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.