Nele and Till Eulenspiegel – Asteroid 1547 Nele And Asteroid 55749 Eulenspiegel – Bruges, Belgium
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 51° 12.296 E 003° 13.052
31U E 515197 N 5672637
These cyclists and folk heroes form one of four groups of figurative sculptures surrounding a large fountain in the middle of 't Zand square.
Waymark Code: WMFDZV
Location: West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Date Posted: 10/04/2012
Views: 9
‘t Zand is the largest public square in Bruges. It is situated where the old railway station used to be. It is used as an open air market at weekends and as a venue as an open air concert site.
In the middle of the square is a large fountain with 4 separate sculptures by the husband and wife sculptors Stefaan De Puydt and Livia Canestraro.
This part of the sculpture shows a group of cyclists and the folk heroes Nele and Till Eulenspiegel. The cyclists represent Flemish culture. Like The Netherlands, Belgium has a long tradition of using cycle for local journeys rather than cars.
The two folk hero characters of Nele and Till Eulenspiegel originated from tales in Germany around the 1300s. However the tales spread and became popular in the low countries including Belgium.
Till Eulenspiegel is a jester or trickster character. His name can be translated as owl mirror. The owl represented wisdom, and the act of looking in the mirror revealed truth.
Till by playing tricks on people brought out their true characters as though they were looking into a mirror.
Till had managed to upset the Mayor of Boomstadt, so it seemed unlikely that he would marry the mayor’s daughter Nele. However afte Nele saved Till’s life love won through and they did indeed marry.
In the sculpture Till is sat on a column, whilst Nele is amongst the cyclists and is waving to him.
The asteroids
1547 Nele
This
asteroid is a main belt asteroid discovered by P. Bourgeois on February 12th 1929 at the Royal Observatory of Belgium at Uccle.
55749 Eulenspiegel
This
asteroid is a main belt asteroid discovered on January 15, 1991 by
Freimut. Borngen at the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory at Tautenburg in the former East Germany.
Freimut retired in 1995 but continued to work as a freelancer. Whilst he was working at the Observatory the GDR did not consider searching for asteroids prestigious enough and he had to do this work in his freetime. As of 2006 he had discovered a total of 519 asteroids. He gave his asteroids politically neutral names such as scientists and composers. After reunification with West Germany he chose systematically historical, cultural, scientific and geographical names, hence his choice of Eulenspiegel as a name.