Transcriber’s Note

• The cover and decorative images were created by the transcriber and are dedicated without reservation to the public domain.

TALES AND LEGENDS
OF THE
TYROL.

COLLECTED AND ARRANGED
BY

MADAME LA COMTESSE A. VON GÜNTHER.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1874.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.

DEDICATION.

To those who dare the unfrequented mountain paths and passes of the Tyrol, in search of all that is wonderful and grand, this work is respectfully dedicated by

THE AUTHORESS.

PREFACE.

The Tyrol, the land of glory and tradition, the wonder-garden of the world, so often visited but so little known, forms the theme of the following volume; and in dedicating it to the public the authoress feels certain of a fair share of their approval, perhaps, even, of their thanks; for many are the dangers which have been incurred in its production, and many are the days of weary walks and severe trials that it has cost.

There are no railroads in the mountains, and even cart-tracks are “few and far between,” and those who wish to see the almost hidden beauty, must, in passing through this enchanted land, undergo all the authoress has undergone, and share with her the pleasure as well as the pain.

All that is grand and beautiful, all that is gorgeous and sublime, all that is shocking and terrible, is to be met with at every step in the Tyrol; and the following legends are but a poor illustration of the old proverb, “There are finer fish in the sea than ever came out of it.”

The strange dialect of the inhabitants of this curious country, renders it almost impossible for any foreigner unacquainted with their language to understand what they would so willingly recount; and, in consequence, thousands and thousands of sight-seers yearly pass through, perfectly at a loss how to gratify their curiosity, except in the natural grandeur and beauty of the mountain world. The authoress has often noticed large parties of English and foreign visitors wandering aimlessly through a valley, round a ruin, or on the borders of a lake, whose history they have vainly tried to discover; for however willing the poor honest peasants are to explain all their visitors would wish to know, yet their kindly efforts are of course unavailing, and these foreigners go away back to their own countries, having passed over, and perhaps seen all, without knowing anything.

This little work, then, written first for the pleasure of its authoress, she now places in the hands of the public, trusting that it may not only be a useful guide, but a pleasant companion in the mountains in which it took its origin.

How lovely the land of those beauties unseen,
Which touch on the borders of Nature’s fair soul!
How bright are those landscapes, so soft and serene,
Which kiss the sweet homesteads of my own dear Tyrol!

Mary Countess A. von Günther.

INDEX

TALES AND LEGENDS
OF
THE TYROL.

THE GIANT JORDAN.

To the east of the Ungarkopf, and high above the cavern called Eggerskeller, there stands, close to a dizzy chasm in the rocks, the Kohlhütte (coal hut), which is surrounded by steep grey mountain walls. Not long since there resided in this hut a wild man, with his wife Fangga. Jordan, for this was the name of the giant, employed himself in stealing children and beasts which he devoured, and he occupied his time also in hunting the poor fairies, whom he caught and killed, or shut up in underground prisons.

One day he brought home a fairy, most probably one of those which resided in the Eggerskeller, and who was already more dead than alive. He threw her down at the feet of his wife, and was on the point of killing her, but Fangga said, “Let the thing live; it will be of use to me.”

“So,” growled the monster; “what can you do with her?”

“I should like to have her in the hut to make her work,” answered his gigantic wife.

“Take then the thing,” shouted the giant; “the white cat to the black one!” for the giant couple had in their hut a huge black cat which the giant had made a present to his wife in a similar manner after having caught it in the mountains.

The poor fairy now bore the yoke of servitude, under the giant couple, who called her Hitte Hatte. She was obliged to wear servant’s clothes and do servant’s drudgery, which she did so cleverly and quickly that Fangga was contented with her, and treated her as kindly as it was in her brutal nature to do. Hitte Hatte was kind to the cat, fed her regularly, let her sleep in her own bed, and got altogether fond of her. Although she had now taken entirely the nature of a human being, she constantly longed to be free of the giants, and one day she took the occasion while Jordan was out and Fangga sleeping, to slip down into the valley and to seek her fortune amongst mankind. The cat, as though she knew the intention of her friend, followed her every step of the way, and so it happened that one evening a pretty girl, followed by a huge black cat, entered the farm of Seehaus, which is close to the village of Strad, in the Gurgl valley, and offered her services. The farm people, whose name was Krapf, a very good and worthy couple, were not very well off just then, as they had suffered some heavy losses, and therefore at that time did not keep many servants. So they engaged the pretty girl for very small wages, without even asking her who she was or from whence she came. She did her work joyfully and well, and with her blessings entered Seehaus; it was a pleasure to see how beautifully Hitte Hatte, for this name she had kept up, managed and arranged everything. The cleverest old peasant woman would never have been able to do so well as she did. She went about her work quietly, spoke little, and never anything without purpose; was always modest and reserved, and the people of the farm left her to go on in her quiet way just as she liked. Her greatest pet was and remained the cat, which was also very useful in keeping the house and buildings clear of rats and mice. Hitte Hatte only knew one fear, and that was the giant, who on account of her flight had made a most fearful noise, and beaten his wife without mercy; but in the valley he could not touch her, for the village boundaries were every year blessed by the priest, and there were all round about little crosses and chapels, of which the gigantic race of pagans had the greatest terror.

While Hitte Hatte was still in Seehaus Farm, two boys of Strad had climbed up the Ungarkopf to gather strawberries, and approached by accident the giant’s abode. As the evening shadows began to fall the boys got tired and hungry, and were about to return home, when they saw blue smoke arising quite close to them, which ascended out of Jordan’s Kohlhütte, and one of the boys shouted to the other, “Look at the smoke! there, I am sure they are making cakes; let us go and see if we can’t get some.”

They soon arrived at the door of the hut, which was carefully closed, so one of them scrambled up on the roof, removed one of the wooden tiles and peeped down below. Fangga, who was busy at her kitchen, heard him in a moment, and called out, “Who is up there on my roof?”

The boy answered, “It is I with my good companion. We are hungry, and pray you kindly to give us something to eat.”

Fangga opened the door and called out, “Come in, my boys, and you shall have something, but be quick and creep into this hole (she pointed out the stove), and keep very quiet there, for the ‘wild man’ is coming very soon, and if he catches sight of you he will eat you bones and all.”

On hearing this the boys were terrified out of their wits, and crept into the stove, and directly afterwards the giant entered the hut, and sniffing round with hideous rolling eyes, he shouted to his wife, “I smell, I smell human meat!”

But Fangga, who had not been educated in an Innsbruck school, answered him very sharply, “You smell, you smell the devil!”

Then the giant gave such a tremendous snort that the whole hut trembled as though it had been shaken by the wind, and the boys terrified lest the stove should fall and kill them, jumped out of it. As Jordan caught sight of them his rage grew still more horrible; he overloaded Fangga with imprecations and abuse, shut the boys up in a cupboard and took the keys with him while he ran off to catch a lost goat of whose bell he just caught the sound. The poor boys now began to scream and implore, and at last Fangga, cruel and hard as she was, was touched with pity, and consented to release them. But as she had not the key of the cupboard, she kicked at the door till it flew open, let the boys out, and told them the best means of making their escape, and away they went as fast as ever their legs would carry them.

They had not gone long when the wild man returned home, but without his goat, which had also escaped him, so he vowed now to kill the boys; but as the cupboard was empty and he could nowhere find them, he thundered new imprecations at Fangga, who however took no notice of them. The savage monster then seized his boarskin mantle, and set off in pursuit of them. He arrived at last on the edge of a wild roaring mountain-torrent, on the other side of which he caught sight of them, and he called out in the sweetest and softest voice he could command, “Tell me, dear boys, how you got over the river!”

“Ho! wild man,” shouted the boys, “go up the river, and further on you will find the plank over which we crossed.”

Jordan now tore along the banks of the river for miles and miles, about as far as from Nassereit to Siegmundsberg, where he found a weak bending board upon which he stepped, and plump down went the monster into the wild foaming water, in which he had to struggle for a long time ere he succeeded in reaching the opposite bank. Meanwhile the boys had got far in advance; but the giant ran as fast as he could, and soon caught sight of them again on the other side of a large lake which he did not know how to get over, as he had no idea of swimming, and wade through he dared not, as he did not know how deep it might be, and there was no boat either large enough to carry him over. Therefore he shouted again to the boys in a flattering tone, “Dear boys, tell me how you got over the lake!”

The boys answered, “We have tied large stones round our necks, upon which we have swum across.”

So he took a heavy rock and tied it firmly round his neck, jumped into the water, and was immediately drowned. So the boys escaped, and people say Fangga did not die of grief over the loss of her savage husband.

A few days afterwards Lorenz Mayrhofer, a friend of the farmer of Seehaus, returning from the market of Imst where he had sold a team of oxen, and carrying the yokes on his shoulders, stopped at Krapf’s house on his way home, and over a glass of Tyrolian wine with which Hitte Hatte had herself served him, he said to his friend, “One sees most wonderful things in these times. After leaving the Döllinger Hof on my way here, a voice called out to me from the heights of the mountain, ‘Carrier of the yokes, tell Hitte Hatte that she can now go home, for Jordan is dead.’”

The farmer and his wife looked at one another and then at Hitte Hatte, who, hearing the news, set down the ladle which she was holding, and said, “If Jordan is dead, then I am happy again. Take great care of the hairy house-worm. I thank you much for your kindness to me, and wish you all luck with your farm. If you had asked me more I should have told you more,” and in saying so she passed out of the door, and has never again been seen.

The farmer, his wife, and friend were struck dumb with astonishment, and could not divine the girl’s meaning. Under the “hairy house-worm,” she had meant the cat. “What a pity it is,” still now say the peasants of Strad, “that the Seehaus farmer never asked more of the fairy, for if he had done so we should know more.”

THE FISHERMAN OF THE GRAUN-SEE.

In following the valley of Etsch, and after leaving the village of Haid, the traveller arrives first at the lake called Haider-See, and then in about an hour’s walking on the borders of the Graun-See, above which on the side of the mountain, lies, in a most picturesque situation, the little hamlet of Graun. There every garrulous old woman or little village child can tell him how often when evening sets in the fairies have been seen floating like flickering candles round the lofty peak above, or heard singing sweetly on calm moonlight nights before the entrance to their caves. This spot on the mountain bears to the present day the name of Zur Salig (to the holy ones).

On a beautiful autumn evening some forty years ago, a fisherman in his little barque was setting his nets in the See. The night was mild and beautiful, and the air so clear and pure that he could distinctly hear the sheep-bells on the surrounding mountains, and the Angelus as it rang from the hamlets of Reschen, Graun, Haid, even as far as the distant village of Burgeis; and the sound of the bells of the monastery of Sancta Maria, which lies above it, came wafting solemnly and softly over the water. The moon rose slowly in silent majesty above the surrounding mountains, lighting up every distant peak, and turning the lake into a bed of liquid silver, and as the distant song of the Holy Fräulein struck the ear of the poor fisherman, he abandoned his nets and listened entranced.

The moonlight faded slowly away, and the darkness of night set in, yet still he remained motionless in his boat, dreaming of the angel’s song he had heard from Heaven. Morning broke, and still he sat there with his hand on the rudder, and his eyes riveted on the abode of the Holy Ones. His comrades came and called him, but he did not answer; they went to him and found him dead. He lies buried in the little churchyard of Graun, and every villager can point out his grave.

THE GIANTS HEIMO AND THÜRSE.

Out of the Neustädter-Thor of Innsbruck leads the Brenner-Strasse, close by the beautiful and rich Abbey of the Premontaries Wilten, called also Wiltau. On each side of the principal façade of the magnificent church of this ancient cloister are still to be seen the enormous stone statues of two giants who bear the names of Heimo and Thürse. Both giants belong to that age in which their huge race first began to conform their rough nature to the ideas of civilization, when Christianity entered into the then impenetrable valleys of the Tyrol.

One of these enormous mountain giants of the country was called Heime or Heimo, who was so tall that he was obliged to raise the roof of his house so that he could stand upright in it, and of the most cruel and savage nature. The inhabitants of the surrounding country dreaded him beyond measure, and begged him to spare their farms and homesteads, offering to cede to him as much of their ground as he liked to decide upon, and then, should he ask it all, they would retreat and cultivate other parts of the country. In answer to this proposition, Heimo yelled, while pointing out an enormous rock, “As far as I run with that stone upon my shoulders so far is the ground my own.” And saying so, he seized the rock, walked up the little river Sill, turned on the left to the Patscherkofl, went down through Igels and round Wilten, and after having arrived again at the point from which he had started, he threw the stone with enormous force westward. Then he began to build himself at the outlet of the Sill valley, opposite the river Inn, an enormous stronghold, for which he carried up huge rocks from the mountain clefts.

At that time there lived in the same valley another giant who was still taller and stronger than Heimo, and he had his abode high over Zirl, behind the jagged, bare, and steep peak of Solstein, upon the plateau of Seefeld, which he was the first to cultivate, and where now stands the hamlet of Tyrschenbach. Thürse, this was the name of this giant, hated Heimo, and took pleasure in always secretly destroying his newly commenced building; and when Heimo discovered who caused him all this damage, his gigantic fury awaked in him, and he went to attack Thürse, clad in light armour, and carrying an enormous sword. Thürse hearing the approach of Heimo, seized a ponderous beam, and then commenced such a terrible fight that the earth trembled, and rocks as huge as a tower detached themselves from the Solstein, and rolled down into the valley below. Blows fell as thick as hail, and at last the better armed Heimo was victor, for the savage Thürse succumbed to his enemy.

Just at that period (it was about the middle of the ninth century) a monk was preaching Christianity in the valleys of the Sill, whom Heimo also went to hear, and he felt sorry and repented having slain Thürse. He became a Christian, and was baptized by the Bishop of Chur. Then after having built the existing bridge over the Inn, from which the city of Innsbruck has taken its name, he renounced worldly life, and instead of finishing his stronghold, he built a monastery which is the still standing Wiltau or Wildenau, commonly called Wilten.

This was a terrible disappointment to the devil, who sent a huge dragon, of which there were already at that time a great many in the Tyrol, to stop the building of the monastery; but Heimo attacked the dragon, killed him and cut out his tongue. With this huge tongue in his hand he is represented in his statue; and the tongue, which is a yard and a half long, has been preserved in the cloister up to the present day. Heimo became a monk at Wilten, lived a pious life, and on his death was buried in the grounds of the monastery. The stone coffin in which his gigantic bones repose is still to be seen there, and it measures twenty-eight feet three inches. Upon the coffin used to be his statue carved in wood, which has since decayed, but there is still hanging above it an ancient granite slab on which is recounted his history.

THE DRAGON OF ZIRL.

Close to the bridge of Zirl, on the route to Inzing, in the Tyrol, lies the famous Dragon Meadow. The men of Inzing and Zirl remember still very well that when they were boys, an enormous thick long worm was washed by the swollen river Wildbach out of a cavern which stood on its banks, and which was called Hundstall. In this cavern the monster had resided for centuries, and had done endless damage in the surrounding country to both man and beast; he was generally called the dragon, and he killed and devoured all living creatures that ventured in his neighbourhood.

Through the cavern in the summer time flows a little stream which in the winter is almost quite dry, and so it was too at that time; but still it was strong enough to sweep the monster out, for when in the spring the warm weather suddenly arrived, the little stream became, from the melting snow, a roaring torrent, which undermined the rocky cavern of the dragon in the Hundstall, and swept out huge pieces of rock together with the monster himself, inundated the meadow, and left everything together on the spot which has been called ever since the Dragon Meadow. Even now the breach made in the mountain by the torrent is to be seen.

The brute was a gigantic snake with the head of a dragon, two large ears, and hideous fierce fiery eyes. He was half dead when washed out of his hole, but in spite of that he was seen writhing his huge body about among the rocks. Nobody dare approach him, so they shot him from a distance with cannons. “He was a lindworm,” said the old mountaineer Mader of Zirl, who has hunted there for more than sixty years, and who has faithfully preserved this history. And as something to be especially remembered, he added, “the half-dead lindworm had gasped so fearfully that it had been terrifying to see and listen to him, even from a distance.” “One could not tell either,” he said, “whether he was not spitting venom,” for even now not an atom of green will grow on the meadow where he died.

THE WANDERING STONE.

In the Zillerthal, about half an hour’s walk from the little village of Fügen, in a small valley on the right-hand side of the entrance to the vast forest of Benkerwald, lies a piece of rock some two cubic feet in measure, bearing on its top side a rude cross chiselled in the stone. The rock is noted all over the country, for each time it is removed from its resting-place by some supernatural agency, it returns again to the same spot. Why it wanders in this strange manner nobody knows, but why it stands there is known to every little village child in the surrounding country.

At the end of the last century two peasant women of Fügen were engaged by the day in cutting corn at the adjacent farm of Wieseck, on the Pancraz mountain. The farmer, anxious to get in his corn while the fine weather lasted, promised to increase their wages if they hastened on with their work. At this promise both the girls redoubled their efforts, but at the end of the week instead of paying them alike, the farmer in augmentation of their wages gave to one of them two loaves of bread, while to the other he gave but one. On their way home close to Fügen, and on the spot where now lies the stone, the two women began to quarrel about the bread, and at last the dispute grew so hot that they fell to fight with their sickles, and, like tigresses, the sight of blood seemed only to increase their ferocity; and what seems to be incredible, but which is nevertheless perfectly true, they fought until they both fell down and bled to death on the spot. Here they were buried, and over them was placed the stone which still remains there, but none of the villagers will pass that way after nightfall.

There are numberless people who have convinced themselves of the wonderful property of the ‘Wandelstein,’ and many are the warnings given by the country folk to travellers who seek to pass there after the sun has set.

A TYROLIAN FORESTER’S LEGEND.

One day a poor woman of Lengenfeld, in the Oetz valley in the Tyrol, went up the mountains to meet her husband, who was guarding a flock of goats there. On her way she passed by a chapel into which she entered, and while she was praying a Lämmer vulture swooped down and carried off in his claws her little son, who was amusing himself outside on the moss. But Heaven ordained that the vulture should settle with his prey on a peak which was quite close to the goat-herd, who frightened him off with stones, and so, without knowing it, he became the preserver of his own child, whom he had not seen since the spring. Now it happened that three good fairies who resided in the neighbourhood of the Oetz-Thal, beneath an enormous mountain peak called the Morin, had been invisibly active in the saving of the goat-herd’s boy.

The boy grew up and always bore in his mind an attraction to the highest peaks of the mountains; he became a hardy Alpine climber and clever mountain shot, and as such a secret impulse ever pushed him to the heights above Morin, for there—so said the legend—was the Paradise of animals; there were herds of gazelles and stone-bucks, and no huntsman had ever succeeded in approaching them. But the fool-hardy boy wished to try his luck, and commenced his wanderings, which ended by his getting lost, and being in danger of his life. One day he didn’t know where he was, and from the ice-covered peak which reaches into the clouds over ten thousand feet high, he slipped down upon a green Alp which he had been unable to see from above, and in that fall he lost his senses.

As he came again to himself he was lying on a beautiful bed in the crystal cave of the three fairies, who had saved him for the second time. They stood round him shining with heavenly benevolence, and love, and their look awakened in him the sweetest sensations. He remained now a well-cared-for guest of the fairies, was allowed to look at their beautiful abode, their gardens, and their pets; he was told that his amiable hostesses were the protecting genii of all Alpine animals, and they made him promise never to kill or to hurt one of those innocent creatures,—no gazelle, no Alpine hare, no snow-hen, not even a weasel. He was allowed to remain with them three days, and had permission to worship and adore them. But then he was obliged to promise three things faithfully and on his soul’s salvation, if ever he wanted to return to them, or, in case he never cared to do so, if ever he wished to live happily down in the valley. Firstly, he was bound to observe a silence as deep as the grave that he had ever seen the three fairies or been in their presence; secondly, they made him swear the promise which he had already given, never to do any harm to any Alpine animal; and thirdly, never to let human eye see the way which they were going to show him, and through which he might be the more easily able to return to their abode. A fourth promise they left to his honour, without binding him down by oath or vow, and that was to preserve the love which he had shown to them, and never to have anything to do in any way with any other girl. Then, after a tender parting, the son of the Alps was taken into a steep mountain gully which led down to the valley of the rushing Achen, which tears along under bowers of Alpine rose-bushes. After these injunctions, the fairies told him that on every full-moon night he was allowed to pay them a visit of three days’ duration, and that he had only to enter through that gully, and give below a certain sign with which they acquainted him.

The boy returned home completely altered; it seemed as though he was dreaming, and soon enough from every one he gained the name of the ‘dreamer;’ for henceforth he never took an Alpine stock in his hand, never went hunting, and never to a village dance, but every full-moon night he stole quietly to the chasm in the rock, deep beneath the Morin, entered into the interior of the mountain, and was for three days happy with the fairies, to whose wondrous songs he listened entranced. At home his form shrank, he became pale and emaciated, and it was in vain that his parents and friends pressed him to tell what was the matter with him. “Nothing at all,” he always answered to these questions; “I am as happy as I can be.”

As his father and mother had become aware of his secret strolls on the full-moon nights, they followed him once quietly, and close at the entrance of the chasm his ear was struck by his mother’s voice, who called his name, and at the same moment the rocks shut together before his eyes, and the mountains crashed down with the noise of thunder, so that rocks fell down upon rocks. The poor boy’s happiness was gone for ever. Troubled and abstracted, he returned to his native village; he cared neither for his mother’s tears nor his father’s reproaches, and remained apathetic and indifferent to everything; and so he faded away until autumn arrived, until the herds were driven down into the winter stables of the village, and the beautiful summer life of the mountain world died and was covered with snow.

Then one day two friends of the goat-herd arrived, and talked of a hunting excursion which they intended to make on the top of the Morin; and then for the first time again the eyes of the pale young Alpine hunter became bright, the irresistible love of hunting awakened again in him,—perhaps, too, there was some greater attraction. He longed to penetrate once more into the dominion of the fairies be it even at the risk of his life. As to life, he no longer valued it, and death was a liberation.

The infatuated youth prepared his hunting things, borrowed an Alpine stock, for his own had been left behind broken in his fall from the peak of the Morin, and then he joined the hunting excursion which started in early morning. First he walked with them, then he hurried before higher and higher, as though he was attracted by the most irresistible power. His heart grew light as he ascended, for too long the heavy air of the narrow valley had oppressed him. He climbed as quickly as though he had eaten arsenic, that fearful poison which many an Alpine climber takes in the smallest quantities to make himself lighter, and at last he caught sight of a sentry gazelle, which whistled and disappeared behind the peak upon which it had been standing. The young Alpine hunter climbed to the top of the peak, from whence he saw down below him a little green spot, upon which were browsing, though far beyond his reach, a large herd of gazelles. Only one of them came within range, and this one he pursued pitilessly, until the poor animal in her anxiety and terror was unable to proceed further, and stopped on the edge of a precipice, which the huntsman in his excitement had never noticed. He levelled his rifle—the plaintive cry of a female voice resounded in his ears, but he paid no heed to it,—he took deadly aim and fired. Lo! at that moment he was surrounded by a halo of brightness, and in the midst of that brilliant light stood the gazelle unhurt, and before her floated the three fairies in dazzling splendour, but with severe and angry countenances. They approached him, but on seeing their faces without one smile or look of love upon them, the boy was seized with a deep horror. He staggered,—one step more, and backwards he fell down the precipice a thousand feet deep; and from the edge, where in falling his feet had stood, pieces of stone rolled down, and a tremendous wall of rock tore down after him with a fearful roar, and buried him for ever beneath its débris.

There still stands the rock, which is pointed out, even to this day as ‘The Huntsman’s Grave.’

THE PERJURER.

On the Kummersee, which is also called Hindersee, in the Tyrol, the parish of Schönna possesses two beautiful mountains which they had only hired in former times from the villagers of Passeir. But at last the inhabitants of Schönna affirmed that they were their own property, and therefore commenced a law-suit which was to be decided by oath. A man of Schönna committed perjury, which he thought to do safely in the following manner. He stuck in his hat a ladle called in the Tyrol schöpfer, which is also the German word for Creator, and put in his shoes some earth out of his own field. So he appeared on the Alp before the judges and swore: “As truly as I have the Schöpfer above me and my own earth beneath me, the two Alps belong to Schönna.” In consequence of that oath they were awarded to the villagers of Schönna by the judges.

But at the same moment the devil flew down the precipices, seized the perjurer by his neck, and dragged him straight off to hell, leaving behind him as he rushed through the air a dreadful smell of sulphur and a train of fire. With his prey he beat an enormous hole through the Weisse Wand, a huge mountain close to the Kummersee, which hole is still to be seen up to the present day as a warning. From thence he flew over the Christl Alp down to the village of St. Martin, where he rested himself upon a stone, and then dragged the body through the mud of the village streets, and as he passed, the devil is said to have grunted, “For there is nothing so weighty as a perjurer’s body.”

THE BURNING HAND.

In the village of Thaur, near Salzburg, there lived about two centuries ago a good priest, who occupied his time in doing charitable works to all around. In the ruins of the once huge and superb castle of Thaur a hermit had founded his humble little cell, and both priest and hermit were the most intimate of friends, and had vowed to each other that he who should die the first, should appear to the other after death.

The poor hermit was very clever in making artificial flowers for the altar, and one night when busy with his work a knock came to his little window, and he saw the spirit of his friend who had died a few days before. At first he was greatly terrified, but pricking up his courage, he addressed the poor soul of the priest, who replied to him and said,

“You see I am dead in the body, but I have still to do penance, although I have faithfully fulfilled the commands of God and the Holy Church, have given alms according to my means, have instituted a perpetual mass in the church of Thaur, and another in the chapel of St. Romedius, and founded an everlasting fund for the poor. For three sins have I this penance to perform, one of omission and two of vanity; out of absence of mind I forgot to say a mass for which I had been paid, and I have been too vain of my fine white hands and beautiful flowing beard, and for this reason am I now compelled to suffer these torments. I pray you therefore to say in my stead the neglected mass,” and the unhappy spirit of the priest recounted to the hermit the names of all those people for whom the mass was to be said, “Then, if out of charity to me you will fast, pray, and flagellate yourself, and help me in that way to do my penance, the time of my redemption will arrive much sooner, as if I had completed them all myself. It will also be a work of conciliation for me, if you will tell all I have just told you to my parishioners, so that they and my successors may take a warning from me, and think of me in their prayers.”

The hermit answered, “I will most willingly fulfil all you ask of me and take upon myself every penance you desire; but if I tell all these things to your parishioners they will never believe me, and will jeer at me and say like the brothers of Joseph, ‘Here comes the dreamer.’”

“Well, then, I will give you a sign of proof which will back up your words,” answered the poor spirit to the priest; “Give me something out.”

The hermit then handed out the cover of a flower-box, upon which the shadow laid his hand, and returned it instantly to him; and lo! to his astonishment he found, deeply branded upon it, the imprint of the hand of the priest as though it had been done by a red-hot iron.

After this the hermit zealously commenced the charitable work of redeeming the soul of his faithful friend, and continued it many a month in saying masses, repeating prayers, and subjecting himself to the most severe flagellations, whilst from time to time the troubled spirit of the poor priest appeared to him in bodily form, but always lighter and more brilliant than before. The pious hermit almost succumbed under the dreadful effects of his severe penances, which he still carried on for more than a year, when the night of All Saints arrived, and again the poor soul of his friend appeared before him, now no longer poor, but in the splendour of transfiguration, and said, “I thank you, good friend. I am now redeemed; you too shall soon be released from your earthly bondage, and will return to God penanceless. I shall attend you there where there are no more sufferings,” and in saying so he disappeared in the midst of a halo of glory.

Seven days afterwards the hermit died; and now in the charming little pilgrims’ chapel of the holy Romedius, near Thaur, is to be seen, framed beneath a glass case, the wooden board bearing the brand of the burning hand, and with the duly attested inscription dated from 1679; also the bust of the priest with the beautiful hands and flowing beard.

The imprint of the Burning Hand took place on the 27th October, 1659, at midnight.

THE THREE FAIRIES OF THE UNGARKOPF.

Between the village of Imst and the railway station of Nassereit lies the Gurgl Thal (Gurgl valley), through which runs the little stream of the Pilgerbach. On the way from Imst to Nassereit stands the little hamlet of Strad, and on making the ascent from this hamlet up the Ungar mountain, or Ungarkopf, one arrives after an hour’s walk at a vaulted grotto, which is the entrance to a vast cellular cavern noted in former times as the abode of three fairies, called by the villagers ‘die Heiligen’ (the Holy Ones). These fairies appeared from time to time at the entrance to their grotto, bleaching linen and hanging out snow-white clothes in the sun; they are said to have even come down as low as Strad, and helped the village girls to spin, but people were generally afraid of them, and they who saw the clothes hanging out in the wind ran off in terror. In this grotto, which is generally called the Eggerskeller, there is a small hole just large enough for a child to creep through.

One day the cowherd of Strad went up the mountain to cut birch for brooms, and as the lovely green before the grotto was just convenient for his work, he sat down there, and stripping the leaves from the branches, set about making his brooms. On the following day when he returned to the same spot on the same business, he found to his great astonishment that every little leaf had been swept away, and not a vestige of one of them left. He sat down on a rock and began his work, when all at once he heard from the interior of the mountain the voices of three girls, which sounded so charmingly to his ears that he was quite entranced. He listened and held his breath until the song finished, and then he descended the mountain to the village in a state of enchantment.

The cow-herd was soon afterwards on his favourite place, while his herd, guarded by his faithful dogs, browsed around him; and again he found the leaves he had left on the preceding day swept away; and as he looked up he saw three white robes floating in the wind, but as he could not see the cord upon which they ought to have been suspended, he was seized with an unutterable terror, and hurried away from the spot. “Had he only taken one of these dresses,” still now say the superstitious people of Strad, “one of the Heiligen would have been bound to his service for ever.”

Although the dresses had frightened the youth so much, an irresistible longing compelled him a few days afterwards to climb once more the Ungarkopf, where all at once one of the fairies appeared to him with love and joy beaming on her countenance, but she did not approach him, and it seemed rather as though she wished him to follow her, for she looked smilingly behind, entered into the mountain and disappeared from his gaze. He dared not follow her. Henceforth he listened only to their enchanting songs, which resounded from the interior of the mountain, and consumed himself in silent longing.

About fifteen years ago there lived in the village of Strad a peasant of the name of Anton Tangl, who is now dead. One day this peasant went up the mountain in the neighbourhood of the grotto, to dig up young fir-trees, which he intended to place round his Alpine hut. While digging up these trees, one of them was more firmly fixed in the ground than the others, and he was obliged to go very deep to get the tree up. When he lifted it out of the ground he discovered a deep hole, and looking down he saw far below a green meadow, through which trickled a milk-white rippling stream. At this the man was greatly astonished, but still more so when upon the green meadow far beneath him he saw on the grass, like little tiny dolls, the three fairies. They were sitting close to one another, interlaced together by their arms, and singing a sweet song whose air he could distinctly hear, without being able to catch the words. Tangl listened until nightfall, when he could no longer see into the interior of the mountain. Then he descended to the village, and recounted what an extraordinary thing had befallen him. But of course no one would believe, and therefore on the following day several of his friends went with him up the Ungarkopf. Tangl went on bravely before the others, and searched for the spot, but in vain; and he was now compelled to suffer the ridicule of his companions, who called him a fool, a liar, and a dreamer.

“If I had only held my tongue,” Tangl used to say when he recounted this story, “and had entered into the mountains instead of telling others what I had seen, I should have been able to bring many precious things out of them, and should have been rich and happy all my life; but man after all is but a stupid animal.”

THE GREEN HUNTSMAN.

In the village of St. Johann, in the lower part of the valley of the Inn in the Tyrol, the following incident took place some fifty years ago.

A girl who had been jilted by her lover refused to go to a wedding to which she had been invited by her neighbours, and where there was to be music and dancing. In her grief and despair she raged and noised about at home, until the evil one in the form of a green huntsman appeared before her, and invited her to the dance. Without reflecting any longer she went with him to the wedding-feast, glad that her unfaithful suitor should no longer enjoy his triumph. The huntsman danced so fast and so well that all the guests admired him, for he sang and was the most spirited among them all. But in spite of this, every one shuddered when they looked at him, for his mien was like that of a snake, sly and venomous. The girl, however, did not care at all about it, and enjoyed herself all the evening.

On their way home the huntsman asked the girl if she would allow him to serenade her on the following evening, to which she gave a most joyful assent. On the following night, just as the church clock was striking twelve, some one knocked at the girl’s bedroom window. She opened the lattice to greet the huntsman, who now appeared before her in the devil’s most hideous form. He seized upon her and dragged her fiercely through the narrow iron bars which guarded it, so that pieces of skin and flesh remained hanging on them, and the warm blood ran in streams down the wall. He then flew off with the screaming girl through the air.

Up to the present day it has been impossible to wash or rub those blood stains away, and any one who passes through the little village of St. Johann, can see them for himself.

THE TYROLIAN GIANTS OF ALBACH.

In a wild mountain valley in which only savage animals and reptiles were to be found, and in which vast expanses of moss covered the swamps so treacherously that even bears and wolves had been engulfed in them, a huge giant arrived one day, looked at the surrounding country, and chose it for his abode. He dug himself a cave, built drains through which he sent off the superfluous water into the lower valleys; and as, after having chopped down enormous expanses of forest, he found that it had become quite to his taste, he set off in search of a wife. He neither wished for a fairy nor a moonlight maid, and for that reason he went upon the peaks of the mountains, from which he soon returned with a giantess who was as strong and savage as himself, and who assisted him dauntlessly in all his abominable works.

In three years they were obliged to considerably enlarge their habitation, as their three young giant sons began to grow up; and when these became strong enough, they helped their father to build a new house. The old giant felled the trees on the Alp Mareit, which stands about six miles from his former abode, and his sons dragged the trunks to the building-spot. They were not then very strong, and could only drag one tree each at a time, which, however, was no less than eight feet in diameter. Only the youngest of the giant’s sons, whose name was Bartl, sometimes dragged two at once, at which his father smiled with contentment.

To make his new residence like that of a civilized family, the giant caught a few “flies,” as he called them, which were men and clever carpenters, who were compelled to hew and shape the wood, in which work the giant’s sons helped in turning the trees, as it would have been impossible for the carpenters to do it themselves.

People call the swamp which the giant has drained the Rossmoos, and to the giants they gave the name of the Rossmooser Riesen (Rossmoos giants), while the new house received that of the Rossmooser Hof (Rossmoos farm), which still stands upon the peak of Albach opposite Stolzenberg.

After the building had been finished a few years, the old giant father felt the approach of age in the gradual loss of his strength; therefore he began to think of making over his property to one of his sons. But he did not know to which of them to give it, as all three were equally dear to him, and at that time the laws of birthright were not yet introduced into the giant-race, no more than the institution which exists in other places, and according to which the youngest son receives the house, and pays to his other brothers their share in ready money. Therefore in his perplexity he talked it over with his wife, who advised him thus, “Give it to the strongest of them, and then you have done.”

This idea pleased the giant very much, and that day at dinner he said to his sons, “Boys, I am old, and one of you shall have the house; but each of you is as dear to me as the other, and so I think you must decide it by throwing a stone, and the one who proves himself the strongest shall have the house.”

This proposition was very acceptable to the giant’s sons; and after the dinner was finished, the old fellow took a stone of 650 pounds into which was fastened an iron ring weighing 50 pounds, and carried it fifteen paces from the Hof, which fifteen paces made just one mile, as the giant with one step covered as much ground as would take a human being five minutes to walk. Now they proceeded to the trial according to the ancient rules of throwing stones, as it was invented centuries ago by the giants themselves. He who had to throw stood with the left leg firmly planted on the ground, while with the right foot, which was passed through the iron ring of the stone, he swung it against the mark, which in this case was the giant’s Hof, and the stone was to alight on the other side of the house.

The eldest son commenced; he took up the stone and flung it, but it didn’t even reach the mark, and fell far short into a fence, which it smashed to pieces. The second son then fetched the stone and tried his chance with more success, for he touched the house and knocked in the front wall.

“You stupid asses!” shouted the old man, “is that the best you can do?”

Now came the turn of the youngest, who did even better; for he threw the stone so vigorously and high that it fell on the top of the roof, through which it crashed like a bomb-shell and destroyed everything in the house.

“Oh, my Bartl!” sneered the angry old giant, “you are a clever fellow. You have gained the house, but now you will be obliged to repair it.” And then he began to rave, “You sacrischen Sauschwänz, that you are. Now look at me, poor weak old thing, how I will beat you. Run, dear wife, and bring me back the stone.”

His wife ran and brought him the stone on the little finger of her left hand, which just passed through the ring, and the old giant set himself in attitude according to the rules of the game. He hurled the stone with such tremendous force that it fell far on the other side of the Rossmooser Hof; and seeing this the three young giants slunk off quite ashamed of themselves. The old giant sighed as he said, “There is really no strength left among the young folk. At one time one had no cause to be ashamed of himself. I remember still how I carried a stone weighing a hundred centner (10,000 pounds) from the Kolbenthalmelch place to the Kolbenthal saw-mill, where it is still lying; you can go and look at it there, you Fratz’n.”

At the same time as these giants were living at the Rossmooser Hof, there resided a couple of other giants upon the Dornerberg in the Zillerthal, who always cast angry looks at young Bartl, and challenged him very often to fight. Bartl avoided them as much as he could, and showed no inclination to measure his strength with them, for he had not a quarrelsome nature. One day the giants of Dornerberg met the Rossmooser Riesen with Bartl, at whom they sneered, and mockingly challenged him again to fight with them, but as Bartl was undecided and would not answer, the old giant became angry with his son and said, “You are then no bub (boy) at all, that you suffer all this.”

“Should I fight them?” asked Bartl, and as his father nodded his head he added, “But, father, it’s not worth my while to fight one alone, so I shall fight them both at once.”

The fight then began, and Bartl instantly seized upon the two Dornerberg giants by the collar, held them up, beating the air with their hands and feet, until their eyes streamed with water; he then dashed them on the ground where they lay stunned, and it was only with the greatest trouble that they were restored to life. When they came to their senses, they stole away from the scene of the fight quite ashamed of themselves, and made up their minds never again to have anything to do with Bartl, whose fame, after this tremendous victory, spread far and near through the country; for the Dornerberg giants were in no way weak, since each of them carried seven to eight centners (600 to 700 pounds) from Zell, in the Zillerthal, up the Dornerberg, where they lived in a deep cavern. With this huge weight they sprang lightly from stone to stone in the river which runs through the valley, and even stooped down and caught the trout in their hands as they passed over.

THE WITCH’S VENGEANCE.

At Sterz, about an hour’s walk from Brixen, on the line from Innsbruck to Verona, close beneath the mountain called Rodeneck, there lived some fifty years ago in a fine farm-house a well-to-do young couple with one child. In all the villages round about an old beggar woman was much dreaded as a witch, and this woman came very often to the farm begging. The good people of the farm used to give her directly all she desired, just to rid themselves of her importunities. But one day the farm-labourers made up their minds to discover whether the old hag was really a witch or not, and after she had entered the room, they set a broom on end before the door. It was on a Saturday evening. When a broom is put upside down before a door—such is the superstition of the people—the witch cannot get out again.

When the hag therefore tried to get out, she saw the trick, and remained in the room until late at night. At last she said angrily to the peasant’s wife, “Sweep out the room; it is Saturday evening, and how comes it that you leave the room so long unswept?”

This she repeated many times, but always to no purpose, for the peasant’s wife knew about the trick; but when she saw that the hag was becoming tremendously angry and fierce, she was dreadfully frightened, and ordered the servant to take the broom and sweep out the room. Directly the servant took up the broom and removed it from the door, the hag darted out full of venom, hatred, and spite, and the most revengeful determinations.

And what a vengeance this was! She dried the cows, brought down storms and destroyed the crops, made their child hopelessly ill so that it died; the poor farmer went into a decline through grief, and his wife was misled over the Rodeneck by the diabolical creature, and broke both her arms and legs.

So cruel is the vengeance of a witch.

THE PIOUS HERDSMAN.

About three miles above Uderns, in the valley of the Ziller, lies the Asten or Voralp, also called the Stuben, upon which a poor spirit used to wander, seeking its redemption.

The proprietor of the Asten was unable to find any one who would undertake to guard his cattle on the mountain, for every one was afraid of the ghost. At last, a poor brave boy offered himself for this purpose, and was of course gladly accepted.

One day as he was driving his cows upon the mountain, he saw a tall dark figure wandering about a few steps from the door of his little hut, which is called in the Tyrolian dialect the schlamm. The boy instantly spoke to the apparition, and asked whether he could not do anything to release him from his pain, to which the ghost answered, yes, he could, if during a whole year, without omitting one single day, he would devoutly repeat a rosary, and promise during that time never to swear or do a bad action, and always to say the rosary at the same hour every day.

The honest son of the Alps conscientiously fulfilled his duty for a very long time, until one day in the summer a pretty little village girl came up the mountain and begged the cowherd to stand godfather to her sister’s child, for they were very poor, and knew no one who would be likely to accept the office but him. The good herd promised directly that he would; and when the day of the baptism arrived, he well fed his cows and then set off down the mountain to Uderns. After the ceremony was over, he had intended to return immediately up the Asten, as it is the custom in the Tyrol to feed the cattle four times a day. But the mother of the child implored him to remain a little longer with them, and so one thing and another prevented him from starting so soon as he had wished. It happened therefore that he remained in the village until evening had set in, for they insisted on serving him with good liqueurs, which to the poor cowherd were a great treat, as it is very seldom one of his position has the chance of tasting such a thing. At last he set off on his return, and as he climbed the mountain he remembered that he had forgotten the hour of his prayers, and was so grieved at this omission, that he cried bitterly, and repeated aloud the neglected rosary as he went along. Then the idea struck him that he would also offer up his baptismal work for the benefit of the poor spirit.

When he arrived at his hut he proceeded immediately to the stables, thinking to himself, “how hungry the poor cattle must be,” but great was his astonishment when he saw that the best food had been placed before them, and that everything was in the most perfect order; but far greater was his surprise when after he had retired to rest, the poor spirit appeared before him, clad in snow-white garments, and told him that he was now redeemed, and that which had been principally instrumental in his redemption, was the offering which the good cowherd had made of the baptism of the child. After this the spirit disappeared, and has never been seen again. Since this fact became known, it has been, and still is the custom in all parts of the Tyrol for godfathers and godmothers to make an offering of the baptismal rite on behalf of the poor souls in purgatory.

THE ADASBUB.

About sixty years ago there lived at Lengenfeld, in the valley of the Oetz, a man of enormous height, called generally “the Adasbub,” who was a perfect monster, besides being a thief, glutton, sot, and fighter. He had been among the soldiery, and fought in many wars, from which he had returned still more savage and wild than ever; he had brought home large sums of money from foreign countries, which he had stolen and extorted from people, and now he bought a farm of his own, which he began to manage, though more like a pagan than a Christian. He never went to church, but was always to be seen in the village inn, where he boasted the first in Lengenfeld about his velvet jacket decorated with buttons made out of old pieces of silver money. The young fellows of the village soon became ashamed of their clothes, and wished to imitate the vain ideas of their paragon.[1] The Adasbub was besides of enormous bodily strength, and had already at once defeated fifty men, who had attacked him; and he who offended him had to fear lest this dreaded man might go, as if by accident, and turn a mountain torrent upon his farm, or roll down huge snowballs, with most likely rocks hidden in them, upon his roof.

His whole pleasure and only occupation was to swear, drink, bluster, and injure his neighbours; he surrounded himself with a gang of fellows who suited his tastes, and was their leader in carrying out the most fearful outrages. They tore the doors of the peaceful inhabitants from their hinges, and carried them away into the forests; hoisted the farmers’ carts upon the roofs of their houses; stole the wine from the sacristies, which they drank to the perdition of the priests; shut up goats in the little field chapels, and pulled down the crosses in the cemetery, which they stuck upside down in the ground over the graves, and boasted in their wickedness that they were making Christendom stand upon its head.

A newly-concocted villainy was to be carried out in a farm, which stands upon the Burgstein, above Lengenfeld, and it had reference to the farmer’s daughter; but the farmer came to hear of it, and determined to defend his home against the outrages of these cowardly villains. So he sharpened his axe, and as the Adasbub entered the house, he brought it down with tremendous fury upon the head of the monster of iniquity, who fell dead at his feet with a split skull. On seeing their leader receive this unlooked-for welcome, his companions took refuge in flight, and there was an instant alarm throughout the country. People from all parts swarmed up the Burgstein, and thanked the farmer for having delivered the country from such a wretch.

They cut off the head of the Adasbub, and dragged the body to the edge of a precipice, from which they pitched it down on to the road, which passes by a now much frequented sulphur bath, called the Rumunschlung. The head was thrown into the charnel-house of the cemetery of Lengenfeld, where it still lies, a terror and warning to all wicked men. The skull is nearly cloven in two, and from time to time, at certain midnights, it gets red hot all over, and is then horrible to look at. Many people say that when it is burning, it rolls from the charnel-house into the chapel, in which it turns round and round in a circle, and then jumps again back to its place, where it slowly cools, and next day it looks again just like any other skull.

THE WHITE SNAKE.

Close to Mitterwald, on the little river Eisach, rises on the right-hand side of the village the enormous mountain called the Mitterwalder Alp, upon which, on account of the great number of venomous snakes which were there, no cattle could be pastured. The majority of these were huge white reptiles, of which the people were particularly fearful. About fifty years ago there arrived in the country one of those students, or as they called them, “Fahrende Schüler” (wandering collegians), to whom people used to attribute supernatural power, and the peasants asked him to rid them of the plague of snakes.

The student promptly assented to their request, and went up the mountain, where he made a circle upon the Alp-meadow, and ordered the peasants to plant a tree in the middle of the ring; then he climbed the tree, and by his incantations he charmed all the snakes into the large fire which he had lighted around it. But all at once a huge snake hissed loudly and fiercely, and on hearing this the student cried out, “I am lost;” and at the same moment a white snake darted with the swiftness of an arrow through his body, and he fell dead from the tree, and was consumed in the fire.

Those who recounted this tale added, “It was a hazel-worm, for only those snakes have the power to dart through the air like an arrow and pierce through people’s bodies.” On the spot where this accident took place, and where the student made the fiery circle, there has never since an atom of grass grown again.

It is asserted the blindworms had once the same power, until it was taken away from them by the Blessed Virgin, who has caused them ever afterwards to remain sightless.

THE SCHACHTGEIST.

About an hour’s walk from Reit, on the left-hand side of the entrance to the valley of the Alpbach, is situated a farm which bears the name of Larcha, and close to this farm is a deep mine in the side of the mountain, which at the time of this legend was being worked, and it was called the Silber Stollen (silver mine) of the Illn. Nine miners were employed in working the mine, and in it resided a Schachtgeist (mine ghost), who showed to the poor honest miners the richest lodes of silver. Their luck was extraordinary, and huge bars of the precious ore were carried every day out of the mine; and as the men worked on their own account, they soon became enormously rich, and for this reason they became also very dissolute and profligate. They were no longer content with their simple miners’ attire, but bought fine clothes; they would no longer wear their grey blouses, but they would have velvet and rich cloth, and their wives went about dressed up in the most gorgeous colours.

The proverbially simple Alpböcker Tracht (costume of the Alpböck) was entirely set on one side by them, and a new fashion introduced; besides that, all sorts of iniquities were practised by them, which it would be impossible to describe.

This made the benevolent Schachtgeist intensely angry; he became fierce and savage, and when he appeared at the entrance of the mine his mien foreboded anything but good. Meanwhile the miners went on more badly than ever, and got so extravagant in their notions, that they even cleaned their tables and chairs with bread-crumbs. One day the farmer of Larcha was standing taking the fresh air at his door; the clouds foreboded a thunderstorm, and the air was dark and heavy. He had been working with his men down in the cellar, from which they could distinctly hear the noise of the miners’ hammers, as they shouted and sung over their work. All at once the Schachtgeist passed by the door of the farm, and called out to the farmer in a terrible voice, “Shut your doors, and misfortune shall escape you; I am away to the Illn to silence the miners.” The terror-stricken farmer crossed himself, and on his knees implored Divine protection, while the ghost tore up the mountain, and then he shut his doors and returned to his work. Not long after, the farmer and his men heard fearful shrieks, which were immediately followed by a crash like thunder, which shook the earth, and made the cellar in which they were working tremble. They rushed up into the farmer’s room, and began to repeat the rosary, and as the noise abated they went to bed.

On the following morning the news of a terrible calamity spread far over mountain and valley. The miners had been buried in the mine by an earthquake, and their shrieking wives rushed wildly about, rolling in the dust, and, in their agony and despair, they nearly tore off the feet of the crucifix which stands just above the farm on a cross-road. But still more horrible was it when it was discovered that the buried miners were alive in their prison, and screaming for help in the depths of the mountain. For ten long days the terrible scene lasted; when at last, after having worked night and day, the villagers succeeded in entering the passage in which the miners were entombed; but there a horrible spectacle presented itself to their eyes. Over the dead bodies of the nine miners was sitting the Schachtgeist, covered with blood, and terrible to look at, with the visage of the devil, and glowering at the victims of his just wrath and judgment. The miners had been starved to death, and were holding the leather of their shoes in their teeth, after having gnawed their fingers to the bones.

Every one who wanders over the mountain, and passes by the farm of Larcha, can hear this dreadfully true legend, up to the present day, from the farmer, who is the son of the man who was witness of the fact. And if after the evening Angelus has rung, by any chance a door in the farm remains open, the housewife directly calls out, “Shut the door, so that misfortune may escape us.”

THE THREE BROTHERS.

At Reut, a village between Unken and Lofer, lived a peasant who had three sons. The two eldest of these were hardy gazelle hunters, and feared God as little as they did the dangers of the mountains; but the youngest was better, and different from his brothers; he took interest in the farm, though now and then he was induced by them to accompany them to the chase. So it happened once that he went with them to the high mountains, and on a Sunday they were already standing high on the peaks when the day dawned, and at that moment they heard the Angelus ringing from the village of Unken. The younger huntsman implored his brothers to return, so that they might be in time for church; but as they would not go, he did not go either.

As they mounted higher and higher they heard the mass bells ringing at Unken; the youngest brother said, “Let us go back.” But the others jeered at him and said, “The whistle of a gazelle is more to our taste than the mass bells and sermon.” When the enthusiastic huntsmen had arrived on the very top of the mountain, the bells rang again, and the youngest brother said, “Listen, there is the elevation, we ought to have been there.”

But his brothers sneered at him, and replied, “A fat gemsbock here is much more to our mind than the body of the Lord in the village church below.” These words were scarcely out of their mouths, when clouds as black as ink enveloped the mountains, and everything became dark as night; then came on a thunderstorm, as though the world was at its end. After the storm was over the three brothers were found on the peak of the mountain, turned into stones in the form of gigantic rocks, and there they still stand, known to every little Tyrolian child under the name of “the Three Brothers.”

THE FIERY BODY.

Round about the village of St. Martin, in the Passeierthal, the parish comprises a great many single-lying farmsteads, which are dispersed about to the north in every direction for seven or eight miles towards the parish of Platt. In one of these farms a man was lying very ill, because on a Sunday, instead of going to church, he had hunted in the neighbouring forest, and had slightly wounded his foot with the iron heel of his other boot. It seemed as though the wound was poisoned, for it grew continually worse and worse, and at last threw the man into a deadly fever. The neighbours implored him to give up his evil ways, for he was a wicked fellow, and took delight in mocking at religion, and always, above every other, chose a Sunday or fête day for his hunting excursions.

But, wishing to appear an esprit fort, he answered that he preferred to arrange his own affairs with the Creator without their interference. In spite of all this, a good priest tried to persuade him out of his evil ways; but the wicked man replied to his exhortations by throwing a plate at him, out of which he had just been eating his milk soup. He remained obstinate and hardened, “determined,” as he called it, to the last.

One day, when he was dying, the people of the house ran down to the priest, and implored him to come and save the unhappy sinner if it was still possible. The good priest, accompanied by his sacristan, hastened directly up the mountain, carrying the Holy Sacrament with them. As they arrived close to the farm, they were met by a fiery red body rushing through the air, spitting flames as it flew. It aimed directly at the priest, and was the body of the unbelieving Sabbath-breaker, who had died without repentance. The sacristan fell to the earth terror-stricken; but the priest said, “Fear not, Christ is with us,” and as he spoke these words the fiery body rushed by, leaving them unhurt, and hurled itself down the fearful precipice of the Matatz valley.

THE VENEDIGER-MANNDL UPON THE SONNWENDJOCH.

Not many years ago a little man of Venice, Venediger-Manndl, as he was called, clad in dark clothes, arrived in the Tyrol to gather gold bars, gold sand, and gold dust, out of the streams of the mountains; he was always seen in the small valleys, and especially on the Sonnwendjoch; he arrived in the spring, and went away again in the autumn. He was a good-hearted quiet little fellow, and on his way home he always passed the night in the hut of the herd who lived upon the adjacent Kothalp, near the Sonnwendjoch, which belongs now to Praxmarer, the innkeeper of Reit. Now it happened that the honest old herd of the Kothalp died, and his hut was taken by a wicked old man. The Venediger-Manndl entered as usual into the hut to pass the night, but the new herd, pushed on by the devil of avarice, made up his mind to kill him in the night, and to appropriate all his wealth. But the little herd-boy warned the gold-finder in time to enable him to save himself. Since then he has never been seen again.

The little herd-boy grew up, and became later on a servant at Isarwinkl, in Bavaria, where he afterwards became a soldier, and marched with the army into Italy. His regiment was stationed at Venice, and a few days after his arrival in the city he walked, full of curiosity, slowly along the beautiful palaces which stand on the canal, when all at once he heard his own name called from a window on the first story of one of them, and a person beckoned him to come up. He ran quickly up the wide marble stairs, and was received on the top by a noble Venetian, richly dressed in black velvet, who conducted him into a splendid apartment, and told him to take a place upon a sofa; then sitting down at his side, he said, “Years ago you saved the life of a Venetian upon the Kothalp, and now you are going to be rewarded; so let me know your wish, and all you want you shall have.”

“Let that be, kind sir,” answered the soldier; “I did but my duty, Heaven will recompense me if I have deserved it.”

This answer seemed to please the Venetian, who took the young man by the hand while saying, “That shows me that you are a real Tyrolian.” Then he entered into a little side-room, and soon afterwards returned in the dress in which he had appeared as Venediger-Manndl on the Kothalp. The soldier instantly recognized him, and was rejoiced at meeting him. Now the Venetian repeated his offer of gold and riches, but the soldier once more declined, and answered, “Health and contentment are my riches, and that God will grant me as long as he sees it fit to do so; though I have one wish, after all, which is to be free of my service in the army, so that I could go back to Isarwinkl, where I have my love, a girl like milk and blood.”

The Venetian had scarcely heard this wish, when he took directly a large white cloth, in which a mantle was wrapped; he took out the mantle, put it over the shoulders of the soldier, and then covered it with the white cloth. All at once the soldier felt himself rising in the air. “Greet your love from me” were the only words he could catch from the Venetian; for like an arrow he was borne away through the high and grated bow-windows which are used at Venice, the white cloth enveloping him like a soft cloud, carried him along swiftly and gently, and set him down before the house of his love. In the pocket of the mantle he found a rich bridal gift.

Happiness never deserted the young fellow; he became very soon a happy husband, and bought himself out of the army, and since then he has often recounted this adventure.

HAHNENKIKERLE.

In the hotel of the ‘Golden Star,’ at Innsbruck, there once arrived a very rich foreign Princess, who was suffering from a terrible disorder, which had baffled the efforts of every doctor to cure. Dr. Theophrast, of whom the Princess had heard, and whom she had come to Innsbruck to consult, declared that it was a malady over which he had no control, although he was a “Wonder Doctor.” This was a great loss to the Doctor, and a terrible shock to the Princess, who had travelled so far in hopes of a cure.

One day when she was lying inconsolable in her bed, a little tiny man came into the room, who offered his services and gave her a potion, which he told her would restore her to health. But the little fellow added that on that day year he should return, and if she had forgotten his name, which was “Hahnenkikerle,” she must promise to marry him, and to live with him under the Höttinger Klamm. The Princess gladly accepted this proposition, and she awoke on the following morning as fresh and healthy as a May rose.

She remained in Innsbruck, where she gave feast after feast, and in this way the year soon passed by. All at once she remembered her promise to the little dwarf, whose name had escaped her, and every effort to recall it was in vain. She asked many people, but no one could tell her; she confided her anxiety to her friends, but, of course, they could neither help her nor give her any advice. Only a poor servant girl, who came to hear of it, determined to try and help the good Princess. So she went into the Klamm, hoping to hear something certain there; she listened, and crept about all over, and at last she heard in the depth of the Klamm a joyous shouting, and down below she saw the dwarf jumping and singing, “Hurrah! the Princess in the ‘Star’ doesn’t know that my name is Hahnenkikerle.” The girl hurried home as fast as she could, and told the Princess all she had heard. Now the Princess remembered the name, and when the day came and the dwarf appeared, she called out to him, “Hahnenkikerle;” at hearing this the dwarf rushed away raging into the mountain.

The girl was rewarded by the Princess; and when she married an honest burgher of Innsbruck, she received a princely dower.

THE SORCERER OF SISTRANS.

In Sistrans, a village close to Innsbruck, there lived, some sixty years ago, a man who was noted in all the surrounding districts for his evil and quarrelsome disposition. He attended every Kermesse and village meeting at which it was the custom of the blackguards of the surrounding country to go and fight, but he never found one who could master him.

This superhuman strength was not his only distinguishing quality, for he was well up in other more doubtful arts, and was able to do rather more than “boil pears without wetting the stalk.” Should a fine fox or a fat hare be running in the forest close by, he set his traps just behind his stove, and in the morning the game was sure to be caught. Should anything have been stolen, people came to him, for he had means of compelling the stolen goods to be restored. For this purpose, he merely took a little book bound in pigskin out of his box, and began to read; and wherever the thief might be, he was forced by some irresistible power to take the stolen goods upon his back and bring them before the sorcerer, by whom the proprietor must always be present. This little book had such a power that, at each word read by the sorcerer from it, the thief was obliged to make a step; and three times woe to him who had stolen something which was heavy, or was obliged to bring his burden from a long distance, or over steep mountains, while the man was reading; from far off his pantings could be heard, and he was drenched in perspiration when he arrived at the spot.

One day the sorcerer made himself a footstool of nine different sorts of wood, upon which he knelt down close to the organ in the church, and looked down upon the people, and there saw all the old hags and witches as they stood at the lower end of the church. After the service was over, these old hags set upon him in herds, and would have torn him to pieces had not the priest come in time to his rescue, for the hags now discovered that he had found them out.

This man had once on Christmas Eve stolen the consecrated Host, while the priest held it up after the consecration, and carried it with him, wrapped in a little piece of cloth always hidden on his left arm. From this proceeded all his unsurpassable tricks and indomitable strength. But at last came the “Scythesman Death,” who cast him down upon the bed of sickness, and, in spite of all his strength and cleverness, he was bound to die; but that was a very hard thing for him. Three long days and nights the quarreller lay in the last agony without being able to die. Several times the priest came to him, and at last, after long exhortations and prayers, the dying man made a confession.

The Host, which had already grown into the arm, was cut out, and all the books and writings belonging to the art of sorcery which could be found were burnt; and as they were thrown into the flames it roared and thundered dreadfully, and there was such a terrific heat that the lead in the window-frames melted and ran down in streams, and during this hellish noise the sorcerer died.

THE GIANT SERLES.

On the Brennerstrasse, which leads out of Innsbruck, three huge scarped mountains raise their lofty peaks above the road, and these peaks are also plainly visible from the Inn valley, through which the railway to Innsbruck now runs.

There once lived in the neighbouring valley of the Sin a “Wilder,” or wild man of enormous stature, who was a dreaded King of the Mountains. He was of a most extraordinarily savage nature, his wife as bad as he was, and his secret counsellor still worse than both. The King was passionately fond of hunting; and when on the track of a flying stag, he cared so little about anything but his own pleasure that he would dash, accompanied by all his followers and hounds, through the flocks and herds pastured on the mountains, carrying death and ruin wheresoever he went. Should the poor hunted animal by chance seek refuge among a herd, the demoniacal monster would take delight in urging on his bloodthirsty hounds to tear everything to pieces; and did the unfortunate herdsmen only try to make any remonstrance, they instantly shared the fate of their unfortunate animals, and were dragged to pieces on the spot by the savage dogs. On these occasions the giant, whose name was Serles, used to shout with joy, “Lustig gejaid” (bravely on), and neither man nor beast were able to defend themselves for a single moment against his fury. His wife and counsellor always accompanied him upon these excursions, and urged him on by their taunts to further excesses.

One day when they were out on one of their favourite expeditions, and the dogs had not only torn to pieces a poor stag, which had taken refuge among a herd of cows, but had also furiously attacked the herd itself, the herdsmen tried to drive them off, and one of them unslinging his cross-bow, in his anger, shot a dog dead upon the spot. At this the infuriated giant, excited beyond measure by his wicked wife and villainous counsellor, set the whole pack of hounds upon the unhappy herdsmen, and laughed with savage delight as he saw them torn limb from limb by the dogs. But in the midst of this terrible crime, Heaven’s wrath fell heavily upon them. A terrific thunderstorm burst over their heads, and when it had passed away no more was to be seen of King Serles, his wife, or his counsellor, but, in their stead, three huge glaciers rose into the clouds on the spot on which their iniquity had taken place. The one in the middle is the wicked monster Serles, and to his right and left stand his cruel wife and inhuman counsellor.

Teamsters who pass along the Brennerstrasse on stormy nights even now often hear the howling of unearthly dogs, and, during storms, thunderbolts are constantly seen striking the “Rock Giants.”

LEGENDS OF THE ORCO.

The Tyrolians believe in the existence of the Orco, who is accounted to be a huge and powerful mountain ghost, who never ages; he is said to reside generally in the clefts and chasms of the precipices between Enneberg Abbey and Buchenstein and the surrounding mountains. He adopts every form, and exercises his enormous strength only in destroying. Everything he does is for the terror and annoyance of mankind; he very seldom takes the human form, and when he does it is of gigantic stature, with the most malevolent, wild, and cruel expression; he is then dressed in the manner of the giants, or quite naked, but covered thickly with hair, like the coat of a bear.

The following legends, collected on the spot, give a few instances of when and where he has been seen:—

The Innkeeper, Anton Trebo, in Enneberg, who died in the year 1853, was a firm-minded man and noted as a great quarreller; he was sharp and enterprising in his business, and laughed to scorn all his guests when they ventured to recount anything about the Orco, who was held in most terrible dread by all the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Anton Trebo used to say that he believed in no apparition from either heaven or hell.

It was in the year 1825 that he returned from the market of St. Lorenz in his cart, with his son Franz. As he arrived at the rock called “Delles Gracies” (Rock of Grace), where in the hollow niches of the rock still stand many carved wooden statues of Christ and His saints, and just as he passed by, there all at once appeared a huge monstrous black dog, which ran round his cart and horses, and looked so diabolically that even the otherwise courageous bully was almost terrified. He held the reins tightly, and said to his son, “What is the dog doing there? Drive him away.” Franz tried to frighten the brute off with stones and blows, but the dog would not move, and Trebo, becoming more and more frightened, made the sign of the cross, and all at once the dog disappeared before their eyes.

Since this adventure, the innkeeper of Enneberg, believed firmly that it had really been the Orco, and has always defended his conviction of the existence of this fearful mountain ghost. Franz has taken the place of his father, and is now innkeeper of Enneberg, where one of his brothers lives with him.

In 1816 a brave peasant woman of Brenta, in the valley of Buchenstein, whose name was Maria Vinazzer, went with her son, who was nine years old, to meet her herd of cows which were returning from the Crontrin Alp. It was a beautiful autumn day, and they advanced the more gaily, as they were accompanied by the worthy parish singer, Lazar. As they arrived on the mountain side, all at once a wild horse trotted before them so suddenly that it appeared as though he had sprung from the ground, and wherever he trod fire played round about his heels.

Lazar, who was a courageous mountaineer, threw stones at the brute, but they rebounded from his sides, as though he had thrown them at a rock. The horse would not be driven away, and always galloped before them. On seeing this extraordinary apparition, Maria said, “This is certainly the Orco, and if he meets the herd he will surely disperse it, as he has often done, and the cows will run in all directions over the precipices and chasms.” They all three crossed themselves and repeated a prayer.

At that moment they arrived at the cross-way, called Livine, where stands a crucifix, and as the Orco approached near to it, he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared; he neither sank into the earth, nor flew away through the air, but like a soap-bubble he vanished in an instant.

All three stood and prayed a little time before the cross, where the herd soon after gaily arrived, and the pious mother said joyfully to her son, “Look, dear child, he who is with God is everywhere safe, and no Orco or other evil spirit can harm him.”

From the village of St. Kassian a young fellow went one evening to a distant farm to visit his sweetheart, and it was getting already dark. The youth heard several times the Orco calling out from a distance, but he paid no attention to it, and continued quietly his way. All at once he saw a little empty cart, dragged by four cats, run across the road; at this sight he was rather frightened, but still continued his way, not being able to make out what it all meant, when, on a sudden, there arrived a big black dog, with fiery lynx eyes, which grew bigger and bigger the nearer he came. “That is the Orco,” thought the boy; so he crossed himself, and ran home as fast as his legs could carry him.

The dog bounded constantly after him for about a distance of three miles, and his fiery tongue hung for more than half a yard out of his jaws. The saliva which dropped from his mouth was like blue flaming fire, and burned like sulphur, filling the air around with a suffocating smell. The boy reached home, unharmed by the dog; but he had run so hard that his lungs became diseased, and he was always suffering, till death released him a few months afterwards.

“The cats which dragged the cart over the road,” said the people who recounted this legend, “were hags, of whom there were thousands about at that time.”

One day two young men of Ornella, in the Buchenstein valley, started on a brilliant night to pay a visit in a neighbouring village to their loves. They had scarcely left home when they noticed that they were followed by the gigantic Orco, in the form of a wild bull, who first walked quietly behind them, and then, as they began to run, changed himself into a huge ball, which rolled after them, bounding over high rocks, and alighting again on the ground close to them, with so much force and such a terrible noise that they were afraid of being crushed to death.

In their anxiety, they took the way over the meadows to the village of Valazzo, and jumping over the fence, which they had no time to open or break down, fell into the yard, at the foot of a large crucifix, which stands there, and embraced the cross, in a dying condition, with their arms. The Orco appeared at the fence, though now in human form; but the poor youths were so terrified that they dare no longer regard him, and therefore were unable to describe his appearance. He beat with his hands upon the fence-bars so furiously, that the marks of his blows remained for years afterwards, as though they had been branded in by red-hot irons, until the wood decayed and a new fencing had to be put up; but the saving cross still stands upon the same spot.

A peasant boy of Enneberg, walking through the deep and vast forest of Plaiswald, heard from afar the voices of men shouting, and took them for woodcutters, so, according to the usage of the country, he answered them, and shouted several times just in the same tones as the voices he had heard. But then the horrible idea rushed into his mind that it might have been the Orco, and, at the same instant, he heard it quite close, for if one imitates the Orco, the monster arrives as fast as lightning. The youth tried to run away, but he felt as though petrified; all around him became darkness, and he fell senseless to the ground.

On the following day, when he came to himself, he discovered that he was in the forests of Wellschellen, on the highest peak of the mountain, and it became clear to him that the Orco had carried him there, although the forests of Wellschellen were on the other side of terrifically deep chasms and precipices, into which the Orco would most certainly have thrown him, had the peasant boy been a godless fellow. He returned home, covered with bruises and scratches, for Orco had torn him in such a terrible manner that to the end of his days he never attempted again to imitate the voice of any one in the forests. The way over which the Orco dragged the peasant is a good seven miles.

BIENER’S WIFE.

In the ancient castle of Büchsenhausen, which stands just above Innsbruck, still wanders about the apparition of one of its former possessors. The legend does not say to whom the castle originally belonged, but old chronicles relate that it passed, in the sixteenth century, into the hands of the celebrated iron-founder, Gregor Löffler, who gave it the name of “Büchsenhausen” (home of guns), because he had established there a gunfoundry. Later on it fell into the power of the reigning family of Austria, and the Archduchess Claudia presented it to her favourite Chancellor, Wilhelm von Biener, a liberal-minded nobleman, gifted with the doubtful talent of writing the most cutting satires, whose venomous point he turned against the nobility and church, and, for this reason, he brought upon himself the hatred of all those against whose opinion he wrote; but the favour of the Archduchess protected the talented statesman, who was most faithfully devoted to her interests.

On the 2nd of August, 1648, the Archduchess died, and then the enemies of Herr von Biener set to work so energetically that, after a short time, they succeeded in turning him out of his position, and imprisoned him on the 28th of August, 1650. A royal commission of noblemen, consisting of Biener’s greatest enemies, hastened down to Büchsenhausen, and claimed from his wife all his papers and documents, amongst which they discovered satires, which were most useful to their purpose. He was accused of high-treason, and, as his enemies were both his accusers and judges, he was condemned to death. His wife visited him while he was in prison, and he, who knew himself to be guiltless of any crime, always consoled her with these words:—“There can be no God in Heaven if they are allowed to murder an innocent man.”

On the 17th of July, 1651, Herr von Biener was executed in public. The sword which was used on the occasion is still to be seen in the castle of Büchsenhausen. His wife had sent a messenger to the Emperor to pray for a reprieve, which he had granted; but one of Biener’s most deadly enemies, President Schmaus, of the Austrian Court, stopped the messenger, and of course the execution ensued.

A few days afterwards, the rascal who had stopped the merciful errand of the Emperor was found dead through the judgment of God. Frau von Biener went raving mad; through the whole house she tore from room to room, crying, “There is no God; there is no God.” At last she climbed up the peak behind the Martinswand, and threw herself over a precipice into a deep chasm, out of which she was carried a corpse to Höttingen, where she was buried on the left-hand side of the altar, under a plain tombstone bearing no inscription, and with only a cross cut upon it.

Since her death she has appeared very often as a wandering ghost to a great number of persons, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country have given her the name of the “Bienerweibele” (Biener’s Wife). Clad in long black robes, slowly and solemnly she walks along through all the rooms in the castle, passes through firmly locked doors, stops with a woeful look at the bedside of peacefully sleeping people, appears to each proprietor and his wife before their death with wonderful consolation, always foretelling the immediate approach of the “Dreaded Spirit,” and never harms those who have never done her any injury. But in the year 1720, it happened that a descendant of one who had been instrumental in her husband’s death, who was sleeping in the castle, was found dead in his bed on the following morning, with a most fearfully contorted neck. The ghost appears in a black velvet mantle, and bears on her head a little bonnet, called in the dialect of the country, “Hierinnen,” embroidered with black lace, and on the back of her head a beautiful little golden crown, which is fastened on her hair by the means of a silver pin. People say that in former times the apparition was quite black, but at present it is more grey, and every day she is becoming more light, until at last her unhappy spirit will be redeemed.

THE LENGMOOS WITCHES.

A rich peasant of Lengstein had a son who had travelled a great deal, and, on returning home, he laughed at the repeating of the rosary, which all the good peasants are in the habit of saying every evening. His mother was very anxious about the profane ideas and behaviour of her son, for he mocked just as much at every other usage of the holy church, which he was pleased to designate as “jokes of the priests.”

One day several of his companions were sitting with him at the inn called “Zu dem Ritter,” and there some one of them recounted that on every Thursday night hags had been seen dancing, and carrying on their diabolical practices on the Birchboden, which was close by; they were seen arriving on the mountain from all parts, riding on black bricks, and holding there their unholy Sabbath. On hearing this, the rich peasant’s son laughed loudly, and said, “Wait, there I will dance with them;” for it was just Thursday evening. His friends advised him not to do so, but, in spite of their warnings, he set off, and they accompanied him up to the Mittelberg, where stands the Kebelschmiede, and where the wild stream of the Finsterbach rushes through a fearful gully. From thence, the young fellow ran singing gaily through the forest to where there is an open spot, called the Birchboden, and where numberless pyramids of porphyry rise to the height of twenty and thirty feet above the ground.

There he saw the frantic witches dancing and jumping together, and performing all sorts of tricks. This pleased the mad young man, and he ran to take part in their unholy dance; but when the huge clock of the magnificent monastery of Lengmoos struck one, the Finsterbach foamed wildly up, and the pyramids of porphyry tottered to their very base. This the friends of the peasant, who were waiting for him, saw perfectly well, and a wild storm of wind and hail came suddenly on, so that they were obliged to take refuge in the hut of the Kebelschmid (Kebelsmith). There they waited until the morning Angelus had rung, at which moment they knew that the hags’ power would come to an end, and then they went to the witches’ ground. But how terrified were they when they found their wicked comrade transformed into a stone, and fixed firmly into the earth, so that only three-quarters of him could be seen. His stone form still remains on this dreadful spot, and no green—not even an atom of moss—will grow over the head, body, hands, or feet of the “Witch-dancer.”

After nightfall no one dares to approach the scene of this terrible retribution, where stands so fearful a warning to all mockers and despisers of religion.

BINDER-HANSL.

In the hamlet of Wälsch’nofen, about ten miles from the village of Völs, lived a certain Binder-Hansl. He was a broom-binder, and, as his name was Hans (or John), they called him the “Binder-Hansl.”

He died in the year 1824, and was regretted all over the country, for he was a noted peasant doctor, or “Wonder Doctor,” as they called him. Besides curing all sorts of maladies of man and beast, he had a charm against sorcery and witchcraft, and where any suspicious circumstance took place in house or stable, Hans was called, and never failed to help.

One day, in the time of war, the Binder-Hansl went to the village of Botzen, and on the route, near the lane called Kuntersweg, he met the smith of the village of Kartaun, who had been forced by the French troops to carry their big drum, which was very heavy, and when the smith complained very bitterly about it to his friend, Hans said laughingly, “I should send the drum to the devil, and then I should be rid of it.” At this the French punished him for his boldness, by forcing him to march with them, carrying at his turn the drum on his back. So he was obliged to carry it up to the Feigenbrücke, near Blumenau; but when he had arrived there, he set the drum on the ground, and said, “By this way I have come, and by this way I will return;” while a Frenchman, who spoke German perfectly well, said, “Churl, take up the drum, or—” and he lunged at him with his naked sword. But the Binder-Hansl laughed at him, and replied, “We shall see;” and at the same moment he stretched out his hand over the Frenchmen, and they became all as motionless as stones.

There he left them standing and went laughing from the Feigenbrücke, over the steep mountain lane, which is called the “Katzenleiter” (Cat’s Ladder). After he had climbed to the summit of the mountain, he shouted, “Be off, fools, now you have seen my power,” and making again a sign with his hand, they all came to life, and taking up their drum they ran off, as only Frenchmen can.

THE GOLD-WORM OF THE ALPBACH VALLEY.

Near the “Reichen-Felder” (rich fields), behind the valley of Alpbach, is often to be seen, especially on the eve of holy-days, a gold-worm of wonderful brilliancy, which lies there motionless, and wrinkled in such a manner that it looks like a golden chain.

Sometimes this gold-worm has also been seen down in the valley far beneath the Reichen-Felder, even once so far as the banks of the Alpbach, on a spot which is called G’reit. Several times daring people approached the worm, but when they had come near to him they were struck with an uncontrollable terror; and on running to fetch others as witnesses, on their return the worm was no longer to be seen.

The peasants round about say, “Those people had not the grace of putting something sacred upon the worm, and for that reason it disappeared.” After all, it is not stated what the worm is, whether it is a treasure-bloom, or a treasure-guardian, of which there are numbers in this rich gold country.

THE GLUNKEZER GIANT.

In the Volder valley, out of which rises the Glunkezer, and where now stands the sheep Alp, called Tulfein, is a very picturesque mountain meadow, in the middle of which, some centuries ago, a peaceful King had built his palace, in which he lived with his four daughters, of whom each was more beautiful than the other. Round about the palace was a magnificent garden, full of Wonder-Flowers, and large expanses of meadow-lands, upon which tame Alpine animals browsed in large herds, and of these the four daughters of the King were very fond. They went also very often down into the huts of poor herds-people, to whom they did all sorts of charity, and all around they were honoured and reverenced as protecting genii.

This quiet happiness was troubled, and at last destroyed, by the arrival of a wild giant in this Alpine paradise, who built himself a cavern on the top of the Glunkezer, from whence, during the night, he roared so dreadfully that the mountains trembled, and huge masses of rock rolled down into the valleys. After he had caught sight of the four daughters of the King, he determined to try and gain one of them for his wife; so he decorated his bearskin mantle with enormous new buttons, tore up a fine tree for a walking-stick, passed his long finger-nails a few times through his shaggy beard and hair, and set off down to the Tulfein to pay his addresses. The King’s heart trembled with fright as he saw this pretender to the hand of one of his daughters, and replied that his daughters were perfectly free to choose their own husbands, therefore, if one of them would accept him, he should have no opposition to make.

Upon this the giant made himself as small as possible, but that was not very much, and did not bring him in much either, for one after the other of the girls refused him. This enraged the giant out of bounds, and he determined upon the most terrible vengeance, which he did not tarry in executing as quickly as possible. In the following night, rocks as large as a house rolled down upon the Tulfein, hurled against the palace, which they carried along with its inhabitants into the Wild-See, into whose depth it disappeared, and which was almost completely filled up with the tumbling rocks. The little of its dark waters which is still left, now bears the name of the “Schwarzenbrunn” (black spring), and round about it is a “death valley,” for nothing will grow there.

After the vengeance of the giant was satiated, repentance came over him, and he mourned for the murdered innocent father and daughters, he sat for whole nights on the borders of the Wild-See, into which he gazed, and howled and cried so incessantly, that even the stones had pity on him, for they became quite soft, and his cavern trembled and fell to ruin. At last he bewitched himself and became a mountain dwarf, while the King’s daughters were transformed into fairies or mermaids, and appear often on moonlight nights, floating over the water. There then sits the small grey dwarf, stretching longingly his hands towards their light forms, which however dissolve in mist; the dwarf then plunges again into the See, with a noise so great that it seems as though a large rock had fallen into it, and cools in a cold bath the agony of his remorse.

THE WEAVER OF VOMPERBERG.

The practice of the medical art is even now in the higher parts of the Tyrol rather in a primitive state. Those who are ill send a common messenger down to the doctor, to whom he has to explain all the illnesses of those who have sent him, and, therefore, he has to consult sometimes for twenty or thirty illnesses at a time. The doctor listens to his explanations, and gives to one patient a potion, to another a tisane, to another an unguent, etc., and hands the whole lot to the messenger. Happy it is if, in the confusion of his ideas, the messenger does not change the medicines, but gives to each patient his own. In this manner used the peasant Vögele to cure, who died in 1855, in the hamlet of Matrai, in the Under Wippthal. From early morning till late in the afternoon his farm was overrun with the sick, or their messengers.

But the arts which the weaver of Vomperberg, near the village of Vomp, in the Inn valley, practised were unknown to human doctor, for they were supernatural. It was generally reported that he was in league with the evil one, and eye-witnesses have even certified that the devil once caught him, but that the clever magician managed to slip through his fingers. This weaver, who died in 1845, once sold a herd of pigs to a peasant on the opposite side of the river Inn. The purchaser was driving his pigs over the bridge called Nothholzerbrücke, and, as they arrived in the middle, lo! they all disappeared. All those to whom he recounted this called out, “The weaver is a cunning fellow, he has got the money, and no doubt he has bewitched the pigs back again to his sheds.”

In his anger the peasant, after drinking a few bottles of wine, and when his head was rather hot, returned to the hut of the weaver, who was lying on a long plank, warming his feet against the stove. The indignant and half-drunken peasant threw himself upon the man, and, in his anger, tried to drag him out of the hut by his feet, but oh, Heaven! he had scarcely touched the feet, when they both came off in his hands. Trembling with terror and fright, he dropped the feet on the floor and ran off, and has never dared again to say one word about the loss of the pigs.

THE FIERY SENNIN.

Over the high valley of Alperschon stands a mountain called Gerichtsalp, belonging to the canton of Landeck, of which the judge, for centuries past, has had the right of letting the meadows to all the different parishes of the district; and from time immemorial it has been the privilege of the flock-herds to pasture there also their own animals, together with those of their masters, and then to sell them in the autumn on their own account.

There was at that time upon the Alp a young “Sennin” (or herd-woman), who had among the herd some of her own pigs, of which she took rather too much care, for she cheated the parish to feed them, and gave them goat-milk and the milk from the butter, so that they soon became very fat and round; while the parish pigs she made live upon the thin cheese whey, upon which, of course, they did not thrive. The Sennin was always gay and joking, and sang the nicest songs, and therefore every one liked her for her good temper, and nobody dreamed that she was an alm thief.

A couple of root seekers of the village of Schnaun, the girl’s native village, often climbed the Alp, and one day, when busy over their work, they remained there longer than usual, after the Sennin had driven the herd home. They were in the habit of using the empty enclosure in which the pigs were driven to rest in the middle of the day, as a drying-place for their roots, and when they returned home again, late at night, to Schnaun, they heard to their great astonishment that “the pretty young Sennin” had suddenly died, and they stayed a few days in the village to attend her funeral with the rest of the villagers.

Some few days afterwards, they went up again on the mountain to resume their usual business, and it was almost quite dark as they arrived on their favourite spot. As they approached the enclosure, they heard the voice of some one calling the pigs to their feeding-troughs, which they immediately recognized as that of the dead young Sennin, and, as they approached nearer, they saw her in bodily form, carrying a bucket of whey in her hand, and walking about in the enclosure, but red as a fiery furnace. The men stood thunderstruck and gasped with terror, and the spirit called to them, “Yes, sigh for me; here I must burn until my dishonesty is wiped away, even to the last pfennig;” and in saying this she disappeared from their sight, while making a terrific noise, and enveloped in a cloud of sulphurous smoke.

THE SPIRIT OF THE ZIRL USURER.

Beneath the Solstein, which stands over 9000 feet high, and upon whose summit on certain Thursdays the witches are said to dance, is situated a dreadful chasm, which takes its name from the charming village of Zirl, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and has more the aspect of a little town than an Alpine village. There once lived a wealthy miller, a noted usurer, who amassed no end of unjustly gained money, and, as after his death none of his wealth was restored to those whom he had defrauded, his spirit was condemned to the depths of the chasm, where he suffered indescribable torments, and often during the night his screams have been heard crying, “Help, help me!”

About twenty years ago, two merry gazelle hunters were walking in the night from the village of Soln, over the Schützensteig, on their way to Hötting, and, as it became very dark, they resolved to pass the night above the Zirl chasm, for fear of falling, in the darkness, over some precipice, or meeting with any other accident. They lighted a large fire, and during the night they heard somebody call out, “Help, help me.” The two men immediately thought some one had fallen down the precipice, and one of them shouted, “Have patience, for the night is too dark for us to venture down the gully, but to-morrow we will help you out.” In the early dawn they set off to hunt for a track by which to descend the precipice to the rescue of the unfortunate traveller.

On their way they met the shepherd of Soln, and told him of their night’s adventure, and, as they recounted it to him, he said, “There you may look in vain, for this call comes not from a lost traveller, but from the wicked miller;” and he then told them all he knew about the wretched money usurer. Many people of Zirl have also heard these frightful screams for help, first in one place and then in another, for the chasm is dreadfully deep and long. In the very depth of it, and at the foot of the Solstein, lies the Graupenloch, where a roaring torrent forms a high cascade, and fills the chasm with the roar of thunder, and even to this day nobody has ever dared to descend to this spot. There sits the spirit of the miserable usurer, howling, with chattering teeth, in his freezing torment.

THE ALPINE HORSE-PHANTOM.

On the high Alp, called Els, in the Hinderdux, resides a mountain spirit, which the inhabitants of the surrounding country are unable to paint horribly enough. It is described as a terrible horse-phantom, which nobody dare approach, and which snorts fever and death wheresoever it goes. Many mountaineers and gazelle-hunters have met with their death by this spirit, and only he is safe who has gun, sword, and dogs with him.

One day a courageous Alpine hunter resolved to go and fight the mountain ghost, so he loaded his rifle with a crossed bullet, and climbed up the mountain. Not far from the hut, which stands on the Els Alp, is a cross, at which he knelt and repeated a prayer, and he had scarcely left the spot, when a little grey mountain dwarf drew near to him, and begged for a little bread and brandy. The huntsman shared with the dwarf his bread and smoked-gazelle meat; after which the little grey man told him to go back, and bring his gun, sword, and dogs, or else he would be powerless against the mountain ghost, who otherwise would smash him into pieces. The gazelle-hunter followed this advice, and soon returned to execute his courageous purpose.

But it happened far otherwise than he had expected. The mountain ghost, in the form of a horrible horse, appeared, and galloped upon him with tremendous fury, snorting fire and sulphurous smoke, stamping, and roaring, and neighing so loud, that the very mountain shook with the sound; then he shouted to the huntsman with a voice of thunder, “You rascal, if you had not gun, sword, and dogs with you, I should smash you to pieces.”

At this reception, the huntsman stood like one petrified; his teeth chattered, and all desire to fight with a ghost passed away for ever from his mind. The horse-phantom then turned his heels and galloped back again to the Gletscherwand, from whence he had come.

THE WITCHES OF G’STOAG.