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The memory of the former metallic wealth of the valley is preserved in numerous tales of sudden riches overtaking the people in all manner of different ways, as in the specimens already given. Here is a similar one belonging to this spot. A peasant going out with his waggon found one day in the way a heap of fine white wheat. Shocked that God’s precious gift should be trodden under foot, he stopped his team and gathered up the grain, of which there was more than enough to fill all his pockets; when he arrived at his destination, he found them full of glittering pieces of money. The origin of the story doubtless may be traced to some lucky take of ore which the finder was able to sell at the market town; and the price which he brought home was spoken of as the actual article discovered. Another relic of the mining works may perhaps be found in the following instance of another class of stories, though some very like it doubtless refer to an earlier belief in hobgoblins closely allied to our own Robin Goodfellow. I think a large number date from occasions when the Knappen or miners, who formed a tribe apart, may have come to the aid of the country people when in difficulty.

The Unterhausberg family was once powerful in Wiltschnau. When their mighty house was building, the great foundation-stone was so ponderous that it defied all the efforts of the builders to put it in its place. At last they sat down to dinner; then there suddenly came out of the mountain side a number of Wiltschnau dwarfs, who, without any effort, lowered the great stone into its appointed place; the men offered them the best portion of their dinner, but they refused any reward. The dwarfs were not always so urbane, however, and there are many stories of their tricks: lying down in the pathways in the dark to make the people tumble over them; then hiding behind a tree, and with loud laughter mocking the disaster;⁶² throwing handfuls of pebbles and ashes at the peasant girls as they passed; getting into the store-room, and mixing together the potatoes, carrots, grain, and flour, which the housewife had carefully assorted and arranged. It was particularly on women that their tricks were played off; and this to such an extent that it became the custom, even now prevailing, never to send women to the Hochalm with the herds, though they go out into other equally remote mountain districts without fear, for their Kasa (the hut for shelter at night, here so called, in other parts Sennhütte,) was sure to be beset with the dwarfs, and their milk-pails overturned. All these feats may, I think, be ascribed in their origin to the Knappen.

The neighbourhood of Thierberg has a story which I think also has its source in mining memories. ‘On the way between Altbach and Thierbach you pass two houses bearing the name of “beim Thaler.” In olden time there lived here a peasant of moderate means, who owned several head of cattle; Moidl, the maid, whose duty it was to take them out to pasture on the sunny hill-side, always looked out anxiously for the first tokens of spring; for she loved better to watch the cows and goats browsing the fresh grass, or venturously climbing the heights, to sitting in the chimney-corner dozing over the spinning-wheel. One day as she was at her favourite occupation, she heard a noise behind her, and turning round saw a door open in the mountain side, and two or three little men with long beards peeping out. Within, all was dazzling with gold like the brightest sunshine. The walls were covered with plates of gold, placed one over the other like scales, and knobs of gold like pine-apples studded the vault. The little men beckoned to Moidl to come in, but she, like a modest maiden, ran home to her father; when he returned with her, however, to the spot, the door was no more to be found.’ I think it may very well be imagined that Moidl came unawares upon the opening of a lateral shaft, and listened to the accounts which the Knappen may have amused themselves with giving her of the riches of their diggings; while she may very naturally have been afraid to explore these. The disappearance of the mysterious opening is but the ordinary refrain of marvellous tales.

The Witschnauers cannot be accused of any dreamy longings after the recurrence of such prosperous times. They are among the most diligent tillers of the land to be found anywhere; the plough is carried over places where the uneven gradients make the guiding of horses or oxen a too great expenditure of time; in such places they do not disdain to harness themselves to the plough, and even the women take their turn in relieving them. Of one husbandman of olden time it is narrated that he was even too eager in his thrift, and carried his furrow a little way on to his neighbour’s land year by year, so that by the time he came to die he had appropriated a good strip of land not his own. His penance was, that after death he should continually tread up and down the stolen soil, dragging after him a red-hot ploughshare, in performing which his wail was often overhead —

 
O weh! wie is der Pflug so heiss
Und niemand mir zu helfen weiss!⁶³
 

until one of his successors in the farm, being a particularly honourable man, removed the boundary-stone back to its original position. He had no sooner done so than he had the satisfaction of hearing the spectre cry —

 
Erlöst, Gott sei Dank, bin ich jetzt
Der Markstein ist auch rechtgesetzt.⁶⁴
 

Another class of legends has also a home in this locality. It is told that a peasant from Oberau was going home from Thierbach, one Epiphany Eve. It was a cold night; his feet crunched the crisp snow at every step; the air was clear, and the stars shone brightly. The peasant’s head, however, was not so clear as the sky, for he came from the tavern, where he had been spending a merry evening with his boon companions. Thus it happened that instead of walking straight on, he gave one backward step for every three forward, like the Umgehende Schuster;⁶⁵ and thus he went staggering about till he came to the Rastbank, which is even yet sought as a point where to rest and overlook the view. It struck twelve as he seated himself on the bench; then suddenly behind him he heard a sound of many voices, which came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl in her white clothing, her broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of little people⁶⁶ swept clattering and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a long shirt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compassion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in return for his compassion his children should never come to want. This story, I think there is little doubt, may be genuine; your Wiltschenauer is as fond of brandy as your Zillerthaler, and under its influence the peasant may very likely have passed a troubled night on the Rastbank. What more likely to cross his fancy on the Epiphany Eve than the thought of a visit from the Berchtl and her children (they always appear in Tirol at that season, and in rags and tatters⁶⁷); his own temperament being compassionate, that he should help the stumbling little one, and that the Berchtl should give him promise of reward was all that might be expected from certain premises. But what are those premises? Who was the Berchtl? If you ask a Tirolean peasant the question, he will probably tell you that the Perchtl (as he will call her) is Pontius Pilate’s wife,⁶⁸ to whom redemption was given by reason of her intervention in favour of the Man of Sorrows, but that it is her penance to wander over the earth till the last day as a restless spirit; and that as the Epiphany was the season of favour to the Gentiles, among whose first-fruits she was, it is at that season she is most often seen, and in her most favourable mood. It must be confessed that some of his stories of her will betray a certain amount of inconsistency, for he will represent her carrying off children, wounding belated passengers, and performing many acts inconsistent with the character of a penitent soul, and more in accordance with that of the more ancient ‘Lamia.’

If you address your question to Grimm, or Wolf, Simrock, Kuhn, Schwartz, or Mannhardt, or any who have made comparative mythology their study, he will tell you that the stories about her (and probably all the other marvellous tales of the people also) are to be traced back to the earliest mythological traditions of a primeval glimmering of religion spread abroad over the whole world; and to the poetical forms of expression of a primitive population describing the wonderful but constantly repeated operations of nature.⁶⁹ That the wilder Jäger was originally the god Wodin, the hunter of unerring aim, that his impetuous course typifies the journey of the sun-god through the heavens,⁷⁰ his mighty arm represents his powerful rays; and in even so late a tale as ‘that of William Tell, he will see the last reflections of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.’⁷¹ He will tell you that all ‘the countless legends of princesses kept in dark prisons and invariably delivered by a young bright knight can all be traced back to mythological traditions about the spring being released from the bonds of winter; the sun being rescued from the darkness of night; the dawn being brought back from the far west; the waters being set free from the prison of clouds.’⁷² And of the Berchtl herself, he will tell you that she is Perahta (the bright), daughter of Dagha (the day), whose name has successively been transformed into Perchtl and Bertha; brightness or whiteness has made her to be considered the goddess of winter; who particularly visited the earth for twelve winter nights, and spoilt all the flax of those idle maidens who left any unspun on the last day of the year;⁷³ who carries in her hand a broken plough in token that the ground is hardened against tillage; whose brightness has also made her to be reckoned the all-producing earth-mother, with golden hair like the waving corn; the Hertha of the Swabian; the Jörtha of Scandinavian;⁷⁴ the Berecynthia of the Phrygian;⁷⁵ and to other nations known as Cybele, Rhea, Isis, Diana.⁷⁶

Such ideas were too deeply rooted in the minds of the people to be easily superseded; as my friend, the Feldkirch postilion, said, they went on and on like the echoes of their own mountains. ‘The missionaries were not afraid of the old heathen gods; … their kindly feeling towards the traditions, customs, and prejudices of their converts must have been beneficial; … they allowed them the use of the name Allfadir, whom they had invoked in the prayers of their childhood, when praying to Him who is “our Father in heaven.”’ And as with the greater, so with the less, the mighty powers they had personified and treated as heroes and examples lived on in their imagination, and their glorious deeds came to be ascribed to the new athletes of a brighter faith. Then, ‘although originally popular tales were reproductions of more ancient legends, yet after a time a general taste was created for marvellous stories, and new ones were invented in large numbers. Even in these purely imaginative productions, analogies may be discovered with more genuine tales, because they were made after the original patterns, and in many cases were mere variations on an ancient air.’⁷⁷ More than this, there came the actual accession of marvels derived from the acts inspired by the new faith; but it cannot be denied that the two became strangely blended in the popular mind.

Brixlegg presents some appearance of thriving, through the smelting and wire-drawing works for the copper ore brought from the neighbourhood of Schwatz. It also enjoys some celebrity as the birthplace of the Tirolean historian Burgleckner, whose family had been respected here for generations; and it is very possible to put up for the night at the Herrenhaus. It is not much above a mile hence to Rattenberg, of which I have already spoken.

Rattenberg was, in 1651, the scene of a tragic event, sad as the denouement of many a fiction. The high-spirited consort of Archduke Leopold V., Claudia de’ Medici, who, at his death, governed the country so well, and by her sagacity kept her dominions at peace, while the rest of Germany was immersed in the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War, yet did not altogether escape the charge of occasional harshness in collecting the revenues which she knew so well how to administer. Her chancellor, Wilhelm Biener, a trusty and devoted servant and counsellor, drew on himself considerable odium for his zeal in these matters. On one occasion he got into a serious controversy with Crosini, Bishop of Brixen, concerning the payment of certain taxes from which the prelate claimed exemption, and in the course of it wrote him a letter couched in such very unguarded terms, that the bishop, unused to be so dealt with, could not forbear exclaiming, ‘The man deserves to lose the fingers that could write such an intemperate effusion!’ The exclamation was not thought of again till years after.

Claudia died in 1648, and then the hatred against Biener, which was also in some measure a hatred of races, for Claudia had many southerners at her court, broke forth without hindrance. He was accused⁷⁸ of appropriating the State money he had been so earnest in collecting, and though tried by two Italian judges, he was ultimately condemned, in 1651, to lose his head. Biener sent a statement of his case to the Archduke Ferdinand Karl; and the young prince, believing the honesty of his mother’s faithful adviser, immediately ordered a reprieve. The worst enemy and prime accuser of the fallen favourite was Schmaus, President of the Council, this time a German, and he contrived by detaining the messenger to make him arrive just too late in Rattenberg, then still a strong fortress, where he lay confined, and where the sentence was to be carried out.

Biener had all along steadfastly maintained his innocence; and stepping on to the scaffold, he had again repeated the assertion, adding, ‘So truly as I am innocent, I summon my accuser before the Judgment-seat above before another year is out.’⁷⁹ When the executioner stooped to lift up the head before the people, he found lying by its side three fingers of his right hand, without having had any knowledge that he had struck them off, though he might have done so by the unhappy man having raised his hand in the way of the sword in the last struggle. The people, however, saw in it the fulfillment of the words of the bishop, as well as a ghastly challenge accompanying his dying message to President Schmaus. Nor did they forget to note that the latter died of a terrible malady some months before the close of the year. Biener’s wife lost her senses when she knew the terrible circumstances of his death; the consolations of her director and of her son, who lived to his ninetieth year in the Francescan convent at Innsbruck, were alike powerless to calm her. She escaped in the night, and wandered out into the mountains no one knows whither. But the people say she lives on to be a witness of her husband’s innocence, and may be met on lonely ways proclaiming it, but never harming any. Only, when anyone is to die in Büchsenhausen,⁸⁰ where her married life passed so pleasantly, the ‘Bienerweible’ will appear and warn them. It is a remarkable instance of the easy way in which one myth passes into another, that though this event happened but a little over two hundred years ago, the Bienerweible and the Berchtl are already confounded in the popular mind.⁸¹

Another name prized in Tirolese annals, which must not be forgotten in connexion with Rattenberg, is Alois Sandbichler, the Bible commentator, who was born there in 1751. He passed a brilliant career as Professor in the University of Salzburg, but died at the age of eighty in his native village.

The neighbourhood of Brixlegg is very pretty, and the views from the bridge by no means to be overlooked.

CHAPTER V.
NORTH TIROL – UNTERINNTHAL.
(LEFT INN-BANK.)

The hilles, where dwelled holy saintes,

I reverence and adore

Not for themselfe but for the saincts

Which han been dead of yore.

And now they been to heaven forewent,

Their good is with them goe;

Their sample onely to us lent,

That als we mought doe soe. – Spenser.

We have hitherto been occupied almost exclusively with the right bank of the Inn. We will now return to Jenbach, as a starting-point for the beauties of the left bank.

Near the station of Jenbach is a ‘Restauration,’ which bears the singular title of ‘zum Tolerantz.’ In the town, which is at some little distance on the Käsbach stream, the ‘Post’ affords very decent accommodation; The dining-room of the more primitive ‘Brau’ is a neat building in the Swiss style, and commands a prospect which might more than compensate for even worse fare than it affords. Jenbach had its name from being situated on the further side of the Inn from that on which the old post-road had been carried. There are extensive iron-foundries and breweries, which give the place a busy aspect, and an air of prosperity.

The excursions from Jenbach are countless. Between the stations of Brixlegg and Jenbach lie only Münster and Wiesing, with nothing remarkable, except that the church of Wiesing, having been struck by lightning in 1782, was rebuilt with stones taken from the neighbouring Pulverthurm, built by the Emperor Maximilian, in 1504, but destroyed by lightning at the same time as the church. Count Tannenberg’s park (Thiergarten), near here, is a most curious enclosure of natural rock, aided by masonry, and stocked with deer, fish, and fowl. Then Kramsach, and in the woods near it the Hilariusbergl, once inhabited by two hermits, and still held sacred: also the strangely wild Rettengschöss and its marbles; and several remarkable Alpine peaks, particularly the Zireinalpe and its little lake, bearing a memory of Seirens in its traditions as well as in its name. Here another river Ache runs into the Inn, distinguished from that on the opposite side, as the Brandenberger Ache. At its debouche stands Voldepp, whence the Mariathal and the Mooserthal may be visited, and ‘the neighbourhood is rich in marbles used in the churches of Innsbruck.’⁸² The Mooserthal is remarkable for three small lakes, which can be formed and let off at pleasure; they are the property of the Barons of Lichtenthurm, who fatten carp in them. The lowest of the three, the Rheinthalersee, has the prettiest surroundings. Weber says they are all fed by subterranean currents from the mountains. Ball (‘Central Alps’) treats them as overflowings of the Inn.

The most flourishing town of the Mariathal is Achenrain, where there are extensive brass-works. Mass is said for the out-lying operatives in the Castle-chapel of Lichtenthurm. The village of Mariathal is very snugly situated, almost hidden by its woods from the road. Its chief feature is the deserted convent of Dominicanesses founded in the thirteenth century by Ulrich and Konrad v. Freundsberg; their descendant, Georg v. Freundsberg, celebrated in the Thirty Years’ War, whom we learn more about when we come to Schwatz, also endowed the nuns liberally, bidding them pray for him; his effigy may still be seen in the church of Mariathal; and the convent, even in its present condition, is a favourite pilgrimage. Hence a rocky defile of wild and varied beauty, and many miles in length, leads into the Brandenbergerthal, which reaches to the Bavarian frontier. Its highest point is the Steinberg, to be recognized in the distance by its pyramidal form, which is situated within what the Germans graphically term a cauldron (Gebirgskessel) of mountains, and is shut off from all communication with the outer world by the snow during the winter months. The Brandenbergers have been famous for their patriotism and defence of their independence during all the various conflicts with Bavaria, and they love to call their native soil the Heimaththal and the Freiheitthal. The only tale of the supernatural I have met with as connected with this locality is the following; it has a certain wild grasp, but its moral is not easy to trace; it is analogous, however, to many traditions of other places.

‘One of the Jochs surrounding the Brandenbergerthal was celebrated for its rich grasses; on its “alm”⁸³ the cattle often found pasturage even late in the winter. The Senner⁸⁴ here watching his flocks was visited one Christmas Eve by an old man in thick winter clothing, with a mighty pine-staff in his hand; he begged the Senner on the coming night to heat his hut as hot as ever he could, assuring him he would have no cause to regret his compliance. The Senner thought it was a strange adventure, but congratulated himself that it might be the means of propitiating the goblins, of whose pranks in the winter nights he was not without his fears. So he heaped log upon log all day, till the hut was so hot he could hardly bear it. Then he crept under a bench in the corner where a little chink gave a breath from the outer air, and waited to see what would come to pass. Towards midnight he heard steps approaching nearer and nearer, and then there was a sound of heavy boots stamping off the snow. Immediately after, seven men stepped into the room in silence. Their boots and clothes were all frozen as hard as if they had been carved out of ice, and their very presence served to cool down the air of the hut to such an extent that the Senner was now obliged to rub his hands. When they had stood a considerable space round the fire without uttering a word, they all seven left the hut as silently and solemnly as they had entered it. The Senner now crawled out of his hiding-place, and a loud cry of joy burst spontaneously from his lips, for his hat, which he had left on the table, was full of bright shining golden zwanzigers. These seven, the legend goes on to say, ‘were never seen but this once. They were the seven Goldherds of the Reiche Spitze (on the Salzburg frontier); for up there there are exhaustless treasures, but whatever a mortal takes of them during life, he must suffer the Cold Torment and keep watch over it after death; and of such there have been seven in the course of the world’s ages.’

With regard to ‘the Cold Torment,’⁸⁵ they have the following legend in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck: – There was once a peasant who had been very unlucky, and got so deep in debt that he saw no way of extricating himself. Unable to bear the sight of his starving family, he wandered out into the forest, until at last he met a strange-looking man in the old Frankish costume, who came up to him and said, ‘You are poor indeed, and know no means of help.’ ‘Most true,’ replied the peasant; ‘of money and good counsel I can use more than you can have to bestow.’ ‘I will help you,’ said the strange-looking man; ‘I will give you as much money as you can use while you live, and all you have to do for it will be to bear the Cold Torment for me after you die; nothing but that, only just to feel rather too cold, and all that time hence – what does it matter?’ The peasant retraced his steps, and as he drew near home his children came out to meet him with their pinafores full of gold, and all about the house there were heaps of gold, more than he could use; and he lived a merry life till the time came for him to die. Then he remembered what was before him; so he called his wife to him, and got her to make him a whole suit of the thickest rough woollen cloth, and stockings, hood, and gloves of the same. In the night, before they had buried him, his boys saw him, just as the De profundis bell rang, get up from the bed in all this warm clothing, and shut the gate behind him, and go out into the forest to deliver the spirit which had enriched him.⁸⁶

To the north-east of this valley, and still on the left bank of the Inn, is the favourite pilgrimage of Maria-Stein. I have not learnt its origin, but there is a tradition that, in 1587, Baron Schurff, to whom the neighbouring Castle of Stein then belonged, being desirous to take the precious likeness of the Blessed Virgin honoured there to his Bavarian dwelling, thrice attempted the removal, and on each occasion it was found by the next morning restored to its original sanctuary, which is in a chapel at the top of a high tower. The castle was a dependency of the Freundsbergers of Schwatz, till the family died out. It was subsequently bestowed by the Archduke Sigismund on one of his supporters, to whom he gave also the title of Baron Schurff. Afterwards it came into possession of Count Paris von Klotz, who gave it to form a presbytery and school for which it is still used. Among its treasures was a Slave codex of Homilies of the early fathers; Count Klotz had a reprint made from it at Vienna. A little lake (Maria Steinersee) at no great distance affords excellent fish called Nasen, whence the neighbouring dale is called Nasenthal; and from several points there are most enjoyable views of the höhe Salve and the little towns of Wörgl, Kirchbühel, and Häring across the river.

Jenbach affords also numerous mountain walks through the Achenthal: a favourite one is over the Mauriz Alp, to Maurach, which has many points of interest to the geologist. For those who are not fond of pedestrianism, there is a splendid drive along the road – one of the old highways to Bavaria and the north of Europe. An accident is of very rare occurrence; but some parts of it are rather frightful. For those whose nerves are proof against the fears suggested here and there, there is immense enjoyment to be found, as it winds its way along the romantic woody Käsbachthal, round – indeed through – the wild and overhanging rocks, or, supported on piles, runs close along the edge of the intensely blue Achen lake, under the over-arching Spiel-joch, steep as a wall. The first place to halt at is Skolastica, where there is a pretty, much-frequented swimming-school; and whence even ladies have ascended the Unnutzjoch over the Kögl. It is often crowded in the season, as also are all the little towns round the lake – Achenthal, Pertisau, Buchau. Several excellent varieties of fish, which are the property of the Monastery of Viecht, and the pleasure-fares across the waters, afford means of subsistence to a little population of boatmen, who have made their nests on the rocks wherever there is a foot of level ground. Pertisau, however, is on a green smiling spot, and is a relief to the majestic wildness of the rest of the surrounding scenery. A very extraordinary effect may be observed at a short distance out from Buchau. The mountain outline on the right hand appears to be that of a regular fortress, with all professional accessories, bidding defiance to the neighbourhood: it is only as the boat approaches quite near, that you see it is only one of those tours de force with which nature often surprises us; as, for example, in the portrait of Louis XVI. in the outline of the Traunstein, seen from Baura.

From the village of Achenthal the road runs, through the Bavarian frontier, to the well-known baths and Bavarian royal Lustschloss– until 1803 a Benedictine monastery – of Tegernsee, through Pass-Achen, celebrated in the patriotic struggles of 1809.

The Achensee is the largest and one of the most beautiful lakes of Tirol. It is fed partly by mountain streams, and partly by subterranean springs. The people tell a warning tale of its first rising. They say that in olden times there was a stately and prosperous town on what is now the bed of the lake; but the inhabitants in their prosperity forgot God so far, that the young lads played at skittles along the aisles of the church, even while the sacred office was being sung, and the Word of God preached. A day came; it was a great feast, but they drove their profane sport as usual, and no one said them nay;⁸⁷ and so a great flood rose up through the floor; rose above their heads; above the church roof; above the church steeple; and they say that even now, on a bright calm day, you may see the gilt ball of the steeple shining under the waters, and in the still moonshine you may hear the bell ring out the midnight hour. There are many other tales of such swift and righteous judgments lingering in Tirol.

The lower eastern ridge of the Harlesanger or Hornanger Alpe, is, on account of its stern and barren character, called the Wildenfeld. This is how it received its name. Ages ago, it was a very paradise of beauty and fruitfulness. All the choicest Alpine grasses grew there in abundance; but with these riches and plenty the pride of the Senners and milkers waxed great too; and as a token of their reckless wastefulness, it is recorded that they used rich cheeses for paving-stones and skittles. One ancient Senner, like another Lot, raised his feeble but indignant voice against them, but they heeded him not. One day, as he mused over the sins of his people, a bright bird, with a plumage such as he had never seen before, fluttered round him, warbling, ‘Righteous man, get thee hence! righteous man, get thee hence!’ The old man saw the finger of God, and immediately followed the guiding flight of the bird to a place of safety, while a great peak from the Harlesanger fell over the too prosperous Joch, buried its impious inhabitants, and spread desolation all around. There is now a pilgrimage chapel.

Another excursion, which must not be omitted, from Jenbach, is that to Eben, which lies a little off the high road, at some elevation, but in the midst of a delightful table-land (hence its name) of most fruitful character. As the burial-place of St. Nothburga, it is still a spot of great resort. Unhappily, not all those buried here were so holy as the peasant saint. A tradition is preserved of one wicked above others, though he seemed all fair to the outward eye, and the Church consequently admitted him to lie in holy ground. But he felt the Eye of One above upon him, and he could not rest; and in his struggles to withdraw himself from that all-searching gaze, he bored and bored on through the consecrated earth, till he had worked his way out into the common soil beyond. A horse-shoe, deeply graven in the ‘Friedhof’ boundary, and which no one has ever been able to wall up, marks the spot by which he passed; and the people call it the ‘Escape of the Vampire.’⁸⁸