Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen Haaren (2013)

In a kingdom, a boy is born in the village of Ammenried with a caul. The midwife prophesies wealth and happiness for the child to his parents, who are poor smallholders; one day, he might even marry the king’s daughter. News of the lucky child quickly spreads throughout the kingdom and eventually reaches King Ottokar. The king, who is occupied with research into alchemy, is obsessed with making gold. He plots to kill the lucky child. Under the pretext of wanting to provide for his upbringing and having finally found a playmate for Princess Isabell, he takes the child away from his parents. He sets the child adrift in a little basket on the river, hoping he will perish in the waterfalls. However, the blacksmith’s wife rescues him and names him Felix. The blacksmith and his wife, who had long wished in vain for a child, regard him as a sign from God and raise him. Felix grows up in the village of Sohlbach, charming the people with his violin playing and making them happy. By this time, King Ottokar is on his way to find an old alchemists’ book kept by the monks at Morbach Monastery. At an inn in a village, he meets Felix and his parents. From their account of Felix’s life, the king realizes that the child he once set adrift has survived. He now tries once again to have Felix killed using underhanded tricks. He sends Felix to the castle with a letter, saying he is to play there for the princess’s birthday. On the way to the castle, Felix gets lost in a forest, where he encounters rebels who want to kill the king because he is wasting the people’s money on his pointless research. That night, the rebels find on Felix the king’s letter ordering that the lucky child be murdered as soon as he arrives at the castle. They decide to outwit the king: they let Felix go and send him on his way with a forged letter. It says that Princess Isabell is to marry Felix, the bearer of the letter. Isabell—spoiled, haughty, and petulant—initially refuses, but the castle priest eventually performs the marriage ceremony. When King Ottokar returns, he realizes that he has been tricked. From his journey, he has brought back from the monks an old book dating from the first millennium. According to it, the three golden hairs of the devil are needed to make gold. Felix is to bring him these golden hairs; he must prove that he really is a lucky child. Princess Isabell, enchanted by Felix’s violin playing at night, begs her father to spare Felix the journey across the Jordan to the devil. When King Ottokar refuses, she renounces her father and follows Felix, disguised as a hunter. Isabell shares her provisions with him, and together they set off to find the devil. Along the way, Felix confesses to the hunter that he loves the princess—her walk, her neck, her eyes. They reach the town of Füllkrug. At the well, they meet a woman with a child. She tells them that the devil has struck her beautiful town: the well, which supplied wine and water, has dried up. She cannot show them the way to the devil, but sends them east. There is supposed to be a place there with a tree that bears golden apples. When they arrive, they discover that the tree has borne no fruit for years. An old man sends them to an ancient oak where six roads meet. There they must find the seventh road, which leads to the Jordan. Through a cleft in a tree, they enter the devil’s realm and reach the Jordan, the river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. There, the ferryman takes Felix across the river. The Falkensteiner Cave served as the entrance to Hell. Once in Hell, Felix meets the devil’s grandmother, who asks him to tell her the story of his life. She realizes that Felix has undertaken the journey to the devil out of love for the princess. Love, she muses, is the only force strong enough to stand against evil. She hides Felix when the devil arrives. He appears accompanied by Princess Isabell, who had tried to swim across the Jordan. Isabell manages to coax the devil into revealing his secrets. In Füllkrug, he has placed a toad at the bottom of the well, poisoning it; the residents need only climb down and remove the toad. The tree would bear golden fruit again if it were cut down. And the ferryman need only hand his pole to the next passenger to be free. When the devil briefly falls asleep, his grandmother helps them escape, realizing that Felix and Isabell truly love each other. As they flee, they meet King Ottokar at the Jordan; he has set off to find the devil himself. The ferryman puts the oar in his hand; from then on, King Ottokar is condemned to take over the ferryman’s job. The ferryman is free. On their way back, Felix and Isabell fulfill the promises they made to help the people in the east and in Füllkrug. In the end, Felix and Isabell let the devil’s three golden hairs fly away. The devil’s grandmother had plucked them from him herself and given them to the couple; letting them go is a sign that the devil has no place in their home. Burg Teck served as the exterior setting for the royal castle.