Lindwurm Fountain

The Lindwurm Fountain (Lindwurmbrunnen) stands on Neuer Platz in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee and depicts the heraldic animal of the city. The Carinthian Estates commissioned the lindworm in 1583. It was carved from a single block of chlorite schist from the nearby Kreuzbergl; who made it is uncertain. According to legend, the area only became habitable after brave men slew a lindworm here.

The monument took decades to complete. The fountain was not added until 1624, and since then water has poured from the lindworm’s mouth. The wrought-iron railing in late Renaissance style followed in 1634, and the statue of Hercules wielding his club by Michael Hönel in 1636. In 1972 the fountain was moved a little to the west, to its present position, when an underground car park was built beneath the square.

The lindworm also has a place in the history of science. In 1840 the palaeontologist Franz Unger suggested that its head was modelled on a skull found near Klagenfurt in the 14th century, which came from a woolly rhinoceros. For this reason some regard the sculpture as the earliest reconstruction of an extinct animal, although a direct link has not been proven. The skull was given to the regional natural history museum in 1849.