The Kyffhäuser is a mountain located at the border of Thuringia. The mountain has significance in German traditional myth as the resting place of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, a charismatic leader who died in 1191 while on a crusade.

According to legend, Barbarossa is not in fact dead, but sleeps in a hidden chamber underneath the Kyffhäuser mountain, sitting at a stone table. His beard has supposedly grown so long over the centuries that it grew through the table. As in the similar legend of King Arthur, Barbarossa supposedly awaits his country's hour of greatest need, when he will emerge once again from under the mountain.

The presence of ravens circling the Kyffhäuser summit is said to be a sign of Barbarossa's continuing presence.