The first two questions are: a) what is a dog church and b) where is this dog church.
I then found texts about the Hundskirche in other books. On various maps I found the field name Hundskirche. However, a description from 1875 was relatively accurate.
A curiosity, half scenic, half ancient, is the so-called Hundskirche, a quarter of an hour south-east of Schmerbach on the Kuhwasen field (formerly Ochsenwasen). Now nothing more than a deep sinkhole, but it seems to have originally been carved into the sandstone by human hands, now everything is overgrown with forest trees and swamp plants. 90 - 100 steps further up (to the east) flows a spring set in stone, covered by a large rough sandstone slab. The source is sparse but never runs dry, not even in the driest summers, its watercourse goes into the Hundskirche, where it trickles down and gently seeps away.
At the Hundskirche itself, 3 white women have already been seen!!!
According to another author, it was a storey-deep depression hewn in the rock, wider at the bottom than at the top, so that there are, as it were, stone seats in it, roofed over by the living rock. Towards the south one sees the beginning of a passage carved in the rock, which does not seem to lead horizontally, but straight down, it seems. A fairly visible opening of 3.5 to 4 feet (1.2m) wide, according to the older men in Blumweiler, leads to a passage down which they claim to have followed 30 paces even when they were young, until they reached it a fright arrived. This opening in the rock seems to have been closed by a huge hewn boulder which now stands upright not far from it.
According to folk tales, the black dog lies on the treasure down there! According to another legend, dogs are said to have been sacrificed here.
For centuries, the way to the Hundskirche was called "zum Götz".
In another book, the entrance to this cave (höllagruba) is said to have been the entrance to the underworld for Frau Hell.
All the descriptions of this area point to an ancient camp and sacrificial site. The age should already be 1500 to 2000 years.
From the pictures you can still see the roofing through the rock.
A book from 1825 states that Württemberg stonemasons had recently worked there, destroyed the cave and the whole thing was filled in.
Translated by Google •
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