The highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland not only inspired Tolkien to write "Lord of the Rings," but also elicited beautiful words from the poet of all poets. Goethe visited the Lauterbrunnen Valley in 1779 and made it famous with a poem.
Song of the Spirits over the Waters
The human soul
Like water:
It comes from heaven,
It rises to heaven,
And down again
To earth it must,
Forever changing.
Flows from the high,
Steep rock face
The pure ray,
Then he dusts sweetly
In Cloud Waves
To the smooth rock,
And easily received,
If it billows veilingly,
Quietly rushing
Down to the depths.
Ragen Cliffs
Towards the fall,
He foams angrily
Gradually
To the abyss.
In the flat bed
He sneaks along the meadow valley,
And in the smooth lake
Pastures their faces
All the stars.
Wind is the wave
lovely lover;
Wind mixes from the ground
Foaming waves.
Soul of man,
How like you are to water!
Fate of man,
How like you are the wind!
Tolkien in Lauterbrunnen
In 1911, 19-year-old JRR Tolkien hiked through the Swiss Alps. The steep cliffs of the Lauterbrunnen Valley inspired him to create the landscapes from "Lord of the Rings." Middle Earth is therefore not only found in New Zealand - as the film adaptation would suggest - but also in the Bernese Oberland.
Access
The waterfall is a short walk from the car park in Lauterbrunnen. Behind the waterfall, a path leads up to the gallery in the rock.
