Juist Legends: 6 Folk Tales & Myths from the Töwerland

The Name Töwerland

Wangeroog de Schoone
Spiekeroog de Gröne
Langeoog dat Botterfatt
Baltrum nöm wi Sandgatt
Nördernee dat Roverland
Juist dat is dat Töwerland

That’s how a 19th-century sea shanty goes about the “seven sisters” — the seven East Frisian islands. And even back then, people knew: if Juist’s dunes could speak, they’d have quite a few stories to tell.

Stories about ghosts, premonitions, goblins, and witches. These tales have been passed down for centuries and are the reason for the island’s nickname: Töwerland, the land of magic.

Here are our 6 favorite Juist legends and folk tales.

The Klabautermann

Knock, knock, knock — hammering sounds on wood, creaking footsteps with no one around, and shadows darting across the ship’s deck. On the East Frisian coast, that can only mean one thing: the Klabautermann is here.

The Klabautermann is a ship spirit. He has been haunting vessels for centuries. Time and again, sailors swear they’ve seen him.

With a bushy beard, a hammer, and a pipe, he looks just like any other sailor. But the crew knows: this strange figure is no ordinary crew member.

At first, they’re not afraid of him. After all, the Klabautermann uses his hammer to draw attention to damage on the ship. And as long as the ship spirit is around, the vessel always sails smoothly.

What sailors truly dread, however, is the Klabautermann’s disappearance. It is said: “When he knocks, he stays; when he planes, he goes.” And the Klabautermann only leaves a ship when disaster is near.

To keep misfortune at bay, sailors prefer the Klabautermann not to show up in the first place.

That’s why it became a sailor’s tradition to bring a chicken along on every voyage to ward off the Klabautermann.

Why a chicken? Honestly, we have no idea — and today, nobody probably does either.

What we do know is that on Juist there’s even a house named after the Klabautermann. Haus Klabautermann stands on Billstraße, between the main village and the district of Loog.

The Hammersee Witches

It’s 1651 and Friesland is struck by a terrible storm surge. On the islands, the dunes give way and the land is mercilessly flooded. Juist is split in two for over 200 years.

How could this have happened? The survivors quickly find an answer. Only witches could be behind something like this.

In the 17th century, the witch craze is at its peak, spreading like wildfire — including along the North Sea coast.

And so the story of two Juist witches quickly spreads. One more powerful and more wicked than the other. The two fight over who is stronger. The battle escalates, the dunes collapse, the raging sea floods the island, and the witches drag all the islanders to their ruin.

Today, the Hammersee serves as a popular attraction on Juist, commemorating the St. Peter’s Flood of 1651. This is the exact spot where the island was split apart — not by witchcraft, of course, but by the raw force of nature.

The names of the alleged witches are long forgotten, but the tale is still told with great pleasure — and it’s one of the most beloved pieces of Juist island folklore.

The Föhrlopper

They hear voices no one else can hear and witness events before anyone else does: the Föhrlopper. Föhrlopp is an old Low German word meaning premonition.

One story is particularly well known in Juist myths and legends: the story of the old man, the whale, and the capsized ship.

When times on Juist are once again hard, the islanders get a lucky break when one morning a huge whale washes up on the beach. The islanders can make good money from it.

One old man, however, can’t rejoice like the others. He has a “Föhrlopp”.

In the dunes, he hears agonized human moaning. He searches and searches, but can’t find anyone or anything.

Many weeks later, he hears the terrible sounds again. This time, he finds what he’s looking for. Lying in the dunes is a completely exhausted, soaking-wet sailor.

The old man tries to communicate with the castaway, but they don’t speak the same language. He brings him into the village, where word is already spreading that out on a sandbar, a ship has capsized.

At low tide, islanders head out to see what happened. Only the captain is still on the ship, and he tells them what terrible things happened that night. He had lost his wife, children, crew, ship, and all his money to the waves.

Only he and the one sailor survived. Three people washed ashore on Norderney; the North Sea claimed the rest.

And people still talk today about the Föhrlopper who heard the shipwrecked sailor before anything had even happened, and about “the hide ship” with its lost cargo of animal hides.

Keep a lookout when the sea fog rolls in. Do you see that out there on the sandbar? It looks like a capsized ship. And do you hear that? In the dunes? Who’s moaning out there?

Will-o’-the-Wisps in the Mudflats

The mudflats belong to Juist just as much as the beach and the horses. They’re beautiful to behold and seem endless.

And yet they are just as threatening as the roaring North Sea on the other side of the island. Why? Let us tell you about the will-o’-the-wisps.

The Man in the Mudflats

When the cold season sets in on Juist, sea fog becomes more frequent, and a gray wall rolls in from the mudflats toward the island. So thick that you can barely see your hand in front of your face.

Many years ago, when Juist was far less settled, the houses stood far apart and the paths to the nearest home were long. Anyone who wasn’t inside by dusk could only hope for the best.

A man is walking along the salt marshes when dusk and sea fog catch him off guard — he loses all sense of direction. Paths look like meadows and meadows like paths. How is he supposed to get home?

His steps become slow and deliberate. But then he sees a small light in the distance. That must be the candle in his house’s window. His family is waiting.

The man trudges on. His steps grow more confident again. And suddenly he walks straight into the mudflats. He stops and looks around. This can’t be right. He was on the path! And there — the light again!

Beneath his feet, the mudflat floor pulls and tugs at him relentlessly. To keep from getting stuck, he keeps moving. But where did the light go? It’s gone. All around the man there is nothing but mudflats and thick fog. He is lost.

The Girl and the Will-o’-the-Wisp

Of course, not all the stories are sad ones. Especially lovely is the tale of the girl and the friendly will-o’-the-wisp:

A girl is walking home through thick fog and loses her way. Suddenly a will-o’-the-wisp appears before her. The girl says: “Will-o’-the-wisp, please lead me home. I’ll give you a thaler in return.”

The will-o’-the-wisp accepts the offer and floats ahead of the girl, lighting her way until they arrive at her parents’ house.

The girl goes in through the door and the light waits patiently on the threshold. When the girl holds out the promised thaler, a small, glowing hand emerges from the bright ball of light to take it.

Then the light floats away. But where the will-o’-the-wisp had waited, small scorch marks remain visible for many years afterward.

By the way: today, will-o’-the-wisps in mudflats and marshes can be explained scientifically.

They are caused either by gases that spontaneously ignite on their own, or by bioluminescence — self-luminescent algae. Honestly, pretty cool too.

The Dune Goblins

What’s rustling in the dunes? Who’s stirring up all that sand? Goblins are said to roam Juist too.

They live hidden in the dunes, which people are not allowed to enter, and they absolutely love eating sea buckthorn berries.

The Juist dune goblins make for wonderful story characters for kids. So if you’re on the island with children, keep an eye out for them on the beach and come up with your own tales about the little goblins. It’s a ton of fun!

Great Tip

If you’d like to read even more stories about Juist and its folklore, we recommend stopping by Buchhandlung Thomas Koch during your vacation.

They have a huge selection of books about the island — including fairy tale books, of course.