The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wikipedia
The Brocken, also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is the highest peak of the Harz mountain range and also the highest peak of Northern Germany; it is located near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt between the rivers Weser and Elbe. Although its elevation of is below alpine dimensions, its microclimate resembles that of mountains of about . The peak above the tree line tends to have a snow cover from September to May, and mists and fogs shroud it up to 300 days of the year. The mean annual temperature is only . It is the easternmost mountain in northern Germany; travelling east in a straight line, the next prominent elevation would be in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The Brocken has always played a role in legends and has been connected with witches and devils; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe took up the legends in his play Faust. The Brocken spectre is a common phenomenon on this misty mountain, where a climber's shadow cast upon fog creates eerie optical effects.
Today the Brocken is part of the Harz National Park and hosts a historic botanical garden of about 1,600 alpine mountain plants. A narrow gauge steam railway, the Brocken Railway, takes visitors to the railway station at the top on .
FM-radio and television broadcasting make major use of the Brocken. The old television tower, the Sender Brocken, is now used as hotel and restaurant. It also has an observation deck, open to tourists.
The Brocken is the highest peak in northern Germany. It also may refer to:
- Brocken station, the railway on the summit of the Brocken
- Sender Brocken, a facility for FM and TV transmitters on Brocken Mountain
- Brocken spectre, also called Brocken bow or mountain spectre, an atmospheric optical phenomenon
- Brocken-Hochharz, a collective municipality in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
- Brocken, South Georgia, a mountain
- Brocken, a poem book from Johann Peter Klassen
- Brocken Jr., a character in the Kinnikuman wrestling anime series
- Brocken (World Heroes), a character in the World Heroes fighting game series
- Count Brocken, a villain from the fictional robot anime Mazinger Z
- a colloquial word in German for rock or a big piece of something
Brocken is a mountain rising over close southwest of Calf Head on the north side of South Georgia. It was named by the German group of the International Polar Year Investigations, 1882–83, after the Brocken, the highest mountain in central Germany.
Usage examples of "brocken".
The gigantic Brocken spectre projected from himself upon the wide horizon of his futurity.
Into the Brocken upon May-day night, And then to isolate oneself in scorn, Disgusted with the humours of the time.
I shall require you to permit me to put a curse on you when I return from the Brocken if my dragon is not returned in good order.
I was reminded of Faust who, dancing at the Brocken with a young sorceress, saw a red mouse emerge from her throat.
There is a glen beyond that as you know, and from it runs the steep and dangerous Brocken Path across the hills.
Point Assumption you will find horses there to take you across the Brocken Path.
The two had fled through the hills by the Brocken Path, and though pursued after crossing, had reached the coast, and were taken aboard the Parroquet, which sailed away towards Australia.
There is a change from the pretty garden of the first scene, with its idyllic music, to the gathering place of witches and warlocks, high up in the Brocken, in the second.
And they were less suspected than if they had met atop Brocken on Walpurgis Night.
He sees himself reflected in the neighbouring opinion, like in a Brocken mist, several feet taller on the strength of the pianoforte, and he is satisfied.
He lives for the sake of that Brocken spectre, the reflection of himself in the human opinion.
It is quite another to class her visions with the vision of two moons seen by a drunken person, or with Brocken spectres, echoes and the like.
The smoke was worse than ever, and hurt her eyes, so that the figures of the theatre-firemen, hurrying to and fro, seemed like Brocken specters.
But if in these festival hours under the beam of Hecate they are uncontrollable by the Comic Muse, she will not flatter them with her presence during the course of their insane and impious hilarities, whereof a description would out-Brocken Brockens and make Graymalkin and Paddock too intimately our familiars.
Festival may have been derived from the Walpurgisnacht on the Brocken.