Wolfen C

Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

www.castlesandmanorhouses.com

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, “fort on the shelving slope”) is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland were hidden from Oliver Cromwell’s army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

Eltz Castle (Burg Eltz), Above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier, Germany.

www.castlesandmanorhouses.com

The Eltz family lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago, and still does. About 100 members of the owners’ families lived in the over 100 rooms of the castle. It is a Ganerbenburg, or castle belonging to a community of joint heirs. It is divided into several parts, which belong to different branches of a family. In the case of Eltz, the family comprised three branches and the existing castle comprises three separate complexes of buildings The Rübenach and Rodendorf families’ homes in the castle are now open to the public, while the Kempenich branch of the family uses the other third of the castle. The main part of the castle consists of the family portions with up to eight stories and with eight towers reaching heights of between 30 and 40 meters.

R: With love’s light wings did I o’er perch these walls; stony limits cannot keep love out...Thy kinsmen are no let to me.

J: If they do see thee they will murder thee.

R: There lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.  Let them find me here: My life were better ended...than death prorogued wanting of thy love.

J: Thou may’st prove false; at lover’s perjuries they say Jove laughs.