The Mouse Tower — Bishop Hatto and the mice

OVERVIEW

The Mäuseturm is a stone tower on a small island in the Rhine outside Bingen am Rhein. The Romans first built on the site; Hatto II, Archbishop of Mainz, restored the tower in 968.

HISTORY

In 1298 the tower became an official customs post; it was destroyed by a French army in 1689 and rebuilt in 1855 as a Prussian signal tower. The article suggests the name may come from the tolls ('Maut') demanded of passing ships — 'Mautturm' becoming 'Mäuseturm'.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

In the folk tale — 'popular but unsubstantiated', the article says — Hatto was a cruel ruler who, in the famine of 974, sold his hoarded grain at prices the poor could not pay. When they planned to rebel he promised them food, shut them in an empty barn and burned them alive, saying 'Hear the mice squeak!' An army of mice then besieged his castle; he fled by boat to his island tower, but they swam after him in thousands, ate through the doors and devoured him alive. The same story has been told of many cruel rulers (compare the Polish Popiel); Robert Southey made a poem of it, and Longfellow and The Swiss Family Robinson allude to it.

VISITING

The tower stands on its island in the Rhine opposite Bingen and below Burg Ehrenfels; it is seen from the river and the banks.