Brocken
(ˈbrɒk(ə)n)
The name of the highest of the Harz Mountains in Saxony, reputed to be the scene of witches' Walpurgis-night revels. Applied attrib. to a magnified shadow of the spectator thrown on a bank of cloud in high mountains when the sun is low and often encircled by rainbow-like bands (first observed on the Brocken). Also applied to a dramatic representation of the Walpurgis-night revels, and transf.
| 1801 [see spectre n. 3]. 1844 E. B. Browning Poems II. 45 Waved backwards (as a wind might wave a Brocken mist, and with as brave Wild roaring). 1860 [see spirit n. 3]. 1888 G. B. Shaw How to become Mus. Critic (1960) 136 The Brocken business, which is musically and scenically childish. 1924 ― St. Joan Pref. p. xvii, Brocken spectres, echoes and the like. 1951 L. MacNeice tr. Goethe's Faust II. ii. 202, I could essay many a Brocken-stunt But heathendom seems barred on every front. 1962 Listener 11 Jan. 68/1 We may conceive the divine either as an abstract entity..or else as a Brocken-spectre projection of humanity. |