Sigulda 5 – Gutman's Cave and the Rose of Turaida

 

Entrance of the cave

If you read the English name, you might get associations that have nothing to do with the cave. In English there is only the cutman and not the gutman, but there is gut. But let me explain the origin of the name using the Latvian text from Wikipedia [1], which I had had translated. The German name Gutmannshöhle has been coined about 1778 by Jakob Benjamin Fischer, who had learned the name "the good man" from locals. Spring water flows out of the cave, which I naturally drank, and which was associated with healing powers, because in the past (Middle Ages?) "the good man" lived in this cave and healed with this spring water [2]. In the 1930s there were efforts to change the name of the cave into Latvian and rename it Labvīra Cave, because good man is "labs vīrs" in Latvian. However, this did not prevail. In summary, the Latvian term "labs vīrs" was translated into German "guter Mann" and hence the German term "Gutmannshöhle", which in turn was phonetically translated back into Latvian as "Gūtmaņa ala", which then became "Gutman's Cave".

Engravings at the cave entrance

Gutman's Cave or Gutmannshöhle is located in the valley of the Gauja, which can be easily overlooked from Sigulda. This valley was formed at the end of the last ice age (approx. 10,000 years ago) [3]. The place shows the characteristic yellow sandstone. The river Gouja has created a beautiful erosion valley with many small caves, grottos and overhanging rocks. The Gutmannshöhle is about 10 meters high, almost 19 m deep and 14 m wide. It used to serve as an emergency shelter and hunting camp. It is the oldest tourist attraction in the country. Closely connected to it is the legend of the Rose of Turaida [4]. The water of the spring is pleasantly cool (6° C).

The first engraving in the cave date back to the 18th century. Most of them, however, date from the period between 1840 and 1940. There are countless circles and coats of arms of student associations as well as names of barons and estate owners. These were made by local craftsmen who thus gained additional business from tourists. Today, the Gutmann Cave is protected and inscriptions may no longer be engraved.

Now let's come to the legend of the Rose of Turaida and its possible truth [5]. The legend of the Rose of Toraida has a sad content. The Rose of Turaida was a young woman called Maja. She rejected many suitors because she had fallen in love with the gardener Viktor from the Sigulda area. They chose a cave as their love nest. But one day Viktor found his lover in the cave with her throat cut. It turned out that a young Polish officer named Adam Jakobowski had committed the crime. He was also madly in love with the 19-year-old girl. And since Maja blocked his advances and he wanted to take her by force, Maya, in her desperation, presented a cloth that was supposed to protect her from any sword injury. She wanted to demonstrate the effect of the cloth on herself. The officer struck and the girl fell lifeless to the ground. Jakobowski was shocked, ran into the forest and hanged himself from a tree. So much for the legend. But perhaps there is some truth in the legend. In the middle of the 19th century, a discovery was made in the court archives of Vidzeme. A document from August 1620 was found in which Maja's murder was discussed.

I just looked on Google (Friday, 12:00 noon) and the rush of visitors is unusually high. I recommend visiting very early. And perhaps you want to wash your face with the spring water to stay young and beautiful forever. Good luck!

Tthe well area of the cave

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C5%ABtma%C5%86a_ala
[2] The ADAC [2a] writes: “The patron saint is said to have been a hermit who distributed the refreshing water to pilgrims.” [2b] The patron saint is said to have been a hermit who distributed the refreshing water to pilgrims. Labendes Nass means thirst-quenching water, but is unusual for today's language [2c], perhaps the text was written in the 1950s. I, for one, love these kinds of terms that are disappearing from everyday language.
[2a] “The ADAC, officially the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (lit. 'General German Automobile Club'), is Europe's largest automobile association. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADAC
[2b] https://maps.adac.de/poi/gutmannshoehle-sigulda
[2c] Laben is not among the 10,000 most commonly used words in German. https://web.archive.org/web/20091015234803/http://wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de/Papers/top10000de.txt
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutman%27s_Cave and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmannsh%C3%B6hle
[4] Thorsten Altheide, Alexandra Frank, Mirko Kaupat, Heli Rahkema, Günther Schäfer: Reise Know-How Reiseführer Baltikum: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Reise Know-How Verlag, Bielefeld 2023. ISBN: 978-3-8317-3597-6, p. 366.
[5] I summarize according to [4], even if the English text in [3] is more detailed; or perhaps precisely because of that.

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