Golokreuz
Thür
The Golokreuz is an impressive testimony to the centuries-long tradition of pilgrimage to the Fraukirch.
It receives its high status from an inscription from 1472. In the vernacular of the 15th century, the "Salve Regina" is carved into the stone.
It is the pleading cry for help of the people who see themselves in the "Valley of Tears", to the Blessed Mother as "Queen of Mercy" and as leader.
The original of the cross can be seen today in the nearby Fraukirch.
The name Golokreuz has only become naturalized over the past 200 years and refers to the Genovevasage, the founding legend of the Fraukirch:
Count Palatine Siegfried once lived in the Eifel, and his faithful wife was the beautiful Genoveva von Braband. As befits a pious knight, Siegfried took the cross one day and went to the Holy Land to fight the infidels.
He left the pregnant Genoveva back home. While Siegfried was now in the Orient, the faithless Court Marshal Golo tried to induce the beautiful bride to commit adultery. But Genoveva vehemently rejected the pushy rival.
From now on, the offended man who had been pushed back thought about cunning revenge.
The day came that Siegfried returned from his crusade, his son had long been born - the hour had come for Golo.
He treacherously ensnared his struggling husband and planted the lie of Genoveva's lascivious fornication with the always willing court cook - and the child was not his either.
Full of anger, Siegfried had the supposedly faithless sentenced to death.
The cook's head rolled instantly while Genoveva and her son were dragged into the forest and left there in the wild.
The knight's journeyman hunters had orders to chase the unfortunate and in the end kill them like game.
But the hunters, suspecting the secret truth, let mother and child slip away in the impenetrable thicket.
From then on the two wandered through the formerly dense Eifel forests, only fed on the milk of a white doe sent by God.
Years later Siegfried was hunting and the Lord in Heaven let him meet the doe.
Recognizing his supposed victim, the knight stalked after the clever animal that led him to the exact cave in which Genoveva lived with the child.
Happy he recognized his own people, suddenly recognized God's providence and the false accusations of the evil Golo.
So the story came to a happy ending - the shameful one was quartered by oxen and the family of knight Siegfried lived happily ever after.