Emma of Lesum - Legend of The Meadow

Legend of The Meadow

There is a well-known Bremen legend concerning her gift of meadow to the town in 1032. When a delegation of the townspeople approached her with a request for more meadowland, Emma promised them as much meadow as a man could run round in an hour. Her brother-in-law Bernard or Benno, duke of Saxony, with an appraising eye on his inheritance, suggested mockingly that she might as well give them as much land as a man could run round in a day. Emma agreed to this, but Bernard asked to choose the man who was to do the running, and when Emma agreed to that too, picked out a legless cripple past whom they had just walked. This man proved however to have extraordinary strength and endurance and by the end of the day had succeeded in making his way round a very substantial area, bigger even than the present Bremen town meadow.

This story has been current in various forms since at least the 18th century, although there is no documentary evidence for it, and gives a whole new possible meaning to the inclusion of the figure of the "cripple" at the feet of the statue of Bremen Roland.