In the moor

The poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff wrote the poem “The Boy in the Moor.” In it, she portrays the moor as eerie and dangerous, full of strange sounds and shapes, a place of shadowy figures. People in earlier times probably often felt this way. They feared the moor. But they also learned to understand it and make use of it.

They began draining the moorland and turning it into farmland. The first settlers were desperately poor. They lived in simple cottages on the moors, cut peat and lived off the meagre yields of the poor soil.

A bog is always damp. The ground is soft and covered with puddles and pools. The water cannot drain away. It also cannot seep into the ground, because a hard layer of soil prevents it from connecting with the groundwater.

In Germany, peatlands are found mainly in the northwest, northeast and Alpine foothills. Most peatlands formed after the last Ice Age, which ended around 10,000 years ago. As the ice melted, it left behind many small lakes, ponds and pools. Plants grew in these shallow waters and along their banks.

They died off and new plants grew. The dead plant matter turned into peat. Eventually, the waterbody became overgrown from the edges. The lakes, ponds and pools disappeared.

A wetland partly covered by water is called a fen. As more and more plants die and turn into peat, the peatland slowly grows higher—about one centimeter in ten years, or around one meter in a thousand years. In this way, a fen becomes a raised bog. The raised bogs that exist today are about 8,000 to 10,000 years old.

About 350 years ago, people began turning marshland into farmland. In some areas, this was done by setting fires. First, an area of marsh was drained. The top layer was removed until the peat was reached. A ditch was then dug every 50 to 60 paces.

The water drained away, allowing the top layer of peat to dry. It was then chopped deep into the ground and left for a winter. In spring, it was loosened again by hand or with a wooden harrow pulled by people.

They then piled individual pieces of peat into heaps and set them alight. They threw the burning pieces across the field. The layer of peat caught fire, and black clouds of smoke covered the sky. Eventually, the fire went out by itself because the soil below was damp. They let the fertile ash cool and sowed buckwheat in it.

Later, canals and ditches were dug to drain the moorlands. The canals were also used to transport peat and other goods. In the 19th century, artificial fertilizers and lime were used to improve the moorland soils.

After World War II, many moors were converted into farmland. Huge plows were used for this. The "Mammut" plow made by Ottomeyer was powered by steam engines. It could plow the ground to a depth of more than two meters.

Today, only a few peat bogs are still worked. Some areas are left completely untouched. In others, peat is still extracted, but the land is then rewetted.

Life was hard for the first settlers in the moor. The work was difficult and extremely strenuous. Almost everything had to be done by hand, because horses and machines would have sunk into the wet ground. The settlers were also too poor to afford horses or machines.

It took 500 days of work to turn one hectare of bog into farmland. The walls of the cottages were built by stacking pieces of peat, and the roofs were made of grasses and turf. The people had to make everything they needed to live themselves.

The most important domestic animal was the sheep. It provided people with wool, some milk and meat. Buckwheat and honey were also important foods.

But often the spring was cold. Then the buckwheat was destroyed by frost, and the bees collected no honey. The following winter, people had to go hungry. They said: The moor brings “death to the first, hardship to the second, and bread to the third.”

The upper layers of the bog are light and loose. They are called white peat. The darker, heavier layers below form black peat. In the past, when peat was harvested, the top layer, white peat, was removed first.

The black peat beneath it was laboriously cut into long, rectangular pieces with a spade. These pieces were carted away and stacked elsewhere. They were turned over several times a year to dry.

Finally, the dried peat could be transported away on carts or peat boats. Peat cutters used special tools, including peat spades, a kreute (a carrying frame), a peat cart, wooden shoes or wooden clogs. Horses working in the bog were given wide wooden boards under their hooves so they would not sink.

Peat used to be an important fuel for heating. Until just a few decades ago, some schoolchildren in peatland areas had to bring pieces of peat to school in winter to keep the school stove burning.

Today, peat is no longer extracted by hand, but with bulldozers and excavators. White peat and black peat are used to make products that improve soil for gardening and landscaping.

Buckwheat used to be the most important crop in the peatland regions. Its grains were ground, and the flour was used, for example, to bake buckwheat pancakes. Buckwheat is undemanding and thrives in poor soil. The plants grow to about 30 to 80 centimeters tall. The flowers are white. However, the crop can be grown on the same plot for seven years in a row. Buckwheat used to be harvested with a short scythe. The grain was spread out on the threshing floor. Then the ears were beaten with flails so that the grains fell out. Once the straw had been removed, the grains were swept together. They were then cleaned and ground into flour.

“Red Franz” has been dead for about 1,700 years. His remains were found in November 1900 while peat was being cut in the Bourtanger Moor near Meppen.

The dead man was not clothed, so it is thought that “Red Franz” met a violent death. However, this is not known for certain. Times were brutal back then. For example, death sentences were carried out by sinking people into the bog. The bog water turned “Red Franz’s” hair reddish brown. Soft tissue and skin have been partly preserved on the head and torso of the adult man. He lived in the third or fourth century AD.

A chin beard, mustache, sideburns, head hair and pubic hair are also visible. He wore a small mustache on his upper lip. His chin and cheeks are thickly covered with strong, short stubble. The hair on the sides of the back of his head has been cut evenly short. The crown of his head seems to have been quite thinly haired. The hair at his forehead and temples is between 11 and 20 cm long. The scalp has shrunk and several teeth are missing.

Peat contains an acid that slows decay: humic acid. It preserved the bodies of people who died in the moor. Peat also preserved clothing and equipment very well. To date, more than 1,000 bog bodies have been discovered in the peat bogs of Northern Europe.

Many rare plants and animals live in the bog, including the carnivorous sundew. They are particularly well adapted to life in the bog. Here are a few examples: