German legends: The thousand-year-old rose bush in Hildesheim

At the crypt chapel of Hildesheim Cathedral, the world-famous „thousand-year-old“ rose bush is still green and blossoming today. Despite its great age, it is only eight metres high, five centimetres thick and its branches spread over ten metres. An offshoot of this rose bush can be seen at Buchau on Lake Achen in Tyrol.
Legend has the following to say about this venerable Hildesheim plant:
When Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son and successor, was hunting one winter’s day in the region of Hildesheim, he lost his cross, which had been consecrated by the Pope and was dear to him above all things. He sent his servants to look for it and vowed to build a chapel in the place where they would find it. The servants followed the tracks of yesterday’s hunt on the snow and soon saw a patch of grass in the distance in the middle of the forest and a wild rose bush on it. As they approached it, the lost cross was hanging from it; they took it and told the emperor where they had found it. Immediately Louis ordered a chapel to be built on the site and the altar to be placed where the rose bush stood. This was done, and to this day the bush grows and blossoms and is tended by a man specially appointed for the purpose.

(Deutsche Sagen, gesammelt und bearbeitet von Gustav A. Ritter)

A variation of that legend tells us that,

In 815, Louis the Pious, son and successor of Emperor Charlemagne, is said to have forgotten a precious reliquary among the blossoms of a wild dog rose, which he had hung there to celebrate a mass. When he returned to retrieve the reliquary, it could no longer be removed from the rose bush. Louis the Pious saw in it a divine sign and had a chapel built on the spot in honour of the Mother of God. So much for the legend. In any case, the fact is that the history of the diocese began around 815.

(https://www.dom-hildesheim.de/de/tausendjaehriger-rosenstock-hildesheim)

But the best story about the thousand-year-old rose bush is a true, documented, and visible one:

During a bombing raid in March 1945 during the Second World War, the rose bush burnt and lay buried under rubble. It seemed like a miracle to the survivors of this catastrophe when the remains of the rose nevertheless developed new shoots. Eight weeks after the complete destruction of Hildesheim Cathedral, 25 new shoots sprouted from the buried roots.

(https://www.dom-hildesheim.de/de/tausendjaehriger-rosenstock-hildesheim)