The Fairy-Tale Road Sights

Performing Arts

1. Johann Andreas Eisenbart Glockenspiel

Dr. Johann Andreas Eisenbart (1663–1727) would be forgotten today if a ribald 19th-century drinking song ("Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart, widda, widda, wit, boom! boom!") hadn't had him shooting out aching teeth with a pistol, anesthetizing with a sledgehammer, and removing boulders from kidneys. He was, as the song has it, a man who could make "the blind walk and the lame see." This is terribly exaggerated, of course, but the town, where he died, takes advantage of it. The good Dr. Eisenbart has "office hours" in the town hall at 1:30 on Saturday from May through December. Throughout the year, a glockenspiel on the town hall depicts Eisenbart's feats, to the tune of the Eisenbart song three times daily: at noon, 3, and 5. There's a statue of the doctor in front of his home at Langestrasse 79, and his grave is outside the St. Ägidien Church.