Princess Ilse

The spot was named after the River Ilse, which rises on the highest mountain in the Harz, the legendary Brocken, and flows through the romantic Ilse valley to Ilsenburg.

Prinzeß Ilse is also the title of a romantic play in five acts from the days of the old Celle dukedom, which appeared in 1926 near Ströher in Celle and had been published by Karl Dassel and Karl Tolle.

Prinzessin Ilse by contrast is the name of a fairy tale from the Harz by Marie Petersen, which first appeared in print in 1850.

In this story, Princess Ilse loses her way whilst riding to the chase with her father, King Ilsing, and comes at nightfall to the gates of the fairy world, ruled by the fairy queen.

The legend was further reflected in Heinrich Heine's Die Ilse.