Circular hiking route Greiz

The Trut in the Greiz Park Meadows

One evening, the Siebenellige was walking on the path around the park pond with his neighbor. Suddenly he felt a creature sitting on his back, clinging tightly to his jacket. He tried with all his strength to shake it off, but he could not. It giggled in his ears, tugged and pulled at his hair, pinched and poked, and drove him just like a rider urges his horse to run fast. He could shake and toss himself as much as he wanted, the mischievous little creature sat firmly on his neck. Only when it had made him sweat and exhausted him so much that he could no longer run did it jump off. The neighbor had stopped and looked at the wild antics in shock. But the little creature was the tiny man who often scared the Siebenellige and his wife in the evenings. After his ride, it jumped back into the nearby park meadows and rolled one somersault after another with joy over its prank. The marks left by the clawing into the Siebenellige's shoulders he who suffered them never lost again during his life.

After Franz Weidmann (abridged), 1920

The Siebenellige was probably named so by the people of Greiz because of his peculiar clothing.

In the Greiz area, the printing spirits are called Schrättel, Hupfmännel, or Trut. The Princely Greiz Park was then a playground for these demons. This scene was captured by the Greiz sculptor Carl Roeder, whose famous sculpture "Hickup" stood many years in the garden hall of the Summer Palace.