Swirled In Mystery

by Iryna Goodall

Title

Swirled In Mystery

Artist

Iryna Goodall

Medium

Photograph

Description

Old wooden staircase inside Burg Frankenstein, or Frankenstein Castle, tower, in Darmstadt, Germany.

The word "frankenstein" means ‘the stone of the Franks’ – the name of the family who laid claim to the land.

The castle was probably built a little before 1252 (the year of the first historical record) and remained in the Frankenstein family for around 400 years.

No resident was more notorious than Johann Conrad Dippel. Born in the castle in 1673, he eventually became its official alchemist. Dippel dabbled in elixirs and experiments seeking the secret to immortality. Frequently experimenting with animal cadavers, he created “Dippel’s Oil” made of a distillation of horns, blood, leather and ivory. He claimed the black concoction was the “elixir of life” and could be used to cure everything from epilepsy to the common cold.

While there’s no evidence that he actually performed Frankenstein-like experiments on human cadavers, Dippel had a strong interest in anatomy and he wrote about his belief in the ability to transfer the soul from one corpse to another with the use of a funnel, hose and lubricant.

Dippel died of a stroke in 1734 (just one year after publishing a claim he would live to 135), but many speculate he was poisoned, a punishment for his unpopularity with the locals.

It is thought that this castle may have been an inspiration for Mary Shelley when she wrote her 1818 Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
Rumours persist that the Brothers Grimm shared Dippel’s dark history with Shelley’s stepmother, who was an English translator of fairy tales. Shelley herself was travelling through the Rhine region near the castle in 1814, four years before Frankenstein was published, but she never claimed the castle or Dippel as a direct inspiration.

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April 27th, 2021

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