The fountains of my city: The Chindlifrässer

My decision to write a post about each of the main fountains of the Old Town has already led me to uncomfortable and disappointing historical discoveries. The Chindlifrässer Brunnen (Kinderfresser Brunnen in proper German, literally the children-eater fountain) is probably the most famous of all the fountains in Big City. If it is not the most famous (perhaps Justice is the most famous simply because she is Justice?), it is certainly the most unique.



It is a giant – ein Riesen – eating small, naked children. I love this fountain, it cracks me up. Who puts a giant eating small children on a fountain?

Like all the Brunnen in the Old Town it was erected in the 1540s (1545/46 to be precise) and replaced an older wooden Brunnen at the same site, but it does not seem to fit in the same mold as the other figures erected around the same time – Moses or Justice or a Schutzenfigur. Its intended meaning is clouded and mysterious, but there are two main theories. One theory, which is usually proposed in a sentence or two without a lot of background, is that it is a Fastnacht (carnival) figure. The other theory is that the child-eater atop the fountain is Jewish. And he’s eating small naked defenseless little children. Charming. Blood libel, right there in front of the public library!

Those who propose that the figure was originally designed to depict a Jew eating small children suggest that it illustrated an old (and eventually discredited) story of a Jewish man ritually murdering a boy in Bern in 1294 (a story, by the way, that was eventually used as an excuse to ban Jews from the city because of course it was not discredited until centuries later). They note that the hat calls to mind a Kippah or yarmulke and that the hat, belt and sleeves on the statue were originally yellow, a color Jews were often forced to wear. Then there are those who suggest that the original meaning behind the figure is lost to us but would have been perfectly clear to contemporaries much in the manner of a Heronimus Bosch painting. The statues were commissioned by the city; it’s hard to imagine that the city would spend so much money simply to portray a Fastnacht figure or to defame Jews. It’s possible that it carried some meaning we simply can’t decipher today; perhaps it was just whimsy. But knowing the history of Jews in middle Europe, the whiff of blood libel lingers. I take some comfort from the fact that today not a lot of average people on the street seem to suspect this about the possible origin of the Chindlifrässer; to them it’s just the Chindlifrässer (for example R had never heard this explanation before, but then again I know more about Big City than R does and have for some time now) but nevertheless it's not the sort of thing I like to learn about the place I call home.



You can read more about the Chindlifrässer here (in German).