Part 5

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._

Not many years ago a very rough mountain lane led from Tarenz to Imst, which was called the G’stoag; the post-road now runs over this spot, and still bears the same name.

The tailor, Anton Gurschler, of Strad, once returned home from Grieseck, near Tarenz, where he had been to visit his sweetheart. It was getting on for the ghost hour, and as he arrived near the smith’s shop, called Hoada-Schmiede, near G’stoag, he ran up against a little chapel, which is consecrated to the holy Vitus, and, having hurt himself in the violence of the shock, he was very angry, and began to swear, for he wanted to know who had pushed him so savagely. At that moment a carriage with lights drove up, and in it were sitting some women, whom the tailor immediately recognized perfectly well. They stopped the carriage, alighted, and offered to dance with him, and turned him round and round, without his being able to resist them. Then, as they released him, one of them whispered in his ear, “If you say one word about this, you had better look out for yourself;” and then they drove off like a flash of lightning. The tailor was stupefied with amazement, and, in his anger, he recounted to his friends at home all that had befallen him, in which, however, he did very wrong, for he grew thin and ill, and went out at last like the spark of a candle.

To another man, a shoemaker of Tarenz, whose name was Jennewein Lambach, happened the following circumstance:--He was on his way to the castle of Starkenberg, close by his village, and on passing by the church, he neither stopped a moment, nor crossed himself, as it is the custom in the country to do. It was yet dark, for the shoemaker had got up earlier than he was aware of; all at once he heard the sounds of magnificent music, to which he listened for a long time with delighted ears, and then, to his astonishment, he heard the church clock strike midnight. He shuddered with fright, for he knew that something must be wrong, and hurried on as fast as his legs would carry him to Starkenberg, where he was engaged to work; but as there he could find no peace of mind, on account of his strange accident, he returned home again in the afternoon. While he was sitting drinking a glass of wine with the innkeeper Marrand, of Tarenz, a woman of the village entered the room, and said to him mockingly, “The music last night must have pleased you very much, for you listened like a stupid.” The shoemaker was struck dumb and could not reply, for it came to his mind that what he had heard in the preceding night had been hags’ music, and that that very same woman had been amongst the number of the witches. From that time he shunned the creature as much as possible, but never told any one what had happened to him on that eventful evening. He then bought himself an alarm clock, which he set up close to his bed, so that he never went again too early to his work, and thus by his silence he no doubt escaped the dreadful fate of the poor tailor.

_THE HEXELER._

In the village of Hall, in the valley of the Inn, close to Innsbruck, lived a man who was a peasant doctor, cattle doctor, and fisherman, in one person; he was also a noted witch-finder, and, as such, held in terrible dread by all those who had “red eyes.” His name was Kolb, but he was generally called the “Hexeler” (hag hunter), or “Hexenkolb.”

One day Kolb was engaged fishing in the lake, called Achenthaler-See, when suddenly thunderclouds as black as ink collected over his head, and on a sign which he made with his hand, a weather hag fell down into the water. The hag seized the side of Kolb’s little boat, who, however, beat the rudder down upon her hands, with the intention of drowning her, but she implored him to save her, promising that she would renounce her witchcraft. “As to me,” said Kolb, “I will save you if you will give up your wicked trade; but you must hand over to me your sorcery book, so that I shall know all your hellish artifices, and be able to discover their antidotes.” After a long dispute, during which the hag was nearly drowned, she gave him a book, in which her most secret charms were written down.