’s hardly a surprise.

There’s often a bit of a misunderstanding when it comes to the Brothers Grimm. Though the pair popularized many of the fairytales we know and love today, they weren’t actually written by them. These yarns had long been told throughout Germany before their lifetimes — the brothers just conducted the arduous task of compiling them.

The Grimm fairytales actually came from word-of-mouth customs, whereby people would recite the stories from memory. A lot of the time, these storytellers were women seeing to their domestic jobs around the home. The yarns were passed through the generations, and then the academic Brothers Grimm formalized them into books.

The Brothers Grimm spoke with their pals and family members while they were compiling all the fairytales. They then used these people’s yarns for their collection, which ultimately culminated in a book called Nursery and Household Tales. Today, we know this work better by the title of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.

Germany’s very happy about its association with the Brothers Grimm and the fairytales they popularized. In fact, the government even established the Fairy Tale Route, which is a tourist trail through places the brothers once frequented or that are connected to their stories. It’s naturally a must for any serious fairytale fans out there.

The Fairy Tale Route passes through several picturesque towns, as well as plenty of beautiful countryside. Passing through the forests and parks along this trail, you’d probably begin to understand how stories such as “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White” came into being around these parts. The place, after all, is very evocative.

If nothing else, the Fairy Tale Route proves that fairytales are alive and well inside Germany today. The surviving forests of this country still possess some of the magic that inspired storytellers of past generations. And there are even new stories coming from some of these woodlands — with Dodauer Forest being perhaps the most notable example.

Dodauer Forest is home to the Bridegroom’s Oak, a very special tree with quite the reputation. It’s thought to have started growing more than five centuries ago, though the precise circumstances remain a little unclear. According to legend, the tree owes its existence to a Celtic leader’s son. This boy had been bound to another tree, but he was freed by a girl of the Christian faith.

The boy, it’s said, was so indebted to the Christian girl that he decided to plant this tree to show his gratitude. That’s all well and good, but academics don’t really believe it happened. Instead, they think this was a tall tale concocted by Christian leaders hoping to appeal to pagans in the area. That seems plausible, especially when we consider that the hero of the tale was a Christian girl.

While that story about the Celtic boy and the Christian girl doesn’t appear to be true, another tale explaining the Bridegroom’s Oak fame does seem legitimate. Basically, it’s a boy-meets-girl story with a twist. It takes us back a century, when a local girl fell for a boy. Sadly for the young lovers, though, her dad didn’t want them to be together.

But rather than giving up on one another, the girl and her love came up with a solution. Though they couldn’t openly meet and spend time together, they could still communicate in secret. That involved writing letters to each other — and placing them inside a gap in the Bridegroom’s Oak’s trunk.

This carried on for roughly a year, with the young lovers managing to stay in contact thanks to this tree. And eventually the girl’s dad gave in and allowed her to marry the boy. Their wedding took place in the summer of 1891 — fittingly, beneath the very tree where they’d left their love letters.

Like the old fairytales of Germany, this story started to spread like wildfire. The Bridegroom’s Oak, as it’d become known, was soon famous — and a lot of people now wanted to take advantage of its apparent power. The tree had helped one young couple to find love, so maybe it could do the same for others, too?

Nowadays, singletons might opt to swipe through Tinder in the hope of finding a partner. But if that doesn’t feel right, maybe you could write a letter to a potential lover and place it inside the Bridegroom’s Oak? If that sounds crazy, you might be surprised to hear that plenty of people have done just that — and apparently sometimes it’s worked!

The idea is that a person writes a letter listing their own traits, the things they want from a partner, and their contact details. They then leave it in the tree’s hollow, hoping that someone fitting pulls it out and reads it. If this person likes what they’ve read, they can reach out and try to arrange a date.

This might sound very niche, but these letters to the Bridegroom’s Oak quickly became really popular. So much so, in fact, that by 1927 the tree had even been granted a postal address of its own. And that meant people could send a letter without actually having to physically be present in Dodauer Forest.

The notion that lonely people have been seeking love with the help of a tree may sound faintly ridiculous. But it’s said that no less than a hundred marriages can be directly attributed to this famous oak tree. If that’s true, you can certainly see why people might be willing to give it a shot.

People from many different backgrounds have tried their luck with the tree. As the BBC reported in 2018, singletons from across Germany have sent it their letters. And people from far further afield have done so, too. Take an individual named Liu, who comes from China. Liu apparently wrote to the tree in the hope of finding a German pal.

The BBC also mentions Denies, a 55-year-old woman from Bavaria. This lady wrote in her letter to the tree that she was comfortable in her own company, but that she was still open to meeting a man who might “surprise her.” Who knows if the tree helped her to find what she was searching for?

Letters to the Bridegroom’s Oak are far more common than you might think. According to the BBC, an official from the German postal service named Martin Grundler has claimed, “The tree receives about 1,000 letters a year. Most come in the summertime. I suppose that’s when everyone wants to fall in love.”

All these letters don’t deliver themselves to the tree, of course, meaning a mail carrier’s required. Several people have fulfilled this role over the decades, but the longest-serving individual to do the job is Karl-Heinz Martens. For two decades, this man visited the Bridegroom’s Oak bearing the messages of lovesick people from all over the world.

Speaking to the BBC in 2018, Karl-Heinz looked back on his time with the tree, which began in the mid-1980s. He recalled, “It was my favorite part of the day. People used to memorize my route and wait for me to arrive because they couldn’t believe that a postman would deliver letters to a tree.”

Karl-Heinz stated that at least one letter was sent to the tree almost every single day. Throughout his two decades doing the job, he remembers a total of just ten days on which he didn’t need to drop a letter off there. So it seems a lot of people thought it could help them find love.

And for some of these people, the Bridegroom’s Oak really did do wonders. Take Peter Pump, who in 1958 visited the tree and retrieved a letter from the hollow. On the page was simply the name and address of a girl called Marita. That wasn’t a lot of information, but Peter took a chance.

Peter contacted Marita, not knowing that she hadn’t even been the one who’d sent her letter. Her pals did it for her, as she was a very shy person. Nonetheless, Peter got in touch and the pair started writing to one another. Over the course of a year, they got to know each other and eventually they met. And in 1961 they tied the knot.

Another couple who found love thanks to the Bridegroom’s Oak are the Christiansens. Back in 1988, when Germany was still split in two, Karl-Heinz left a letter in the tree from Claudia, a woman from East Germany. This was eventually read by a guy called Friedrich, who lived in West Germany. For a couple of years, these two wrote to one another. And in 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the pair could finally meet face to face. They tied the knot that same year.

For his part, Karl-Heinz can’t help but be swept up by stories like this. As he explained to the BBC, it’s a far more interesting way to get a date than using the web. He said, “There’s something so magical and romantic about it... On the internet, facts and questions match people, but at the tree, it’s a beautiful coincidence — like fate.”

Karl-Heinz delivered mail to the Bridegroom’s Oak for years, so he clearly has a soft spot for it. And it turns out his affection for the tree goes much deeper. In 1989 the mailman was interviewed on TV about the tree, and he revealed that he was single. Shortly afterwards, a letter addressed to the postman himself arrived.

This letter read, “I would like to meet you. You are my type. At the moment, I am also alone.” With that, Karl-Heinz called — and it was the start of a long relationship. He met the writer of the message, who was a woman named Renate. They got together and wed in 1994.

Karl-Heinz and Renate are just two people who found love with the help of the Bridegroom’s Oak. Plenty of others were just as lucky, too, with many marriages resulting from this unusual exchange of letters. But how about the tree itself? How’s it been doing in the dating game?

That might seem like a weird question to ask, but it’s more relevant than you might think. Because in 2009 a ceremony took place that symbolically “married” the Bridegroom’s Oak to another tree. This thing also had a postal address of its own, the only other tree in Germany to have one. So it seems that their union was meant to be.

The “marriage” didn’t last terribly long, though, as the other tree was overcome by some damaging fungus. It spread to such an extent that nothing could be done. So the tree, unfortunately, had to be felled in the winter 2015. This left the Bridegroom’s Oak as a widower, a bachelor tree once again.

The Bridegroom’s Oak itself has suffered from a bout of ill health as well, which maybe isn’t a surprise, given its age. A few years ago, the tree was similarly affected by fungus, though the infection was ultimately cut out. Strangely, this episode occurred around the same time that Karl-Heinz had health troubles.

Karl-Heinz thinks this illustrates a link between himself and this tree that he’s been visiting for decades. As he explained, “When I started coming here, the tree was stronger and healthier. But I’m not so healthy either, so I suppose we have a special connection.” And that seems like a fair point. The tree helped him meet his wife, after all.