Die Kreuzgruppe am Blenter Dreis

At the foot of the hill called "Blenter", where the Dreis Orchid Trail also begins, the hiker meets two dissimilar companions. From their exposed location, the two crosses have been looking down on the village in the valley together for almost a hundred years. The one on the right is a reworked grave cross in the typical style of the early 20th century. The plinth stone, however, is clearly older. The custom of converting grave crosses or gravestones in this way into crosses of supplication or thanksgiving was widespread at that time (see also Station 10). The glass plate originally set into the recess in the centre of the cross with the name and life data of the deceased was removed and instead the words were engraved: "TO THE HONOUR OF GOD IN A SPECIAL MIND". In gratitude for the safe return of his five sons from the First World War, Peter Mehrfeld (1859-1927) from Dreis donated this cross, thus fulfilling a vow. The neighbouring "Wolf's Cross", as it is popularly called, is in the style of the shaft crosses and was probably built in the middle of the 17th century. Along with the gallows cross and the remnant of the cross in the field chapel, it is the oldest field monument in the Dreis district. There is no inscription at all, only a coat of arms adorns the shaft of the cross. The hammer and chisel can be seen in it as the stonemason's trade mark. The name "Wolf's Cross" goes back to an old story. It tells of a blacksmith who, on a wager, made his way to Bergweiler in the evening despite the great danger of wolves and fell victim to the wolves at this spot. It is also possible that there is a connection with the wolf processions that are documented for several Eifel villages and which were intended to help control the wolf plague. It can be assumed that the wolf cross was made in the same workshop where the plague cross (Station 14) was made. This is indicated by the almost identical workmanship of the capital and corpus.