Chapter I: Part 1

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.

PAGE
The Giant Jordan 1

The Fisherman of the Graun-See 9

The Giants Heimo and Thürse 11

The Dragon of Zirl 15

The Wandering Stone 17

A Tyrolian Forester’s Legend 19

The Perjurer 26

The Burning Hand 27

The Three Fairies of the Ungarkopf 31

The Green Huntsman 35

The Tyrolian Giants of Albach 37

The Witch’s Vengeance 44

The Pious Herdsman 46

The Adasbub 49

The White Snake 52

The Schachtgeist 54

The Three Brothers 58

The Fiery Body 60

The Venediger-Manndl upon the Sonnenwendjoch 62

Hahnenkikerle 65

The Sorcerer of Sistrans 67

The Giant Serles 70

Legends of the Orco 73

Biener’s Wife 80

The Lengmoos Witches 84

Binder-Hansl 87

The Gold-Worm of the Alpbach Valley 89

The Glunkezer Giant 90

The Weaver of Vomperberg 93

The Fiery Sennin 95

The Spirit of the Zirl Usurer 97

The Alpine Horse-Phantom 99

The Witches of G’Stoag 101

The Hexeler 104

The Cat-Hags of Gries 106

The Locksmith of the Fliegeralm 109

The Salve-Toad 111

The Unholdenhof 113

The Fiery Boar of Kohlerstadl 117

The Butcher of Imst 119

Matz-Lauter, the Sorcerer of Brixen 121

The Mountain Ghost of the Vivanna 124

The Oberleitner of Terenten 126

The Tailor of the Zirockalm 128

The Three Sisters of Frastanz 131

The Rose Garden of King Laurin 133

The Petrified Lovers of Kramsach 136

The Gold-Seeker of the Tendres Farm 137

The Fairy of the Sonnenwendjoch 140

The Fireman Pigerpütz 144

The Piller-See 146

The Burning Pines 148

The Jaufen-Fairy 149

The Wetter-See 152

The Courageous Servant-Girl of the Zotta Farm 154

The Klausenmann on the Kummer-See 158

The Village on the Boden-Alp 160

The Gold-Measurers of Lofer 163

The Antholzer-See 165

The Mailed Ghost of Brixen Castle 166

The Treasure of the Sigmundsburg 168

The Fratricide upon the Hochalp 169

The Two Haystacks 172

The Sunken Forests 174

Tannen-Eh’ 176

The Devil’s Bridge 179

Lago Santo 181

The Alber 184

The Old Town of Flies 186

The Senderser Putz 188

The Dace Fish of the Gerlos-See 191

The Vedretta Marmolata 192

The Teufelsplatte near Galthür 194

Frau Hütt 197

The Treasure of Maultasch 199

The Nine-pin Game of Margaretha Maultasch 201

The Devil’s Hole on the Kuntersweg 203

The Sunken Castle in the Biburg-See 206

The Witches’ Walk on the Kreuzjoch 208

The Treasures 210

Wolkenstein 213

The Ghosts of the Castle of Völlenberg 215

The Fräulein von Maretsch 217

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.”