photo #8532745

Blaubeuren in the Swabian Jura in Germany The BLAUTOPF IN BLAUBEUREN, where a beautiful young mermaid once lived. According to legend anyway. Lau had been banished to the lake by her husband, a Danube Water Sprite from the Black Sea, because she was always sad and bore him only dead children. Her mother-in-law told her she would become a mother if she would laugh from the heart five times, as that would break the curse. The people of Blaubeuren did teach Lau to be happy again, and their reward was the Blautopf, Blue Pot. Their lake became a deep pure blue, sometimes turquoise, color. A statue of the Wassernixe stands alongside the Blautopf, which is fed by an underground spring and has an extensive underground system of caves, where, it is said, she can sometimes be seen swimming in its depths. Her long hair flowing behind her. It seems Lau's husband, the Water Sprite, swam up the Danube to claim her once she had learned to laugh, and she left with him, but promised to come back with her children. Which she does from time to time. Photo credit: Blautopf in Blaubeuren with the Hammer Mill, on the Swabian Jura's southern edge in Baden-Württemberg... courtesy Henning Schlottmann (User:H-stt) via wikimedia.de