CHAPTER I.

THE

VALLEYS OF TIROL

THEIR TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS

AND HOW TO VISIT THEM

BY

MISS R. H. BUSK

AUTHOR OF 'PATRAÑAS' 'SAGAS FROM THE FAR EAST'

'FOLK-LORE OF ROME' ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE AND THREE MAPS

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1874

All rights reserved

PREFACE.

There are none who know Tirol but are forward to express regret

that so picturesque and so primitive a country should be as yet,

comparatively with other tracks of travel, so little opened up to

the dilettante explorer.

It is quite true, on the other hand, that just in proportion as a

country becomes better known, it loses, little by little, its merit

of being primitive and even picturesque. Intercourse with the world

beyond the mountains naturally sweeps away the idiosyncracies of the

mountaineers; and though the trail of progress which the civilized

tourist leaves behind him cannot absolutely obliterate the actual

configuration of the country, yet its original characteristics

must inevitably be modified by the changes which his visits almost

insensibly occasion. The new traditions which he brings with him of

vast manufacturing enterprise and rapid commercial success cannot but

replace in the minds of the people the old traditions of the fire-side

and the Filò, with their dreams of treasure-granting dwarfs and the

Bergsegen dependent on prayer. The uniform erections of a monster Hotel

Company, 'convenient to the Railway Station,' supersede the frescoed

or timbered hostelry perched on high to receive the wayfarer at his

weariest. The giant mill-chimneys, which sooner or later spring up from

seed unwittingly scattered by the way-side, not only mar the landscape

with their intrinsic deformity, but actually strip the mountains

of their natural covering, and convert wooded slopes into grey and

barren wastes; [1] just as the shriek of the whistle overpowers the

Jödel-call, and the barrel-organ supersedes the zitther and the guitar.

Such considerations naturally make one shrink from the responsibility

of taking a part (how insignificant soever) in directing the migration

of tourists into such a country as Tirol. I have heard a Tirolese,

while at the same time mourning that the attractions of his country

were so often passed over, express this feeling very strongly, and

allege it as a reason why he did not give the result of his local

observations to the press; and I listened to his apprehensions with

sympathy. But then these changes must be. The attempt to delay them

is idle; nor would individual abstention from participating in the

necessary movement of events have any sensible effect in stemming

the even course of inevitable development. Circumstances oblige us

continually to co-operate in bringing about results which we might

personally deprecate.

'In whatsoe'er we perpetrate

We do but row; we're steered by fate.'

And after all, why should we deprecate the result? We all admire

the simple mind and chubby face of childhood; yet who (except the

sentimental father in the French ballad, 'Reste toujours petit!') would

wish to see his son in petticoats and leading-strings all his days. The

morning mists which lend their precious charm of mystery to the sunrise

landscape must be dispelled as day advances, or day would be of little

use to man.

The day cannot be all morning; man's life cannot be all infancy;

and we have no right so much as to wish--even though wishes avail

nothing--that the minds of others should be involved in absurd

illusions to which we should scorn to be thought a prey ourselves.

Nature has richly endowed Tirol with beauty and healthfulness; and they

must be dull indeed who, coming in search of these qualities, do not

find them enhanced a hundredfold by the clothing of poetry with which

the people have superindued them. Who, in penetrating its mountain

solitudes, would not thank the guide who peoples them for him with

mysterious beings of transcendent power; who interprets for him, in

the nondescript echoes of evening, the utterances of a world unknown;

and in the voices of the storm and of the breeze the expression of

an avenging power or the whisperings of an almighty tenderness.

But then--if this is found to be something more than poetry, if

the allegory which delights our fancy turns out to be a grotesque

blunder in the system of the peasant who narrates it,--it cannot be

fair to wish that he should continue subject to fallacious fancies,

in order that we may be entertained by their recital.

It is one thing for a man who has settled the grounds of his belief

(or his unbelief) to his best satisfaction in any rational way, to

say, 'I take this beautiful allegory into my repertory; it elevates

my moral perceptions and illustrates my higher reaches of thought;'

but it is quite another thing if one reasons thus with himself,

'My belief is so and so, because a certain supernatural visitation

proves it;' when actually the said supernatural visitation never

took place at all, and was nothing but an allegory, or still less,

a mere freak of fancy in its beginning.

Perhaps if the vote could be taken, and if desires availed anything,

the general consensus of thinking people would go in favour of

the desire that there had been no myths, no legends. But the vote

would involve the consequence that we should have antecedently to

be possessed of a complete innate knowledge of the forces of being,

corresponding to the correct criteria, which we flatter ourselves do

indwell us of the principles of beauty and of harmony. If there are

any who are sanguine enough to believe that science will one of these

days give us a certain knowledge of how everything came about, it is

beyond dispute that for long ages past mankind has been profoundly

puzzled about the question, and it cannot be an uninteresting study

to trace its gropings round and round it.

Perfect precision of ideas again would involve perfect exactness of

expression. No one can fail to regret the inadequacies and vagaries

of language which so often disguise instead of expressing thought,

and lead to the most terrible disputes just where men seek to be most

definite. If we could dedicate one articulate expression to every

possible idea, we should no longer be continually called to litigate

on the meanings of creeds and documents, and even verbal statements.

But when we had attained all this, we should have surrendered all

the occupation of conjecture and all the charms of mystery; we should

have parted with all poetry and all jeux d'esprit. If knowledge was

so positive and language so precise that misunderstanding had no

existence, then neither could we indulge in metaphor nor égayer la

matière with any play on words. In fact, there would be nothing left

to say at all!

Perhaps the price could not be too high; but in the meantime we

have to deal with circumstances as they are. We cannot suppress

mythology, or make it non-existent by ignoring it. It exists, and

we may as well see what we can make of it, either as a study or a

recreation. Conjectures and fancies surround us like thistles and

roses; and as brains won't stand the wear of being ceaselessly carded

with the thistles of conjecture, we may take refuge in the alternative

of amusing ourselves on a holiday tour with plucking the roses which

old world fancy has planted--and planted nowhere more prolifically

than in Tirol.

In speaking of Tirol as comparatively little opened up, I have not

overlooked the publications of pioneers who have gone before. The

pages of Inglis, though both interesting and appreciative, are

unhappily almost forgotten, and they only treat quite incidentally

of the people's traditions. But as it is the most salient points of

any matter which must always arrest attention first, it has been

chiefly the mountains of Tirol to which attention has hitherto

been drawn. Besides the universally useful 'Murray' and others,

very efficient guidance to them has of late years been afforded in

the pages of 'Ball's Central Alps,' in some of the contributions to

'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers;' in the various works of Messrs. Gilbert

and Churchill; and now Miss A. B. Edwards has shown what even ladies

may do among its Untrodden Peaks. The aspects of its scenery and

character, for which it is my object on the other hand to claim

attention, lie hidden among its Valleys, Trodden and Untrodden. And

down in its Valleys it is that its traditions dwell. [2]

If the names of the Valleys of Tirol do not at present awaken in

our mind stirring memories such as cling to other European routes

whither our steps are invited, ours is the fault, in that we have

overlooked their history. The past has scattered liberally among

them characteristic landmarks dating from every age, and far beyond

the reach of dates. Every stage even of the geological formation

of the country--which may almost boast of being in its courage and

its probity, as it does boast of being in the shape in which it

is fashioned, the heart of Europe--is sung of in popular Sage as

the result of some poetically conceived agency; humdrum physical

forces transformed by the wand of imagination into personal beings;

now bountiful, now retributive; now loving; now terrible; but nearly

always rational and just.

To the use of those who care to find such gleams of poetry thrown

athwart Nature's work the following pages are dedicated. The traditions

they record do not claim to have been all gathered at first hand

from the stocks on which they were grown or grafted. A life, or

several lives, would hardly have sufficed for the work. In Germany,

unlike Italy, myths have called into being a whole race of collectors,

and Tirol has an abundant share of them among her offspring. Not only

have able and diligent sons devoted themselves professionally to the

preservation of her traditions, but every valley nurtures appreciative

minds to whom it is a delight to store them in silence, and who

willingly discuss such lore with the traveller who has a taste for it.

That a foreigner should attempt to add another to these very full,

if not exhaustive collections, would seem an impertinent labour of

supererogation. My work, therefore, has been to collate and arrange

those traditions which have been given me, or which I have found

ready heaped up; to select from the exuberant mass those which,

for one reason or another, appeared to possess the most considerable

interest; and to localise them in such a way as to facilitate their

study both by myself and others along the wayside; not neglecting,

however, any opportunity that has come in my way of conversing about

them with the people themselves, and so meeting them again, living,

as it were, in their respective homes. This task, as far as I know,

has not been performed by any native writer. [3]

The names of the collectors I have followed are, to all who know the

country, the best possible guarantee of the authenticity of what they

advance; and I subjoin here a list of the chief works I have either

studied myself or referred to, through the medium of kind helpers in

Tirol, so as not to weary the reader as well as myself with references

in every chapter:--

Von Alpenburg: Mythen und Sagen Tirols.

Brandis: Ehrenkränzel Tirols.

H. J. von Collin: Kaiser Max auf der Martinswand: ein Gedicht.

Das Drama des Mittelalters in Tirol. A. Pickler.

Hormayr: Taschenbuch für die Vaterländische Geschichte.

Meyer: Sagenkränzlein aus Tirol.

Nork: Die Mythologie der Volkssagen und Volksmärchen.

Die Oswaldlegende und ihre Beziehung auf Deutscher Mythologie.

Oswald v. Wolkenstein: Gedichte. Reprint, with introduction

by Weber.

Perini: I Castelli del Tirolo.

Der Pilger durch Tirol; geschichtliche und topographische

Beschreibung der Wallfahrtsorte u. Gnadenbilder in Tirol

u. Vorarlberg.

A. Pickler: Frühlieder aus Tirol.

Scherer: Geographie und Geschichte von Tirol.

Simrock: Legenden.

Schneller: Märchen und Sagen aus Wälsch-Tirol.

Stafler: Das Deutsche Tirol und Vorarlberg.

Die Sage von Kaiser Max auf der Martinswand.

J. Thaler: Geschichte Tirols von der Urzeit.

Der Untersberg bei Salzburg, dessen geheimnissvolle Sagen der

Vorzeit, nebst Beschreibung dieses Wunderberges.

Vonbun: Sagen Vorarlbergs.

Weber: Das Land Tirol. Drei Bänder.

Zingerle: König Laurin, oder der Rosengarten in Tirol. Die Sagen

von Margaretha der Maultasche. Sagen, Märchen u. Gebräuche aus

Tirol. Der berühmte Landwirth Andreas Hofer.

I hope my little maps will convey a sufficient notion of the divisions

of Tirol, the position of its valleys and of the routes through them

tracked in the following pages. I have been desirous to crowd them

as little as possible, and to indicate as far as may be, by the size

and direction of the words, the direction and the relative importance

of the valleys.

Of its four divisions the present volume is concerned with the first

(Vorarlberg), the fourth (Wälsch-Tirol), and with the greater part

of the valleys of the second (Nord or Deutsch-Tirol.) In the remoter

recesses of them all some strange and peculiar dialects linger,

which perhaps hold a mine in store for the philologist. Yet, though

the belief was expressed more than thirty years ago [4] that they

might serve as a key to the Etruscan language, I believe no one has

since been at the pains to pursue this most interesting research. In

the hope of inducing some one to enter this field of enquiry, I will

subjoin a list of some few expressions which do not carry on their face

a striking resemblance to either of the main languages of the country,

leaving to the better-informed to make out whence they come. The two

main languages (and these will suffice the ordinary traveller for

all practical purposes), are German in Vorarlberg and North Tirol,

Italian in Wälsch-Tirol, mixed with occasional patches of German; and

in South-Tirol with a considerable preponderance of these patches. A

tendency to bring about the absorption of the Italian-speaking valleys

into Italy has been much stimulated in modern times, and in the

various troubled epochs of the last five-and-twenty years Garibaldian

attacks have been made upon the frontier line. The population was found

stedfast in its loyalty to Austria, however, and all these attempts

were repulsed by the native sharp-shooters, with little assistance

from the regular troops. An active club and newspaper propagandism is

still going on, promoted by those who would obliterate Austria from

the map of Europe. For them, there exists only German-Tirol and the

Trentino. And the Trentino is now frequently spoken of as a province

bordering on, instead of as in reality, a division of, Tirol.

Although German is generally spoken throughout Vorarlberg, there

is a mixture of Italian expressions in the language of the people,

which does not occur at all in North-Tirol: as

fazanedle, for a handkerchief (Ital. fazzoletto.)

gaude, gladness (Ital. gaudio.)

guttera, a bottle (Ital. gutto a cruet.)

gespusa, a bride (Ital. sposa).

gouter, a counterpane (Ital. coltre).

schapel, the hat (peculiar to local costume), (Ital. cappello,

a hat).

The k in many German words is here written with ch; and no doubt

such names as the Walgau, Walserthal, &c., commemorate periods of

Venetian rule.

Now for some of the more 'outlandish' words:--

baschga' (the final n, en, rn, &c. of the German form of the

infinitive is usually clipped by the Vorarlbergers, even in German

words, just as the Italians constantly clip the final letters

of their infinitive, as anda' and andar' for andare, to walk,

&c.) to overcome.

batta', to serve.

pütze' or buetza', to sew or to piece.

häss, clothing.

res, speech.

tobel, a ravine.

feel, a girl; spudel, an active girl; schmel, a smiling girl.

hattel, a goat; mütl, a kid.

Atti, [5] father, and datti, 'daddy.'

frei, pleasant.

zoana, a wattled basket.

schlutta and schoope, a smock-frock.

täibe, anger.

kîba', to strive.

rêra', to weep. [6]

musper, merry.

tribiliera', to constrain.

waedle, swift.

raetig werden, to deliberate.

Tripstrüll, = Utopia.

wech, spruce, also vain.

laegla, a little vessel.

hengest, a friendly gathering of men. [7]

koga, cursed, also corrupted.

fegga, a wing.

krom, a gift.

blaetz, a patch.

grind, a brute's head, a jolterhead.

bratza, a paw, an ugly hand.

briegga', to pucker up the face ready for crying.

deihja, a shepherd's or cattle-herd's hut. [8]

also dieja, which is generally reserved for a hut formed by taking

advantage of a natural hole, leaving only a roof to be supplied.

garreg, prominent. (I think that gareggiante in Italian is

sometimes used in a similar sense.)

Other words in Vorarlberg dialect are very like English, as:--

Witsch, a witch.

Pfülle, a pillow.

rôt, wrath.

gompa', to jump.

gülla, a gulley.

also datti and schmel, mentioned already.

Aftermötig (after-Monday) is a local name for Tuesday.

In Wälsch-Tirol, they have

carega, a chair.

bagherle, a little carriage, a car.

troz, a mountain path.

Malga, [9] equivalent to Alp, a mountain pasture.

zufolo, [10] a pipe.

And Turlulù (infra, p. 432) is nearly identical in form and sound

with a word expounded in Etrus. Researches, p. 299.

Of 'Salvan' and 'Gannes,' I have already spoken. [11]

But all this is, I am aware, but a mere turning over of the surface;

my only wish is that some one of stronger capacity will dig deeper. Of

many dialects, too, I have had no opportunity of knowing anything at

all. Here are, however, a few suggestive or strange words from North

and South Tirol:--

Pill, which occurs in various localities [12] of both those provinces

to designate a place built on a little hill or knoll, is identical

with an Etruscan word to which Mr. Isaac Taylor gives a similar

significance. [13] I do not overlook Weber's observation that 'Pill

is obviously a corruption of Büchel (the German for a knoll), through

Bühel and Bühl;' but, which proceeds from which is often a knotty point

in questions of derivation, and Weber did not know of the Etruscan

'pil.'

Ziller and celer I have already alluded to, [14] though of course

it may be said that the Tirolean river had its name from an already

romanised Etruscan word, and does not necessarily involve direct

contact with the Etruscan vocabulary.

Grau-wutzl is a name in the Zillerthal for the Devil.

Disel, for disease of any kind.

Gigl, a sheep.

Kiess, a heifer.

Triel, a lip.

Bueg, a leg.

knospen stands in South-Tirol for wooden shoes, and

fokazie for cakes used at Eastertide. (Focaccia is used for 'cake'

in many parts of Italy, and 'dar pan per focaccia' is equivalent to

'tit for tat' all over the Peninsula.)

It remains only to excuse myself for the spelling of the word Tirol. I

have no wish to incur the charge of 'pedantry' which has heretofore

been laid on me for so writing it. It seems to me that, in the absence

of any glaring mis-derivation, it is most natural to adopt a country's

own nomenclature; and in Tirol, or by Tirolean writers, I have never

seen the name spelt with a y. I have not been able to get nearer its

derivation than that the Castle above Meran, which gave it to the

whole principality, was called by the Romans, when they rebuilt it,

Teriolis. Why they called it so, or what it was called before, I have

not been able to learn. The English use of the definite article in

naming Tirol is more difficult to account for than the adoption of

the y, in which we seem to have been misled by the Germans. We do not

say 'the France' or 'the Italy;' even to accommodate ourselves to the

genius of the languages of those countries, therefore, that we should

have gone out of our way to say 'the Tyrol' when the genius of that

country's language does not require us so to call it, can have arisen

only from a piece of carelessness which there is no need to repeat.

CONTENTS.

Page

CHAPTER I.

VORARLBERG.

Introductory remarks on the use of myths, legends, and traditions;

their imagery beyond imitation; have become a study; now a science;

Prof. M. Müller; Rev. G. W. Cox--Karl Blind on attractions

for the English in Germanic mythology; mythological persons of

Tirol--Mythological symbols in art; in poetry; Dante on popular

traditions; their record of thoughts and customs; Tullio Dandolo;

Depping; Tirolean peasants 1

Our introduction to Tirol--Excursions round Feldkirch; the

Katzenthurm; St. Fidelis; St. Eusebius--Rankweil--Fridolins-

kapelle--Valduna--S. Gerold--Route into Tirol by Lindau--Bregenz,

birthplace of Flatz--Legend of Charlemagne; of Ulrich and

Wendelgard--Ehreguota--Riedenberg school--the natural preserves

of Lustenau--Merboth, Diedo, and Ilga--Embs; its chronicles; Swiss

embroidery; Sulphur baths; Jews' synagogue--Lichtenstein; Vaduz;

Hot sulphur-baths of Pfäffers; Taminaschlund; Luziensteig 12

From Feldkirch to Innsbruck--The Pass of Frastanz; Shepherd lad's

heroism; the traitor's fate--S. Joder and the Devil--Bludenz--Montafon;

who gave it its arms--Prazalanz--The Tear-rill; Kirschwasser--Dalaas--

Silberthal--Das Bruederhüsle--Engineering of the Arlberg pass--

Stanzerthal--Hospice of St. Christof--Wiesburg--Ischgl; its 'skullery'

--Landeck--Legend of Schrofenstein--Sharpshooter's monument--Auf dem

Fern--Nassereit--Tschirgants Branch road to Füssen--Plansee--Lechthal

--Imst--Pitzthal--Growth of a modern legend--Heiterwang--Ehrenberger

Klauze Archenthal--Vierzehn Nothhelfer 24

A border adventure; our party; our plans; our route--Aarau--Rorschach;

its skeleton-Caryatidæ--Oberriet--Our luggage overpowers the station-

master--Our wild colt--Our disaster--Our walk--Our embroideress guide

--The Rhine ferry--The Rhætian Alps--Altenstadt--Schattenburg--British

missionaries to Tirol--Feldkirch, festa, costumes--Our luggage again

--Our new route--Our postilion--The Stase-saddle--The Devil's House

--The Voralberger-ghost 39

CHAPTER II.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL--(RIGHT INN-BANK).

KUFSTEIN TO ROTTENBURG.

Kufstein--Pienzenau's unlucky joke--Ainliffen--Rocsla Sandor; the

Hungarian lovers--National anthem--Thierberg--A modern pilgrim--

Der Büsser--Public memorials of religion--Zell--Ottokapelle--Kundl

--S. Leonhard auf der Wiese; its sculptures--Henry II.'s vow--The

Auflänger-Bründl--Rattenberg--Rottenburg--St. Nothburga; her integrity,

charity, persecution, patience, piety, observance of Sunday; judgment

overtakes Ottilia: Nothburga's restoration; legend of her burial--Henry

VI. of Rottenburg and Friedrich mit der leeren Tasche--Character of

each--Henry's literary tastes; his mysterious fate--The fire spares

Nothburga's cell--Mining legend 53

CHAPTER III.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL--(RIGHT INN-BANK).

THE ZILLERTHAL.

The Zillerthal--Conveyances--Etruscan remnant--Thurnegg and

Tratzberg across the river--Strass--Corn or coin?--The two

churches of Schlitters--Castles of the Zillerthal--The peace of

Kropfsberg--'The only Fügen'--The patriot Riedl--Zell--Expulsion

of Lutherans--Hippach--Hainzenberg; ultra co-operative gold

mines--Mayrhof--Garnet mills--Mariä-Rastkapelle--Hulda--Tributary

valleys--Duxerthal--Hinter-Dux--Hardiness of the people--Legends of

the frozen wall--Dog's-throat valley--The Devil's path--The Zemmer

glacier--Schwarzensteingrund 79

CHAPTER IV.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL--(RIGHT INN-BANK).

ZILLERTHAL CUSTOMS--THE WILDSCHÖNAU.

Zillerthal customs--Games--Spirits play with gold skittles--Pedlar

of Starkenberg--Dances: Schnodahüpfl: Hosennagler--Cow-fights--

Kirchtag--Primizen and Sekundizen--Carneval--Christnacht--

Kloubabrod--Sternsingen--Gömacht--Weddings--Zutrinken--Customs

of other valleys--The cat, patron of courtship 92

Kundl again--Wiltschenau--Niederaich--Kundlburg--Oberau--Niederrau

--Thierberg--Silver-mines--Legends of dwarfs and Knappen--Moidl and

the gold-cave--Legend of the Landmark--Der Umgehende Schuster--

Perchtl, Pilate's wife--Comparative mythologists--Wodin, Wilder

Jäger, Wilhelm Tell--Symbolism in tales of enchanted Princesses--

Perahta, the daughter of Dagha--Brixlegg--Burgleckner--Claudia de'

Medici--Biener's dying challenge--The Bienerweible--Sandbichler,

the Bible-commentator 110

CHAPTER V.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL.

LEFT INN-BANK.

Jenbach--Wiesing--Thiergarten--Kramsach--Brandenberger Ache--

Voldepp--The Mooserthal--The Mariathal--Rheinthalersee--Achenrain

--Mariathal, village and ruined Dominican convent--Georg von

Freundsberg--The Brandenbergerthal--Steinberg--Heimaththal,

Freiheitthal--The gold-herds of the Reiche Spitze--Die Kalte

Pein--Mariastein--The irremovable image--Jenbach--Wiesing--The

Thiergarten--The Achenthal--The Käsbachthal--The Blue Achensee--

Skolastica--Pertisau--Buchau, Nature's imitation fortress--

Tegernsee--The Achen-pass--The judgment of Achensee--Playing at

ball in St. Paul's cathedral--Legend of Wildenfeld--Eben--The

escape of the vampire--Stans--Joseph Arnold--Tirolean artists--

The Stallenthal--St. Georgenberg--Unsere liebe Frau zur Linde--

Viecht, Benedictine monastery, library, sculpture--Vomperthal--

Sigmundslust--Sigismund the Monied--Terfens--Marialarch--

Volandseck--Thierberg--S. Michael's--S. Martin's--The Gnadenwald

--Baumkirchen--Fritzens--External tokens of faith--The holy

family at home--Frost phantoms--Hall; Münzthurm;

Sandwirthszwanziger; salt-works; Speckbacher; Waldaufischer-

Kapelle; S. Saviour's; institutions of Hall--Johanniswürmchen;

Bauernkrieg--Excursions round Hall; the Salzberg; the

explorations of the 'Fromme Ritter;' grandeur of the salt-mines;

salt-works; visit of Hofer and Speckbacher; the Salzthal--Absam;

the dragons of Schloss Melans; Count Spaur's ride to Babylon;

combat with the toad--Max Müller on legends--The image on the

window-pane; the Gnadenmutter von Absam; Stainer the violin-maker

--Mils--Grünegg--Schneeberg--The Gnadenwald--The Glockenhof; the

Glockengiesser; his temptation, condemnation, and dying request--

The Loreto-kirche--Heiligenkreuz--Taur--Thürl--The Kaisersäule--

St. Romedius, St. Vigilius and the bear; the spectre priest--Rum,

landslip 125

CHAPTER VI.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL--(RIGHT INN-BANK).

SCHWATZ.

Schwatz, its situation; effigy of S. John Nepomuk; his example; the

village frescoes; a hunt for a breakfast; the lessons of traveller's

fare; market; church; its size disproportioned to the population; the

reason of this--Schwatz a Roman station; silver-mines; prosperity;

importance; influence of miners of Saxony; reformation; riots;

polemical disputes; decline; copper and iron works; other industries;

misfortunes. History of the parish church; peculiar construction;

the Knappenhochaltar; monuments; Hans Dreyling; altar-pieces;

Michaels-kapelle; its legend; churchyard; its reliquary and holy

oil; the Robler and the gossip's corpse; penance and vision of

the unmarried--Franciscan church--characteristics of the inns;

singular use of the beds; guitar playing--Blessed Sacrament visits the

sick--Freundsberg; the ruined castles of Tirol; Georg von Freundsberg;

his prowess, strength, success; devotion of his men; sung of as a hero;

his part in the siege of Rome, sudden death, and ruin of his house;

tower; chapel--Weird-woman; her story; her legends; Oswald Milser of

Seefeld; the bird-catcher of the Goaslahn; strange birds; chamois;

the curse of the swallow--Hospital; chapel--Tobacco; factory girls

at benediction--Pews in German churches 168

CHAPTER VII.

NORTH TIROL--UNTERINNTHAL--(RIGHT INN-BANK).

EXCURSIONS FROM SCHWATZ.

Falkenstein; exhausted mines; religious observances of miners; tokens

of their craft--Buch--Margareth--Galzein--Kugelmoos--The Schwaderalpe

--The Kellerspitze--Troi--Arzberg--Heiligenkreuzkapelle--Baierische-

Rumpel--Pill--The Weerthal, Schloss Rettenberg; its spectre warder--

The Kolsassthal--Wattens--Walchen--Mols--The Navisthal--Lizumthal; the

Blue Lake--Volders--Voldererthal--Hanzenheim--Friedberg--Aschbach, why

it is in the parish of Mils--Hippolitus Guarinoni, page to St. Charles,

physician of the poor; religious zeal; church of St. Charles,

Servitenkloster, the Stein des Gehorsams; analogous legend--Rinn;

S. Anderle's martyrdom; the Judenstein; lettered lilies--Aversion to

Jews--Voldererbad--Ampass--Lans--The Patscherkofl--The Lansersee;

the poor proprietor and the unjust noble--Sistrans; legend of its

champion wrestler--Heiligenwasser 200

CHAPTER VIII.

NORTH TIROL--THE INNTHAL.

INNSBRUCK.

Our greeting; characteristics of the people; Innsbruck's treatment

of Kaiser Max; the OEstereichischer hof; our apartment; mountain

view; character of the town; its history--Wilten; the minster; myth

of Haymon the giant; his burial-place; parish church; Marienbild

unter den vier Säulen; relic of the thundering legion--First record

of Innsbruck; chosen for seat of government; for residence by

Friedl mit der leeren Tasche--Character of Tirolean rulers--the

Goldene-Dachl-Gebäude--Sigismund the Monied; his reception

of Christian I.; condition of Tirol in his time; his castles;

abdication--Maximilian; builds the Burg; magnificence of his reign;

legends of him; his decline--Charles Quint; cedes Tirol to Ferdinand

I.; his wise administration; quiets popular agitation; Charles

Quint's visits to Innsbruck; attacked by Maurice, Elector of Saxony;

carried into Carinthia in a litter; death of Maurice--Ferdinand

I., the Hof-Kirche; Maximilian's cenotaph; its bas-relief;

statues; Mirakel-Bild des H. Anton; Fürstenchor; abjuration of

Queen Christina--Introduction of Jesuits; results--The 'Fromme

Siechin'--Ferdinand II.; his peaceful tastes; romantic attachment;

Philippine Welser; ménage at Schloss Ambras; collections; curiosities;

portraits; Philippine's end 225

CHAPTER IX.

NORTH TIROL--THE INNTHAL.

INNSBRUCK (continued).

Wallenstein's vow--Theophrastus Paracelsus; his mysterious dealings

--The Tummelplatz--The Silberne Kapelle--Earthquake and dearth;

their lessons--Ferdinand's devotion to the Blessed Sacrament;

analogous legend of Rudolf of Hapsburg--Ferdinand's second marriage

--The Capuchin Church--Maximilian the Deutschmeister; introduces the

Servites--Paul Lederer--Maximilian's hermitage--S. Lorenzo of

Brindisi--Dreiheiligkeitskirche--Provisions against ravages of the

Thirty Years' War--The Siechenhaus--Leopold V.; dispensed from his

episcopal jurisdiction and vows; Marries Claudia de' Medici--

Friedrich v. Tiefenbach--Festivities at Innsbruck--The Hofgarten--

Kranach's Madonna, Mariähülfskirche built to receive it; translation

to the Pfarr-kirche under Ferdinand Karl--Ferdinand Karl--Regency of

Claudia de' Medici; administrative ability; Italian influences--

Sigismund Franz--Claudia Felicita--Charles of Lotharingia--War of

succession; Bavarian inroad of 1703; the Pontlatzerbrücke;

Baierische-Rumpel--St. Annensäule--Joseph I.--Karl Philipp; builds

the Land-haus and gymnasium, restores the Pfarrkirche; stucco and

marble decorations; frescoes; preservation of Damian Asam--

Strafarbeitshaus--Church of S. John Nepomuk; his popularity;

canonisation--Maria Theresa; her partiality for Innsbruck; example;

Prussian prisoners; marriage of Leopold; death of Francis I.; the

Triumphpforte, the Damenstift--Joseph II.--Archduchess Maria

Elizabeth--Pius VI. passes through Innsbruck--Leopold II.--Repeal

of Josephinischen measures--Francis II.--Outbreak of the French

revolution---Das Mädchen v. Spinges--The Auferstehungsfeier--

Archduchess Maria Elizabeth--Gottesacker--Treaty of Pressburg--

'The Year Nine'--Andreas Hofer--Peace of Schönbrunn--Speckbacher;

successes at Berg Isel; Hofer as Schützen-Kommandant; his

moderation, simplicity, subordination; his betrayal; last hours;

firmness; execution--Restoration of Austrian rule--Hofer's

monument--Tirolese loyalty in 1848--The Ferdinandeum; its

curiosities--Early editions of German authors--Paintings on cobweb

--The Schiess-stand--Policy of the Viennese Government,

constitutional opposition of Tirol--Population of Innsbruck 265

CHAPTER X.

NORTH TIROL--OBERINNTHAL.

INNSBRUCK TO ZIRL AND SCHARNITZ--INNSBRUCK TO THE LISENS-FERNER.

Excursions from Innsbruck--Mühlau; new church; Baronin Sternbach

--Judgment of Frau Hütt--Büchsenhausen--Weierburg--Mariä-Brunn--

Hottingen; monuments in the Friedhof--Schloss Lichtenthurm--The

Höttingerbild; the student's Madonna; stalactites--Excursion to

Zirl--Grossen Herr-Gott Strasse--Kranebitten--The Schwefelloch--

The Hundskapelle--The Zirlerchristen--Gross Solstein--The

Martinswand; danger of the Emperor Maximilian; Collin's ballad;

who led the Kaiser astray?--His importance in Europe; efforts to

rescue him; the Blessed Sacrament visits him; unknown deliverer

--Martinsbühl--Traditions of Kaiser Max--Zirl--Fragenstein; its

hidden treasure--Leiten--Reit--Seefeld--The Heilige Blutskapelle

--The Seekapelle--Scharnitz--Isarthal--Porta Klaudia--Dirstenöhl

--The beggar-woman's prayer; vision of the peasant of Dorf 310

Unter-Perfuss--Selrainthal--The Melach--Rothenbrunn--Fatscherthal

--The Hohe Villerspitz--Sonnenberg--Magdalenen-Bründl--Character

of the Selrainthalers--Ober-Perfuss; Peter Anich--Kematen--Völs;

the Blasienberg; S. Jodok--The Galwiese--The Schwarze-Kreuzkapelle;

Hölzl's vow--Ferneck--Berg Isel--Noise of the rifle practice--Count

v. Stachel--Natters and Mutters--Waidburg--The Nockspitze--Götzens

--Schloss Völlenberg; Oswald v. Wolkenstein--Birgitz--Axams--The

Sendersthal 329

CHAPTER XI.

WÄLSCH-TIROL.

THE WÄLSCHEROLISCHE-ETSCHTHAL AND ITS TRIBUTARY VALLEYS.

Val di Lagarina--Borghetto--Ala--Roveredo--Surrounding

castles--Dante at Lizzana--The Slavini di S. Marco--La Busa

del Barbaz; its myths--Serravalle--Schloss Junk--The Madonna

del Monte--Industries--Chapel of S. Columban--Trent, Festa of

St. Vigilius; comparison between Trent and Rome; the Domkirche;

its notabilia; Sta. Maria Maggiore; seat of the council; assenting

crucifix; centenary celebration; legend of the organ-builder--Church

of St. Peter; Chapel of S. Simonin; club; museum; Palazzi; Palazzo

Zambelli, Teufelspalast; its legend; General Gallas--The Madonna alle

Laste; view of Trent--Dos Trento--St. Ingenuin's garden; St. Albuin's

apples--Lavis--French spoliation--Restitution--Wälsch Michel 340

Tributary valleys--Val di Non; Annaunia--Rochetta Pass

Wälschmetz--Visiaun--Spaur Maggiore--Denno--Schloss Belasis--The

Seidenbaum--Tobel Wild-see--Cles; Tavola Clesiana; Roman remains;

the Schwarzen Felder--SS. Sisinus, Martyrius and Alexander--Val di

Sole--Livo--Magras; Val di Rabbi; San Bernardo--Malè--Charles Quint's

visit--Pellizano--Val di Pejo--Cogolo--Corno de' tre Signori--Val

Vermiglio--Tonale; the witches' sabbath there--Tregiovo--Cloz--U-Liebe

Frau auf dem Gampen--Fondo--Sanzeno--Legend of the three brothers:

mithraic bas-relief--The Tirolean Petrarch--St. Romediusthal; legend of

St. Romedius; angelic consecration; conversion of the false penitents;

extraordinary construction and arrangement of the building; romantic

situation; fifteen centuries of uninterrupted veneration--Castel Thun;

attachment of the people to the family; a Nonesade; aqueduct--Dombel;

its Etruscan key; its import 358

The Avisiothal--Val di Cembra; its inaccessibility--Altrei;

presentation of colours--Fleimserthal; Cavalese; its church a

museum of Tirolese Art; local parliament; legend of its site;

handsome new church--Fassathal--Moena--Analogous English and

French traditions--Marriage customs of the valley--The Feuriger

Verräther--Vigo--The Marmolata; its legends--St. Ulrich 374

CHAPTER XII.

WÄLSCH-TIROL.

VAL SUGANA--GIUDICARIA--FOLKLORE.

Val Sugana--Baselga--The Madonna di Pinè; legend of the Madonna di

Caravaggio--Pergine; miners; the Canoppa--The Schloss--Marriage

customs of the valley--Lake Caldonazzo--St. Hermes at

Calzeranica--Bosentino--Nossa signora del Feles--The sleeper

of Valle del Orco--Caldonazzo--Lafraun; legend of the disunited

brothers--Borgo, the Italian Meran--Franciscan convent; Castel

Telvana; dangers of a carneval procession; Count Welsburg's

vow--Gallant border defences--Stalactite caves of Costalta--Sette

Comuni--Castelalto--Strigno--Castelrotto--Cima d'Asta--Quarazza garnet

quarry--Ivano--Grigno; Legend of St. Udalric--Castel Tesino--Canal

San Bovo to Primiero--Tale of Virginia Loss; humble heroism--Le Tezze;

modern heroes 382

Judicarien; its divisions--Castel Madruzz; Cardinal Karl Madruzz;

his dispensation; its conditions--Abraham's Garden--Sta. Massenza;

Bishop's Summer Palace--Loreto-kapelle--The Rendenathal; St. Vigilius;

his zeal; early admission to the episcopate; missionary labours;

builds churches; overthrows idols; his stoning; his burial;

the rock cloven for his body to pass; the Acqua della Vela; the

bread of Mortaso--S. Zulian; his legend; his penitence--Caresolo;

its frescoes; another memorial of Charles Quint; his estimation of

Jews--New churches--Legends of Condino and Campiglio--Riva on the

Garda-see; its churches; its olive branches--The Altissimo di Nago;

view from S. Giacomo; optical illusion--Brentonico--The Ponte delle

Streghe--Mori; tobacco cultivation 400

Character of Wälsch-Tirol folklore--Orco-Sagen; his transformations in

many lands; transliterations of his name in Tirol--The Salvan and

Gannes; perhaps Etruscan genii--Salvanel; Bedelmon; Salvadegh--The

Beatrik, identified with Dietrich von Bern--The Angane--What

came of marrying an Angana--The focarelli of Lunigiana--The

Filò--Froberte--Donna Berta dal nas longh--The discriminating

Salvan--The Angana's ring; tales of the Three Wishes and the

Faithful Beasts; legend of the Drei Feyen of Thal Vent--Legend

of St. Kümmerniss; her effigy in Cadore; the prevailing

minstrel--Turlulù--Remnants of Etruscan language--'Storielle

da rider'--The bear-hunters--The horrible snail--How to make a

church tower grow--Social customs perhaps derived from Etruscan;

similar to those of Lombardy and Lunigians--All Souls' Day; feast

of Sta. Lucia; Christmas; St. Anthony's Day; Carneval; Giovedi de'

Gnocchi; St. Urban--Popular sayings about thunder, crickets, brambles,

cockchafers, swallows, scorpions--Astronomical riddles 408

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Kufstein Frontispiece.

MAPS.

The Valleys of Tirol to face p. 12

Unterinnthal and Neighbourhood of Innsbruck 53

Wälsch-Tirol 341

THE

VALLEYS OF TIROL

THEIR TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS.

CHAPTER I.

VORARLBERG.

. . . . . Everywhere

Fable and Truth have shed, in rivalry,

Each her peculiar influence. Fable came,

And laughed and sang, arraying Truth in flowers,

Like a young child her grandam. Fable came,

Earth, sea, and sky reflecting, as she flew,

A thousand, thousand colours not their own.--Rogers.

'Traditions, myths, legends! what is the use of recording and

propagating the follies and superstitions of a bygone period, which

it is the boast of our modern enlightenment to have cast to the winds?'

Such is the hasty exclamation which allusion to these fantastic matters

very frequently elicits. With many they find no favour because they

seem to yield no profit; nay, rather to set up a hindrance in the

way of progress and culture.

Yet, on the other hand, in spite of their seeming foolishness,

they have worked themselves into favour with very various classes of

readers and students. There is an audacity in their imagery which no

mere sensation-writer could attempt without falling Phaeton-like from

his height; and they plunge us so hardily into a world of their own,

so preposterous and so unlike ours, while all the time describing it

in a language we can understand without effort, that no one who seeks

occasional relief from modern monotony but must experience refreshment

in the weird excursions their jaunty will-o'the-wisp dance leads

him. But more than this; their sportive fancy has not only charmed

the dilettante; they have revealed that they hold inherent in them

mysteries which have extorted the study of deep and able thinkers,

one of whom [15] insisted, now some years ago, that 'by this time the

study of popular tales has become a recognized branch of the studies

of mankind;' while important and erudite treatises from his own pen and

that of others [16] have elevated it further from a study to a science.

All who love poetry and art, as well as all who are interested in

the study of languages or races, all who have any care concerning

the stirrings of the human mind in its search after the supernatural

and the infinite, must confess to standing largely in debt, in the

absence of more positive records of the earliest phases of thought,

to these various mythologies.

Karl Blind, in a recent paper on 'German Mythology,' [17] draws

attention to some interesting considerations why the Germanic

traditions, which we chiefly meet with in Tirol, should have a

fascination for us in this country, in the points of contact they

present with our language and customs. Not content with reckoning that

'in the words of the Rev. Isaac Taylor we have obtruded on our notice

the names of the deities who were worshipped by the Germanic races'

on every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of our lives,

as we all know, he would even find the origin of 'Saturday' in the

name of a god "Sætere" hidden, (a malicious deity whose name is but

an alias for Loki,) of whom, it is recorded, that once at a great

banquet he so insulted all the heavenly rulers that they chained

him, Prometheus-like, to a rock, and made a serpent trickle down its

venom upon his face. His faithful wife Sigyn held a cup over him to

prevent the venom reaching his face, but whenever she turned away to

empty the cup his convulsive pains were such that the earth shook and

trembled.... Few people now-a-days, when pronouncing the simple word

"Saturday," think or know of this weird and pathetic myth. [18]... When

we go to Athens we easily think of the Greek goddess Athene, when

we go to Rome we are reminded of Romulus its mythic founder. But

when we go to Dewerstone in Devonshire, to Dewsbury in Yorkshire,

to Tewesley in Surrey, to Great Tew in Oxfordshire, to Tewen in

Herefordshire--have a great many of us even an inkling that these are

places once sacred to Tiu, the Saxon Mars? When we got to Wednesbury,

to Wanborough, to Woodnesborough, to Wembury, to Wanstrow, to Wanslike,

to Woden Hill, we visit localities where the Great Spirit Wodan was

once worshipped. So also we meet with the name of the God of Thunder

in Thudersfield, Thundersleigh, Thursleigh, Thurscross, Thursby,

and Thurso. The German Venus Freia is traceable in Fridaythorpe and

Frathorpe, in Fraisthorpe and Freasley. Her son was Baldur, also called

Phol or Pol, the sweet god of peace and light; his name comes out at

Balderby, Balderton, Polbrook, Polstead and Polsden. Sætere is probably

hidden in Satterleigh and Satterthwaite; Ostara or Eostre, the Easter

goddess of Spring, appears in two Essex parishes, Good Easter and

High Easter, in Easterford, Easterlake and Eastermear. Again Hel, the

gloomy mistress of the underworld, has given her name to Hellifield,

Hellathyrne, Helwith, Healeys and Helagh--all places in Yorkshire,

where people seem to have had a particular fancy for that dark and

grimy deity. Then we have Asgardby and Aysgarth, places reminding us

of Asgard, the celestial garden or castle of the Æsir--the Germanic

Olympus. And these instances might be multiplied by the hundred, so

full is England to this day of the vestiges of Germanic mythology. Far

more important is the fact that in this country, just as in Germany,

we find current folk-lore; and quaint customs and superstitious beliefs

affecting the daily life, which are remnants of the ancient creed. A

rime apparently so bereft of sense as

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home!

Thy house is on fire!

Thy children at home!

can be proved to refer to a belief of our forefathers in the coming

downfall of the universe by a great conflagration. The ladybird

has its name from having been sacred to our Lady Freia. The words

addressed to the insect were once an incantation--an appeal to the

goddess for the protection of the soul of the unborn, over whom in

her heavenly abode she was supposed to keep watch and ward, and whom

she is asked to shield from the fire that consumes the world.... If we

ever wean men from the crude notions that haunt them, and yet promote

the enjoyment of fancies which serve as embellishing garlands for

the rude realities of life, we cannot do better than promote a fuller

scientific knowledge of that circle of ideas in which those moved who

moulded our very speech. We feel delight in the conceptions of the

Greek Olympus. Painters and poets still go back to that old fountain

of fancy. Why should we not seek for similar delight in studying the

figures of the Germanic Pantheon, and the rich folk-lore connected

with them? Why should that powerful Bible of the Norse religion,

which contains such a wealth of striking ideas and descriptions in

language the most picturesque, not be as much perused as the Iliad,

the Odyssey, or the Æneid? Is it too much to say that many even of

those who know of the Koran, of the precepts of Kou-fu-tsi and of

Buddha, of the Zendavesta and the Vedas, have but the dimmest notion

of that grand Germanic Scripture?...

'Can it be said that there is a lack of poetical conception in

the figure of Wodan or Odin, the hoary ruler of the winds and the

clouds, who, clad in a flowing mantle, careers through the sky on a

milk-white horse, from whose nostrils fire issues, and who is followed

at night by a retinue of heroic warriors whom he leads into the golden

shield-adorned Walhalla? Is there a want of artistic delineation in

Freia--an Aphrodite and Venus combined, who changes darkness into

light wherever she appears--the goddess with the streaming golden

locks and siren voice, who hovers in her sun-white robe between

heaven and earth, making flowers sprout along her path and planting

irresistible longings in the hearts of men? Do we not see in bold and

well-marked outline the figure of the red-bearded, steel-handed Thor,

who rolls along the sky in his goat-drawn car, and who smites the

mountain giants with his magic hammer? Are these mere spectres without

distinct contour?... are they not, even in their uncouth passions,

the representatives of a primitive race, in which the pulse throbs with

youthful freshness? Or need I allude to that fantastic theory of minor

deities, of fairies and wood-women, and elfin and pixies and cobolds,

that have been evolved out of all the forces of Nature by the Teutonic

mind, and before whose bustling crowd even Hellenic imagination pales?

'Then what a dramatic power has the Germanic mythology! The gods of

classic antiquity have been compared to so many statues ranged along

a stately edifice ... in the Germanic view all is active struggle,

dramatic contest, with a deep dark background of inevitable fate that

controls alike gods and men.'

Such are the Beings whom we meet wandering all over Tirol; transformed

often into new personalities, invested with new attributes and

supplemented with many a mysterious companion, the offspring of an

imagination informed by another order of thought, but all of them

more living, and more readily to be met with, than in any part of

wonder-loving Germany itself.

Apart from their mythological value, how large is the debt we owe to

legends and traditions in building up our very civilization. Their

influence on art is apparent, from the earliest sculptured stones

unearthed in India or Etruria to the latest breathing of symbolism

in the very reproductions of our own day. In poetry, no less a master

than Dante lamented that their influence was waning at the very period

ascribed a few years ago as the date of their taking rise. Extolling

the simpler pursuits and pleasures of his people at a more primitive

date than his own, 'One by the crib kept watch,' he says, 'studious

to still the infant plaint with words which erst the parents'

minds diverted; another, the flaxen maze upon the distaff twirling,

recounted to her household, tales of Troy, Fiesole, and Rome.' [19]

Their work is patent in his own undying pages, and in those of all

true poets before and since.

Besides all this, have they not preserved to us, as in a registering

mirror, the manners and habits of thought of the ages preceding

ours? Have they not served to record as well as to mould the noblest

aspirations of those who have gone before? 'What are they,' asks an

elegant Italian writer of the present day, [20] treating, however,

only of the traditions of the earliest epoch of Christianity, 'but

narratives woven beside the chimney, under the tent, during the halt

of the caravan, embodying as in a lively picture the popular customs

of the apostolic ages, the interior life of the rising (nascente)

Christian society? In them we have a delightful opportunity of

seeing stereotyped the great transformation and the rich source of

ideas and sentiments which the new belief opened up, to illuminate

the common people in their huts no less than the patricians in

their palaces. Those even who do not please to believe the facts

they expose are afforded a genuine view of the habits of life, the

manner of speaking and behaving--all that expresses and paints the

erudition of those men and of those times. Thus, it may be affirmed,

they comment beautifully on the Gospels, and in the midst of fables

is grafted a great abundance of truth.

'If we would investigate the cause of their multiplication, and of the

favour with which they were received from the earliest times, we shall

find it to consist chiefly in the need and love of the marvellous

which governed the new society, notwithstanding the severity of

its dogmas. Neophytes snatched from the superstitions of paganism

would not have been able all at once to suppress every inclination

for poetical fables. They needed another food according to their

fancy. And indeed were they not great marvels (though of another

order from those to which they were accustomed) which were narrated

to them? The aggregate mass was, however, increased by the way in

which they lived and the scarcity of communication; every uncertain

rumour was thus readily dressed up in the form of a wonderful fact.

'Again, dogmatic and historical teaching continued long to be oral;

so that when an apostle, or the apostle of an apostle, arrived in

any city and chained the interest of the faithful with a narration

of the acts of Jesus he had himself witnessed or received from the

personal narrative of witnesses, his words ran along from mouth to

mouth, and each repeater added something, suggested by his faith

or by his heart. In this way his teaching constituted itself into a

legend, which in the end was no longer the narrative of one, but the

expression of the faith of all.

'Thus whoever looks at legends only as isolated productions of

a period most worthy of study, without attending to the influence

they exercised on later epochs, must even so hold them in account as

literary monuments of great moment.'

Nor is this the case only with the earliest legends. The popular mind

in all ages has evinced a necessity for filling up all blanks in the

histories of its heroes. The probable, and even the merely possible,

is idealized; what might have been is reckoned to have happened; the

logical deductions as to what a favourite saint or cobbold ought to

have done, according to certain fixed principles of action previously

ascribed to his nature, are taken to be the very acts he did perform;

and thus, even those traditions which are the most transparently

human in their origin, have served to show reflected in action the

virtues and perfections which it is the boast of religion to inculcate.

A Flemish writer on Spanish traditions similarly remarks, 'Peoples who

are cut off from the rest of the world by such boundaries as seas,

mountains, or wastes, by reason of the difficulty of communication

thus occasioned, are driven to concentrate their attention to local

events; and in their many idle hours they work up their myths and

tales into poems, which stand them in stead of books, and, in fact,

constitute a literature.' [21]

Europe possesses in Tirol one little country at least in whose mountain

fastnesses a store of these treasures not only lies enshrined, but

where we may yet see it in request. Primitive and unsophisticated

tillers of the soil, accustomed to watch as a yearly miracle the

welling up of its fruits, and to depend for their hopes of subsistence

on the sun and rain in the hand of their Creator, its children

have not yet acquired the independence of thought and the habit of

referring all events to natural causes, which is generated by those

industries of production to which the human agent appears to be all in

all. Among them we have the opportunity of seeing these expositions

of the supernatural, at home as it were in their contemporary life,

supplying a representation of what has gone before, only to be

compared to the revelations of deep-cut strata to the geologist,

and the unearthing of buried cities to the student of history. It

is further satisfactory to find that, in spite of our repugnance to

superstition, this unreasoning realization of the supernatural has in

no way deteriorated the people. Their public virtues, seen in their

indomitable devotion to their country, have been conspicuous in all

ages, no less than their heroic labours in grappling with the obstacles

of soil and climate; while all who have visited them concur in bearing

testimony to their possession of sterling homely qualities, frugality,

morality, hospitality; and, for that which is of most importance to

the tourist, all who have been among them will bear witness to the

justice of the remark in the latest Guide-book, that, except just in

the more cultivated centres of Innsbruck, Brixen, and Botzen, you need

take no thought among the Tiroleans concerning the calls on your purse.

My first acquaintance with Tirol was made at Feldkirch, where I had to

pay somewhat dearly for my love of the legendary and the primitive. Our

plan for the autumn was to join a party of friends from Italy at

Innsbruck, spend some months of long-promised enjoyment in exploring

Tirol, and return together to winter in Rome. The arrangements of

the journey had been left to me; and as I delight in getting beyond

railways and travelling in a conveyance whose pace and hours are more

under one's own control, I traced our road through France to Bâle,

and then by way of Zurich and Rorschach and Oberriet to Feldkirch

(which I knew to be a post-station) as a base of operations, for

leisurely threading our mountain way through Bludenz and Landeck and

the intervening valleys to Innsbruck.

How our plan was thwarted [22] I will relate presently. I still

recommend this line of route to others less encumbered with luggage, as

leading through out-of-the-way and unfrequented places. The projected

railway between Feldkirch and Innsbruck is now completed as far as

Bludenz; and Feldkirch is reached direct by the new junction with

the Rorschach-Chur railway at Buchsstation. [23]

Feldkirch affords excursions, accessible for all, to the

Margarethenkapf and the St. Veitskapf, from either of which a glorious

view is to be enjoyed. The latter commands the stern gorges through

which the Ill makes its final struggles before losing its identity

in the Rhine--struggles which are often terrific and devastating,

for every few years it carries down a whole torrent of pebbles for

many days together. The former overlooks the more smiling tracts we

traversed in our forced march, locally called the Ardetzen, hemmed in

by noble mountain peaks. Then its fortifications, intended at one time

to make it a strong border town against Switzerland, have left some

few picturesque remains, and in particular the so-called Katzenthurm,

named from certain clumsy weapons styled 'cat's head guns,' which

once defended it, and which were ultimately melted down to make a

chime of peaceful bells. And then it has two or three churches to

which peculiar legends attach. Not the least curious of these is

that of St. Fidelis, a local saint, whose cultus sprang up as late

as the year 1622, when he was laid in wait for and assassinated

by certain fanatical reprobates, whose consciences his earnest

preaching had disturbed. He was declared a martyr, and canonized

at Rome in 1746. The sword with which he was put to death, the bier

on which his body was carried back into the town, and other things

belonging to him, are venerated as relics. About eight miles outside

the town another saint is venerated with a precisely similar history,

but dating from the year 844. This is St. Eusebius, one of a band of

Scotch missionaries, who founded a monastery there called Victorsberg,

the oldest foundation in all Vorarlberg. St. Eusebius, returning

from a pilgrimage one day, lay down to sleep in this neighbourhood,

being overtaken by the darkness of night. Heathen peasants, who had

resisted his attempts at converting them, going out early in the

morning to mow, found him lying on the ground, and one of them cut

off his head with his scythe. To their astonishment the decapitated

body rose to its feet, and, taking up the head in its hands, walked

straight to the door of the monastery, where the brethren took it

in and laid it to rest in the churchyard. A little further (reached

most conveniently by a by-path off the road near Altenstadt, mentioned

below,) is Rankweil. In the church on Our Lady's Mount (Frauenberg) is

a little chapel on the north side, where a reddish stone is preserved

(Der rothe Stein in der Fridolinskapelle), of which the following story

is told. St. Fridolin was a Scotch missionary in the seventh century,

and among other religious houses had founded one at Müsigen. Two

noblemen of this neighbourhood (brothers) held him in great respect,

and before dying, one of them, Ursus by name, endowed the convent

with all his worldly goods. Sandolf, the other, who did not carry

his admiration of the saint to so great a length as to renounce

his brother's rich inheritance, disputed the possession, and it was

decided that Fridolin must give it up unless he could produce the

testimony of the donor. Fridolin went in faith to Glarus, where Ursus

had been buried two years before. At his call the dead man rose to

his feet, and pushing the grave-stone aside, walked, hand-in-hand,

with his friend back to Rankweil, where he not only substantiated

Fridolin's statements, but so effectually frightened his brother that

he immediately added to the gift all his own possessions also. But

the story says that when the judgment requiring him to produce the

testimony of the dead was first given, Fridolin went to pray in the

chapel of Rankweil, and there a shining being appeared to him, and

told him to go to Glarus and call Ursus; and as he spoke Fridolin's

knees sank into the 'red stone,' making the marks now seen. [24]

The reason given why this hill is called Our Lady's Mound is, that on

it once stood a fortress called Schönberg. Schönberg having been burnt

down, its owner, the knight of Hörnlingen, set about rebuilding it;

but whatever work his workmen did in the day-time, was destroyed by

invisible hands during the night. A pious old workman, too, used to

hear a mysterious voice saying that instead of a fortress they should

build a sanctuary in honour of the mother of God. The knight yielded to

the commands of the voice, and the church was built out of the ruins

of his castle. In this church, too, is preserved a singular antique

cross, studded with coloured glass gems, which the people venerate

because it was brought down to them by the mountain stream. It is

obviously of very ancient workmanship, and an inscription records

that it was repaired in 1347.

Winding round the mountain path which from Rankweil runs behind

Feldkirch to Satteins, the convent of Valduna is reached; and

the origin of this sanctuary is ascribed to a legend, of which

counterparts crop up in various places, of a hermit who passed half

a life within a hollow tree, [25] and acquired the lasting veneration

of the neighbouring people.

Another mountain sanctuary which received its veneration from

the memory of a tree-hermit, is S. Gerold, situated on a little

elevation below the Hoch Gerach, about seven miles on the east side of

Feldkirch. It dates from the tenth century. Count Otho, Lord of Sax in

the Rhinethal, was out hunting, when the bear to which he was giving

chase sought refuge at the foot of an old oak tree, whither his dogs

durst not follow it. Living as a hermit within this oak tree Count Otho

found his long lost father, S. Gerold, who years before had forsaken

his throne and found there a life of contemplation in the wild. [26]

The tomb of the saint and his two sons is to be seen in the church,

and some curious frescoes with the story of his adventures.

Another way to be recommended for entering Vorarlberg is by crossing

Lake Constance from Rorschach to Lindau, a very pleasant trajet of

about two hours in the tolerably well-appointed, but not very swift

lake-steamers. Lindau itself is a charming old place, formed out of

three islands on the edge of the lake; but as it is outside the border

of Tirol, I will only note in favour of the honesty of its inhabitants,

that I saw a tree laden with remarkably fine ripe pears overhanging a

wall in the principal street, and no street-boy raised a hand to them.

The first town in Tirol by this route is Bregenz, which reckons as

the capital of Vorarlberg. It may be reached by boat in less than

half an hour. It is well situated at the foot of the Gebhartsberg,

which affords a most delightful, and in Tirol widely celebrated,

view over Lake Constance and the Appenzel mountains and the rapid

Rhine between; and here, at either the Post Hotel or the Black Eagle,

there is no lack of carriages for reaching Feldkirch. Bregenz deserves

to be remembered as the birth-place of one of the best modern painters

of the Munich-Roman school, Flatz, who I believe, spends much of his

time there.

Among the objects of interest in Bregenz are the Capuchin Convent,

situated on a wooded peak of the Gebhardsberg, founded in 1636;

on another peak, S. Gebhard auf dem Pfannenberge, called after

a bishop of Constance, who preached the Christian faith in the

neighbourhood, and was martyred. Bregenz has an ancient history and

high lineage. Its lords, who were powerful throughout the Middle

Ages, were of sufficiently high estate at the time of Charlemagne

that he should take Hildegard, the daughter of one of them, to be his

wife, and there is a highly poetical popular tale about her. Taland

(a favourite name in Vorarlberg) was a suitor who had, with jealous

eye, seen her given to the powerful Emperor, and in the bitterness

of his rejected affection, so calumniated her to Charlemagne, that

he repudiated her and married Desiderata, the Lombard princess. [27]

Hildegard accepted her trial with angelic resignation, and devoted

her life to tending pilgrims at Rome. Meantime Taland, stricken

with blindness, came to Rome in penitential pilgrimage, where he

fell under the charitable care of Hildegard. Hildegard's saintly

handling restored his sight--not only that of his bodily eyes, but

also his moral perception of truth and falsehood. In reparation for

the evil he had done, he now led her back to Charlemagne, confessed

all, and she was once more restored to favour and honour. Bregenz

has also another analogous and equally beautiful legend. One of

its later counts, Ulrich V., was supposed by his people to have

died in war in Hungary, about the year 916. Wendelgard, his wife,

devoted her widowhood to the cloistral life, but took the veil under

the condition that she should every year hold a popular festival

and distribution of alms in memory of her husband. On the fourth

anniversary, as she was distributing her bounty, a pilgrim came

forward who allowed himself the liberty of kissing the hand which

bestowed the dole. Wendelgard's indignation was changed into delight

when she recognized that the audaciously gallant pilgrim was no other

than her own lord, who, having succeeded in delivering himself from

captivity, had elected to make himself thus known to her. Salomo,

Bishop of Constance, dispensed her from her vow, and Ulrich passed

the remainder of his life at Bregenz by her side. Another celebrated

worthy of Bregenz, whose name must not be passed over, is 'Ehreguota'

or 'Ehre Guta,' a name still dear to every peasant of Vorarlberg,

and which has perpetuated itself in the appellation of Hergotha,

a favourite Christian name there to the present day. She was a poor

beggar-woman really named Guta, whose sagacity and courage delivered

her country people from an attack of the Appenzell folk, to which they

had nearly succumbed in the year 1408; it was the 'honour' paid her by

her patriotic friends that added the byname of 'Ehre,' and made them

erect a monument to her. One of the variants of the story makes her,

instead of a beggar-woman, the beautiful young bride of Count Wilhelm

of Montfort-Bregenz; some have further sought to identify her with

the goddess Epona.

Pursuing the journey southwards towards Feldkirch, every step is full

of natural beauty and legendary interest. At first leaving Bregenz

you have to part company with Lake Constance, and leave in the right

hand distance the ruins of Castle Fussach. On the left is Riedenberg,

which, if not great architecturally, is interesting as a highly

useful institution, under the fostering care of the present Empress of

Austria, for the education of girls belonging to families of a superior

class with restricted means. From Fussach the road runs parallel to

the Rhine; there is a shorter road by Dornbirn, but less interesting,

which joins it again at Götzis, near Hohenembs. The two roads separate

before Fussach at Wolfurth, where there is an interesting chapel,

the bourne of a pilgrimage worth making if only for the view over

the lake. The country between S. John Höchst and Lustenau is much

frequented in autumn for the sake of the shooting afforded by the wild

birds which haunt its secluded recesses on the banks of the Rhine at

that season. At Lustenau there is a ferry over the Rhine.

The favourite saints of this part of the country are Merboth, Diedo,

and Ilga--two brothers and a sister of a noble family, hermit-apostles

and martyrs of the eleventh century. Ilga established her hermit-cell

in the Schwarzenberg, just over Dornbirn, where not only all dainty

food, but even water, was wanting. The people of Dornbirn also wanted

water; and though she had not asked the boon for herself, she asked it

for her people, and obtained from the hard rock, a miraculous spring

of sparkling water which even the winter cold could not freeze. Ilga

used to fetch this water for her own use, and carry it up the mountain

paths in her apron. One day she spilt some of it on the rock near

her cell on her arrival, and see! as it touched the rock, the rock

responded to the appeal, and from out there flowed a corresponding

stream, which has never ceased to flow to this day.

The most important and interesting spot between Bregenz and Feldkirch,

is Embs or Hohenembs, with its grand situation, its picturesque

buildings and its two ruined castles, which though distinguished as

Alt and Neu Hohenembs, do not display at first sight any very great

disparity of age; both repay a visit, but the view from Alt Hohenembs

is the finer. The virtues and bravery of the lords of Hohenembs

have been duly chronicled. James Von Embs served by the side of the

chevalier Bayard in the battle of Ravenna, and having at the first

onset received his death wound, raised himself up again to pour out

his last breath in crying to his men, 'The King of France has been

our fair ally, let us serve him bravely this day!' His grandson,

who was curiously enough christened James Hannibal, was the first

Count of Embs, and his descendants often figure in records of the

wars of the Austrian Empire, particularly in those connected with

the famous Schmalkaldischer Krieg, and are now merged in the family

of Count Harrach.

The 'Swiss embroidery' industry here crosses the Rhine, and, in

the female gatherings which it occasions, as in the 'Filo' of the

south, many local chronicles and legends are, or at least have been,

perpetuated.

In the parish church, I have been told by a traveller, that the

cardinal's hat of S. Charles Borromeo is preserved, though why it

should be so I cannot tell; and I think I have myself had it shown

me both at Milan and, if I mistake not, also at the church in Rome

whence he had his 'title.'

The ascent to Neu Hohenembs has sufficient difficulty and danger for

the unpractised pedestrian to give it special interest, which the

roaring of the waterfall tends to excite. A little way beyond it the

water was formerly turned to the purpose of an Italian pescheria (or

fish-preserve for the use of the castle), which is not now very well

preserved. Further up still are the ruins of Alt Hohenembs. There are

also prettily situated sulphur baths a little way out of the town,

much frequented from June to September by the country people. It

is curious that the Jews, who have never hitherto settled in large

numbers in any part of Tirol, have here a synagogue; and I am told

that it serves for nearly a hundred families scattered over the

surrounding country, though there are not a dozen even at Innsbruck.

All I have met with of interest between this and Feldkirch, I have

mentioned under the head of excursions from Feldkirch.

Stretching along the bank of the Rhine to the south of Feldkirch, is

the little principality of Lichtenstein or Liechtenstein, a territory

of some three square miles and a half in extent, which yet gives its

possessor--lately by marriage made a member of English society--certain

seignorial rights. The chief industry of the people is the Swiss

embroidery. Vaduz, its chief town, is situated in its centre, and above

it, in the midst of a thick wood, is the somewhat imposing and well

kept up castle of Lichtenstein. Further south, overhanging the Rhine,

is Schloss Gutenberg, and beyond, a remarkable warm sulphur spring,

which runs only in summer, at a temperature of 98° to 100° Fahrenheit;

it is crowded by Swiss and Tiroleans from June to September, though

unknown to the rest of the world. [28] It was discovered in the

year 1240 by a chamois-hunter, and was soon after taken in charge

by a colony of Benedictine monks, established close by at Pfäffers,

who continued to entertain those who visited it until it was taken

possession of by the Communal Council of Chur, and the monastery

turned into a poor-house. The country round it is exceedingly wild and

romantic, and there is a celebrated ravine called the Tamina-Schlund,

of so-called immeasurable depth, where at certain hours of a sunny

day a wonderful play of light is to be observed. Pfäffers is just

outside the boundary of Tirol; the actual boundary line is formed by

the Rhætian Alps, which are traversed by a pass called Luziensteig,

after St. Lucius, 'first Christian king of Britain,' who, tradition

says, preached the gospel to Lichtenstein. [29] The road from Feldkirch

to Innsbruck first runs along the Illthal, which between Feldkirch

and Bludenz is also called the Wallgau, and merges at Bludenz into

the Walserthal on the left or north side. On the right or south side

are the Montafonthal, Klosterthal, and Silberthal.

Soon after leaving Feldkirch the mountains narrow upon the road,

which crosses the Ill at Felsenau, forming what is called the gorge

of the Ill, near Frastanz. Round this terrible pass linger memories

of one of the direst struggles for independence the Tiroleans ever

waged. In 1499 the Swiss hosts were shown the inlet, through the

mountains that so well protect Tirol, by a treacherous peasant

whom their gold had bought. [30] A little shepherd lad seeing them

advance, in his burning desire to save his country, blew such a call

to arms upon his horn that he never desisted till he had blown all

the breath out of his little body. The subsequent battle was fierce

and determined; and when it slackened from loss of men, the women

rushed in and fought with the bravest. So earnestly was the cause of

those who fell felt to be the cause of all, that even to the present

time the souls of those who were slain that day are remembered in

the prayers said as the procession nears the spot when blessing

the fields on Rogation-Wednesday. On the heights above Valduna

are the striking ruins of a convent of Poor Clares, one of those

abandoned at the fiat of Joseph II. It was founded on occasion of

a hermit declaring he had often seen a beautiful angel sitting and

singing enchantingly on the peak. Below is a tiny lake, which lends

an additional charm to the tranquil beauty of the spot. The patron

saint of the Walserthal is St. Joder or Theodul (local renderings of

Theodoric), and his legend is most fantastic. St. Joder went to Rome

to see the Pope; the Pope, in commendation of his zeal, gave him a

fine bell for his church. Homewards went St. Joder with his bell,

but when he came to the mountains it was more than he could manage,

to drag the bell after him. What did he then do? He bethought him

that he had, by his prayers and exorcisms, conjured the devil out

of the valley where he had preached the faith, so why should not

prayer and exorcism conjure him to carry the bell for the service of

his faithful flock? If St. Joder's faith did not remove mountains it

removed the obstacles they presented, and many a bit of rude carving

in mountain chapels throughout the Walserthal shows a youthful saint,

in rich episcopal vestments, leading by a chain, like a showman his

bear, the arch enemy of souls, crouched and sweating under the weight

of the bell whose holy tones are to sound his own ban. [31]

Bludenz retains some picturesque remnants of its old buildings. It

belonged to the Counts of Sonnenberg, and hence it is said that it

is often called by that name; but it is perhaps more probable that

the height above Bludenz was called Sonnenberg, in contrast with

Schattenberg, above Feldkirch, and that its lords derived their name

from it. The story of the fidelity of Bludenz to Friedrich mit der

leeren Tasche, I have narrated in another place. [32]

The valley of Montafon has for its arms the cross keys of St. Peter,

in memory of a traditionary but anachronistic journey of Pope John

XXIII. to the Council of Constance, in 1414. [33] In memory of the

same journey a joy-peal is rung on every Wednesday throughout the year.

A little way south of Bludenz, down the Montafon valley, is a

chapel on a little height called S. Anton, covering the spot where

tradition says was once a mighty city called Prazalanz, destroyed by an

avalanche. Near here is a tiny stream, of which the peasants tell the

following story:--They say up the mountain lives a beautiful maiden,

set to guard a treasure, and she can only be released when some one

will thrice kiss a loathsome toad, [34] which has its place on the

cover of the treasury, and the maiden feels assured no one will ever

make the venture. She weeps evermore, and they call this streamlet the

'Trächnabächle'--the Tear-rill.

The valley of Montafon is further celebrated for its production

of kirschwasser.

Opposite Dalaas is a striking peak, attaining an elevation of some

5,000 feet, called the Christberg. On the opposite side to Dalaas is

a chapel of St. Agatha; in the days of the silver mining of Tirol, in

the fifteenth century, silver was found in this neighbourhood. On one

occasion a landslip imprisoned a number of miners in their workings. In

terror at their threatened death, they vowed that if help reached

them in time, they would build a chapel on the spot to commemorate

their deliverance. Help did reach them, and they kept their vow. The

chapel is built into the living rock where this occurred, and a grey

mark on the rock is pointed out as a supernatural token which cannot

be effaced, to remind the people of the deliverance that took place

there. It is reached from Dalaas by a terribly steep and rugged path,

running over the Christberg, near the summit of which may be found,

by those whom its hardships do not deter, another chapel, or wayside

shrine, consisting of an image of the Blessed Virgin under a canopy,

with an alcoved seat beneath it for the votary to rest in, called

'Das Bruederhüsle,' and this is the reason of its name:--The wife

of a Count Tanberg gave birth to a dead child; in the fulness of

their faith, the parents mourned that to the soul of their little

one Christian baptism had been denied, more than the loss of their

offspring. In pursuance of a custom then in vogue in parts of Tirol,

if not elsewhere, the Count sent the body of the infant to be laid on

the altar of St. Joseph, in the parish church, in the hope that at the

intercession of the fosterfather of the Saviour it might revive for

a sufficient interval to receive the sacrament of admission into the

Christian family. The servant, however, instead of carrying his burden

to the church at Schruns (in Montafonthal), finding himself weary by

the time he had climbed up the Christberg, dug a grave, and buried

it instead. The next year there was another infant, also born dead;

this time the Count determined to carry it himself to the church,

and by the time he had toiled to the same spot he too was weary,

and sat down to rest. As he sat he heard a little voice crying from

under the ground, 'ätti, nüm mi' ô met!' [35] The Count turned up the

soil, and found the body of his last year's infant. Full of joy he

carried both brothers to the altar of St. Joseph, at Schruns; here,

continues the legend, his prayer went up before the divine throne;

both infants gave signs of life before devout witnesses; baptism could

be validly administered, and they, laid to rest in holy ground. [36]

After Dalaas the road assumes a character of real grandeur, both as an

engineering work and as a study of nature. The size of the telegraph

poles alone (something like fourteen inches in diameter) gives an idea

of the sort of storms the road is built to resist; so do the veritable

fortifications, erected here and there, to protect it from avalanches.

The summit (6,218 ft.) of the Arlberg, whence the province has its

name--and which in turn is named from Schloss Arlen, the ruins of which

are to be observed from the road--is marked by a gigantic crucifix,

overhanging the road. An inscription cut in the rock records that

it was opened for traffic (after three hard years of labour) on

St. James's day, 1787; but a considerable stretch of the road now

used was made along a safer and more sheltered pass in 1822-4, when

a remarkable viaduct called the Franzensbrücke was built. Two posts,

striped with the local colours, near the crucifix above-named, mark

the boundary of Vorarlberg and Oberinnthal. As we pass them we should

take leave of Vorarlberg; but it may be convenient to mention in this

place some few of the more salient of the many points of interest on

the onward road to Innsbruck.

The opening of the Stanzerthal, indeed, on which the road is carried,

seems to belong of right to Vorarlberg, for its first post-halt

of S. Christof came into existence through the agency of a poor

foundling boy of that province, who was so moved by the sufferings

of travellers at his date (1386), that he devoted his life to their

service, and by begging collected money to found the nucleus of

the hospice and brotherhood of S. Christof, which lasted till the

time of Joseph II. The pass at its highest part is free from snow

only from the beginning of July to September, and in the depth

of winter it accumulates to a height of twenty feet. The church

contains considerable remains of the date of its founder, Heinrich

das Findelkind; of this date, or not much later, must be the gigantic

statue of S. Christopher, patron of wayfarers.

The Stanzerthal, without being less grand, presents a much more smiling

prospect than that traversed during the later part of the journey

through Vorarlberg. The waters of the Rosanna and the Trisanna flow

by the way; the mountains stretch away in the distance, in every hue

of brilliant colouring; the whole landscape is studded with villages

clustering round their church steeples, while Indian-corn-fields,

fruit-gardens in which the barberry holds no insignificant place,

and vast patches of a deep-tinted wild flora, fill up the picture.

At Schloss Wiesburg is the opening into the Patznaunthal, the chief

village of which is Ischgl, where the custom I have heard of in other

parts of Tirol, and also in Brittany, prevails, of preserving the

skulls of the dead in an open vault in the churchyard, with their

names painted on them. Nearly opposite it, off the left side of the

road lies Grüns or Grins, so called because it affords a bright green

patch amid the grey of the rocks. It was a more important place in

mediæval times, for the road then ran beside it; the bridge with its

pointed arches dates from the year 1639. Margareta Maultasch, with

whose place in Tirolese history we must make acquaintance further on,

had a house here which still contains some curious mural paintings.

Landeck [37] is an important thriving little town, with the Inn flowing

through its midst. It has two fine remains of ancient castles: Schloss

Landeck, now used partly as a hospice; and Schloss Schrofenstein,

of difficult access, haunted by a knight, who gave too ready ear

to the calumnies of a rejected suitor of his wife, and must wander

round its precincts wringing his fettered hands and crying 'Woe!' On

the slope of the hill crowned by Schloss Landeck stands the parish

church. Its first foundation dates from the fifteenth century, when

a Landecker named Henry and his wife Eva, having lost their two

children in a forest, on vowing a church in honour of the Blessed

Virgin, met a bear and a wolf each carrying one of the children

tenderly on its back. It has a double-bulbed tower of much later

date, and it was restored with considerable care a few years back;

but many important parts remain in their original condition, including

some early sculpture. In the churchyard are two important monuments,

one dating from the fifteenth century, of Oswald Y. Schrofenstein;

the other, a little gothic chapel, consecrated on August 22, 1870,

in memory of the Landeck contingent of the Tirolean sharpshooters,

who assisted in defending the borders of Wälsch-Tirol in 1866. [38]

About two or three miles from Landeck there is a celebrated waterfall,

at a spot called Letz.

Imst was formerly celebrated for its breed of canary-birds, which

its townsmen used to carry all over Europe. The church contains a

votive tablet, put up by some of them on occasion of being saved from

shipwreck in the Mediterranean. It has a good old inn, once a knightly

palace. From Imst the Pitzthal branches southwards; but concerning

it I have not space to enlarge, as the more interesting excursion

to Füssen, on the Bavarian frontier, must not be passed over. The

pleasantest way of making this excursion is to engage a carriage for

the whole distance at Imst, but a diligence or 'Eilwagen,' running

daily between Innsbruck and Füssen, may be met at Nassereit, some

three miles along the Gunglthal. At Nassereit I will pause a moment

to mention a circumstance, bearing on the question of the formation

of legends, which seemed to take considerable hold on the people,

and was narrated to me with a manifest impression of belief in the

supernatural. There was a pilgrimage from a place called Biberwier

to a shrine of the Virgin, at Dormiz, on August 10, 1869. It was

to gain the indulgence of the Vatican Council, and the priest of

Biberwier in exhorting his people to treat it entirely as a matter of

penance, and not as a party of pleasure, had made use of a figure of

speech bidding them not to trust themselves to the bark of worldly

pleasure, for, he assured them, it had many holes in it, and would

swamp them instead of bearing them on to the joys of heaven. Four

of the men, however, persisted in disregarding his warning, and in

combining a trip to the Fernsee, one of two romantically situated

mountain lakes overlooked by the ancient castle of Sigmundsburg, on

a promontory running into it and with its Wirthshaus 'auf dem Fern'

forming a favourite though difficult pleasure-excursion. The weather

was treacherous; the boat was swamped in the squall which ensued,

and all four men were drowned. From Nassereit also is generally made

the ascent of the Tschirgants, the peak which has constantly formed

a remarkable feature in the landscape all the way from Arlberg.

The road to Füssen passes by Sigmundsburg, Fernsee and Biberwier

mentioned in the preceding narrative also the beautiful Blendsee and

Mittersee (accessible only to the pedestrian) or rather the by-paths

leading to them. Leermoos is the next place passed,--a straggling,

inconsiderable hamlet, but affording a pleasing incident in the

landscape, when, after passing it, the steep road winds back upon it

and reveals it again far far below you. It is, however, quite possible

to put up for a night with the accommodation afforded by the Post inn,

and by this means one of the most justly celebrated natural beauties

may be enjoyed, in the sunset effects produced by the lighting up of

the Zugspitzwand.

Next is Lähn, whose situation disposes one to believe the tradition

that it has its name from the avalanches (Lawinen, locally contracted

into Lähne) by which the valley is frequently visited, and chiefly

from a terrible one, in the fifteenth century, which destroyed the

village, till then called Mitterwald. A carrier who had been wont to

pass that way, struck with compassion at the desolation of the place,

aided in providing the surviving inhabitants to rebuild their chapel,

and tradition fables of him that they were aided by an angel. The

road opens out once more as we approach Heiterwang; there is also a

post-road hence to Ammergau; here, a small party may put up at the

Rossl, for the sake of visiting the Plansee, the second largest lake

of Tirol, on the right (east) of the road; on the left is the opening

of the Lechthal, a difficult excursion even to the most practised

pedestrian. For those who study convenience the Plansee may be better

visited from Reutte.

After Heiterwang the rocks close in again on the road as we pass

through the Ehrenberger Klause, celebrated again and again through

the pages of Tirolese history, from the very earliest times, for

heroic defences; its castle is an important and beautiful ruin;

and so the road proceeds to Reutte, Füssen, and the much visited

Lustschloss of Schwangau; but as these are in Bavaria I must not

occupy my Tirolese pages with them, but mention only the Mangtritt,

the boundary pass, where a cross stands out boldly against the sky,

in memory of S. Magnus, the apostle of these valleys. The devil,

furious at the success of the saint with his conversion of the heathen

inhabitants, sent a tribe of wild and evil men, says one version of

the legend, a formidable dragon according to another, to exterminate

him; he was thus driven to the narrow glen where the fine post-road

now runs between the rocks beside the roaring Lech. Nothing daunted,

the saint sprang across to the opposite rock whither his adversaries,

who had no guardian angels' wings to 'bear them up', durst not

pursue him; it is a curious fact for the comparative mythologist

that the same pass bears also the name of Jusulte (Saltus Julii)

and the tradition that Julius Cæsar performed a similar feat here on

horseback. Near it is a poor little inn, called 'the White House,'

where local vintages may be tasted.

Reutte has two inns; the Post and Krone, and from it more excursions

may be made than I have space to chronicle. That to Breitenwang is

an easy one; a house here is pointed out as having been built on the

spot where stood a poor hut which gave shelter in his last moments

to Lothair II. 'the Saxon' overtaken by death on his return journey

from the war in Italy, 1137; what remained of the old materials

having been conscientiously worked into the building, down to the

most insignificant spar; a tablet records the event. The church,

a Benedictine foundation of the twelfth century, was rebuilt in the

seventeenth, and contains many specimens of what Tirolese artists

can do in sculpture, wood-carving, and painting. A quaint chapel in

the churchyard has a representation in stucco of the 'Dance of Death.'

The country between this and the Plansee is called the Achenthal,

fortunately distinguished by local mispronounciation as the Archenthal

from the better known (though not deservingly so) Achenthal, which

we shall visit later. The Ache or Arche affords several water-falls,

the most important of them, the Stuibfall, is nearly a hundred feet

in height, and on a bright evening a beautiful 'iris' may be seen

enthroned in its foam.

At the easternmost extremity of the Plansee, to be reached either by

pleasure boat or mountain path, near the little border custom-house,

the Kaiser-brunnen flows into the lake, so called because its cool

waters once afforded a refreshing drink to Ludwig of Brandenberg,

when out hunting: a crucifix marks the spot. There is also a chapel

erected at the end of the 17th century, in consequence of some local

vow, containing a picture of the 'Vierzehn Nothhelfer;' and as the

so-called 'Fourteen Helpers in Need' are a favourite devotion all over

North-Tirol I may as well mention their legend here at our first time

of meeting them. The story is that on the feast of the Invention of the

Cross, 1445, a shepherd-boy named Hermann, serving the Cistercian monks

of Langheim (some thirty miles south of Mayence) was keeping sheep

on a farm belonging to them in Frankenthal not far from Würtzburg,

when he heard a child's voice crying to him out of the long grass; he

turned round and saw a beautiful infant with two tapers burning before

it, who disappeared as he approached. On the vigil of S. Peter in the

following year Hermann saw the same vision repeated, only this time the

beautiful infant was surrounded by a court of fourteen other children,

who told him they were the 'Vierzehn Nothelfer,' and that he was to

build a chapel to them. The monks refused to believe Hermann's story,

but the popular mind connected it with a devotion which was already

widespread, and by the year 1448 the mysteriously ordered chapel

was raised, and speedily became a place of pilgrimage. This chapel

has been constantly maintained and enlarged and has now grown into a

considerable church; and the devotion to the 'Fourteen Helpers in Need'

spread over the surrounding country with the usual rapid spread of a

popular devotion. [39] The chief remaining points of interest in the

further journey to Innsbruck, taking it up where we diverged from it

at Nassereit, are mentioned later in my excursions for Innsbruck.

Before closing my chapter on Vorarlberg I must put on record, as

a warning to those who may choose to thread its pleasant valleys,

a laughable incident which cut short my first attempt to penetrate

into Tirol by its means. Our line of route I have already named. [40]

Our start was in the most genial of August weather; our party not

only harmonious, but humorously inclined; all our stages were full of

interest and pleasure, and their memory glances at me reproachfully

as I pass them over in rigid obedience to the duty of adhering to my

programme. But no, I must devote a word of gratitude to the friendly

Swiss people, and their kindly hospitable manners on all occasions. The

pretty bathing establishments on the lakes, where the little girls

go in on their way to school, and swim about as elegantly as if the

water were their natural element; the wonderful roofs of Aarau;

its late-flowering pomegranates; and the clear delicious water,

tumbling along its narrow bed down the centre of all the streets,

where we stop to taste of the crystal brook, using the hollow of our

hands, pilgrim fashion, and the kind people more than once come out

of their houses to offer us glasses and chairs!

I must bestow, too, another line of record on the charming village

of Rorschach, the little colony of Catholics in the midst of a

Protestant canton. Its delicious situation on the Boden-see; our

row over the lake by moonlight, where we are nearly run down by one

of the steamers perpetually crossing it in all directions, while our

old boatman pours out and loses himself in the mazes of his legendary

lore; the strange effect of interlacing moonbeams, interspersed by

golden rays from the sanct lamps with Turner-like effect, seen through

the open grated door of the church; the grotesque draped skeletons

supporting the roof of one of the chapels, Caryatid fashion and the

rustic procession on the early morning of the Assumption.

So far all had gone passing well; my first misgiving arose when

I saw the factotum of the Oberriet station eye our luggage, the

provision of four English winterers in Rome, and a look of embarrassed

astonishment dilate his stolid German countenance. It was evident that

when he engaged himself as ticket-clerk, porter, 'and everyting,'

he never contemplated such a pile of boxes being ever deposited at

his station. We left him wrapt in his earnest gaze, and walked on

to see what help we could get in the village. It was a collection

of a half-dozen cottages, picturesque in their utter uncivilization,

clustered round an inn of some pretensions. The host had apparently

heard of the depth of English purses, and was delighted to make his

premières armes in testing their capacity. Of course there was 'no

arguing with the master of' the only horses to whose assistance we

had to look for carrying us beyond the mountains, which now somehow

struck us as much more plainly marked on the map than we had noticed

before. His price had to be ours, and his statement of the distance,

about double the reality, had to be accepted also. His stud was soon

displayed before us. Three rather tired greys were brought in from

the field, and made fast (or rather loose) with ropes to a waggon,

on which our formidable Gepäck was piled, and took their start with

funeral solemnity. An hour later a parcel of boys had succeeded in

capturing a wild colt destined to assist his venerable parent in

transporting ourselves in a 'shay,' of the Gilpin type, and to which

we managed to hang on with some difficulty, the wild-looking driver

good-naturedly volunteering to run by the side.

Off we started with the inevitable thunder of German whip-cracking

and German imprecations on the cattle, sufficient for the first

twenty paces to astonish the colt into propriety. No sooner had we

reached the village boundary, however, than he seemed to guess for the

first time that he had been entrapped into bondage. With refreshing

juvenile buoyancy he instantly determined to show us his indomitable

spirit. Resisting all efforts of his companion in harness to proceed,

he suddenly made such desperate assault and battery with his hind

legs, that one or two of the ropes were quickly snapped, the Jehu

sent sprawling in the ditch on one side, and the travelling bags on

the other; so that, but for the staid demeanour of the old mare,

we should probably in two minutes more have been 'nowhere.' Hans

was on his feet again in an instant, like the balanced mannikins of

a bull-fight, and to knot the ropes and make a fresh start required

only a minute more; but another and another exhibition of the colt's

pranks decided us to trust to our own powers of locomotion.

A bare-footed, short-petticoated wench, who astonished us by proving

that her rough hands could earn her livelihood at delicate 'Swiss'

embroidery, and still more by details of the small remuneration that

contented her, volunteered to pilot us through the woods where we

had quite lost our way; and finding our luggage van waiting on the

banks of the Rhine for the return of the ferry, we crossed with it

and walked by its side for the rest of the distance.

Our road lay right across the Ardetzen, a basin of pasture enclosed by

a magnificent circuit of mountains,--behind us the distant eminences

of Appenzell, before us the great Rhætian Alps, and at their base

a number of smiling villages each with its green spire scarcely

detaching from the verdant slopes behind. The undertaking, pleasant

and bright at first, grew weary and anxious as the sun descended,

and the mountains of Appenzell began to throw their long shadow over

the lowland we were traversing, and yet the end was not reached. At

last the strains of an organ burst upon our ears, lights from latticed

windows diapered our path, and a train of worshippers poured past us

to join in the melodies of the Church, sufficiently large to argue that

our stopping-place was attained. We cast about to find the Gasthof zur

Post to which we were bound, but all in vain, there was no rest for us.

Here indeed, Feldkirch fuit, but here it was no more. In the year 909,

the Counts of Montfort built themselves a castle on the neighbouring

height of Schattenburg, (so called because the higher eminences around

shade it from the sun till late in the morning,) and lured away the

people from this pristine Feldkirch to settle themselves round the

foot of their fortress. Some of the original inhabitants still clung

to the old place, and its old Church of St. Peter, that very church

whose earlier foundations, some say, were laid by monks from Britain,

S. Columban and St. Gall, who, when the people were oppressed by their

Frankish masters, came and lived among them, and by their preaching

and their prayers rekindled the light of religion, working out at the

same time their political relief; the former subsequently made his way,

shedding blessings as he went, on to Italy, where he died at the age

of ninety, in 615; the latter founded, and ended his days at the age

of ninety-five, in the famous monastery which has given his name to

the neighbouring Swiss Canton.

The descendants of this remnant have kept up the original settlement

to this day with the name of Altenstadt, while the first built street

of the present thriving town of Feldkirch still retains its appellation

of the Neustadt.

It seemed a long stretch ere we again came upon an inhabited spot,

but this time there was no mistake. All around were the signs of a

prosperous centre, the causeways correctly laid out, new buildings

rising on every side, and--I am fain to add--the church dark and

closed; in place of the train of worshippers of unsophisticated

Altenstadt, one solitary figure in mourning weeds was kneeling in

the moonlight at a desk such as we often see placed under a cross

against the outer wall of churches in Germany.

Before five next morning I was awakened by the pealing organ and

hearty voices of the Feldkirch peasants at Mass in the church just

opposite my window. I dressed hastily, and descended to take my place

among them. It was a village festival and Mass succeeded Mass at each

of the gaily decorated altars, and before them assembled groups in

quaint costumes from far and near. [41] As each half hour struck, a

bell sounded, and a relic was brought round to the high altar rails,

all the women in the church going up first, and then all the men,

to venerate it.

Our first care of the day was to engage our carriage for Innsbruck. We

were at the Post hotel, and had the best chance there; for besides its

own conveyances, there were those of the post-office, which generally

in Germany afford great convenience. Not one was there, however, that

would undertake our luggage over the mountain roads. The post-master

and his men all declared that at every winding of the passes there

would be too great risk of overturning the vehicle. It was in vain

we argued that the same amount had often accompanied us over higher

mountains in Italy; it was clear they were not prepared for it. There

was a service for heavy goods by which it could be sent; there was no

other way, and they did not advise that. They could not ensure any due

care being taken of it, or that it should reach within three or four

weeks. Four or five hours spent in weighing, measuring, arranging,

and arguing, advanced our cause not a whit; there was no plan to be

adopted but to return by Oberriet to Rorschach, cross lake Constance

to Lindau, and make our way round by Augsburg, Munich, and Rosenheim!

It was with great reluctance we relinquished the cherished project. Our

now hated luggage deposited in a waggon, as the day before, we mounted

our rather more presentable, and certainly better horsed vehicle,

in no cheerful mood, for, besides the disappointment, there was the

mortification which always attaches to a failed project and retraced

steps.

'The Herrschaften are not in such bright spirits as the sun

to-day!' exclaimed our driver, when, finally tired of cracking his

whip and shouting to his horses, he found we still sat silent and

crest-fallen. He wore the jauntiest costume to be found in Europe,

after that of his Hungarian confrère, a short postilion jacket,

bound and trimmed with yellow lace, a horn slung across his breast

by a bright yellow cord, and a hat shining like looking-glass cocked

on one side of his head, while his face expressed everything that is

pleasant and jovial.

'How can one be anything but out of spirits when one is crossed by

such a stupid set as the people of your town? Why, there is no part

of Europe in which they will even believe it possible!'

'Well, you see they don't understand much, about here,' he replied,

with an air of superiority, for he was a travelled postilion, as he

took care to let us know. 'In Italy they manage better; they tie the

luggage on behind, or underneath, where it is safe enough. Here they

have only one idea--to stick it on the top, and in that way a carriage

may be easily upset at a sharp turn. You cannot drive any new idea

into these fellows; it is like an echo between their own mountains,

whatever is once there, goes on and on and on.' I showed him the

map, and traced before him the difference in the length of the route

we should have taken and that we had now to pursue. I don't think

he had ever understood a map before, for he seemed vastly pleased

at the compliment paid to his intelligence. 'Ah!' he exclaimed,

'if we could always go as the crow flies, how quickly we should get

to our journey's end; or if we had the Stase-Sattel, as they used to

have--wasn't that fine!'

'The Stase-Sattel,' I replied, 'what is that?'

'What! don't you know about the Stase-Sattel--at that place, Bludenz,

there,' and he pointed to it on the map, 'where you were telling me

you wanted to have gone, there used to live an old woman named Stase,

and folk said she was a witch. She had a wonderful saddle, on to which

she used to set herself when she wanted anything, and it used to fly

with her ever so high, and quicker than a bird. One day the reapers

were in a field cooking their mess, and they had forgotten to bring

any salt--and hupf! quick! before the pot had begun to boil she had

flown off on her saddle to the salt-mines at Hall, beyond Innsbruck,

and back with salt enough to pickle an ox. Another time there was

a farmer who had been kind to her, whose crops were failing for the

drought. She no sooner heard of his distress than up she flew in her

saddle and swept all the clouds together with her broom till there

was enough to make a good rainfall. Another time, a boy who had been

sent with a message by his master to the next village had wasted all

the day in playing and drinking with her; towards dusk he bethought

himself that the gates would be shut and the dogs let loose, so that

it was a chance if he reached the house alive. But she told him not

to mind, and taking him up on her saddle, she carried him up through

the air and set him down at home before the sun was an inch lower.'

'And what became of her?' I inquired.

'Became of her! why, she went the way of all such folk. They go on

for a time, but God's hand overtakes them at the last. One day she

was on one of her wild errands, and it was a Fest-tag to boot. Her

course took her exactly over a church spire, and just as she passed,

the Wandlung bell [42] tolled. The sacred sound tormented her so that

she lost her seat and fell headlong to the ground. When they came out

of church they found her lying a shapeless mass upon the stone step

of the churchyard cross. Her enchanted saddle was long kept in the

Castle of Landeck--maybe it is there yet; and even now when we want

to tell one to go quickly on an errand, we say, "Fly on the saddle

of Dame Stase."'

'You have had many such folk about here,' I observed seriously,

with the view of drawing him out.

'Well, yes, they tell many such tales,' he answered; 'and if they're

not true, they at least serve to keep alive the faith that God is

over us all, and that the evil one has no more power than just

what He allows. There's another story they tell, just showing

that,' he continued. 'Many years ago there was a peasant (and he

lived near Bludenz too) who had a great desire to have a fine large

farm-house. He worked hard, and put his savings by prudently; but it

wouldn't do, he never could get enough. One day, in an evil hour, he

let his great desire get the better of him, and he called the devil

in dreiteufelsnamen [43] to his assistance. It was not, you see,

a deliberate wickedness--it was all in a moment, like. But the devil

came, and didn't give him time to reflect. "I know what you want," he

said; "you shall have your house and your barns and your hen-house,

and all complete, this very night, without costing you a penny;

but when you have enjoyed it long enough, your old worn-out carcass

shall belong to me." The good peasant hesitated; and the devil,

finding it necessary to add another bait, ran on: "And what is more,

I'll go so far as to say that if every stone is not complete by the

first cock-crow, I'll strike out even this condition, and you shall

have it out and out." The peasant was dazzled with the prospect,

and could not bring himself all at once to refuse the accomplishment

of his darling hope. The devil shook him by the hand as a way of

clenching the bargain, and disappeared.

'The peasant went home more alarmed than rejoiced, and full of fear

above all that his wife should inquire the meaning of all the hammering

and blustering and running hither and thither which was to be heard

going on in the homestead, for she was a pious God-fearing woman.

'He remained dumb to all her inquiries, hour after hour through the

night; but at last, towards morning, his courage failed him, and he

told her all. She, like a good wife, gave back no word of reproach,

but cast about to find a remedy. First she considered that he had done

the thing thoughtlessly and rashly, and then she ascertained that at

last he had given no actual consent. Finally, deciding matters were

not as bad as might be, she got up, and bid him leave the issue to her.

'First she knelt down and commended herself and her undertaking to

God and His holy saints; then in the small hours, when the devil's

work was nearly finished, she took her lamp and spread out the wick

so that it should give its greatest glare, and poured fresh oil upon

it, and went out with a basket of grain to feed the hens. The cock,

seeing the bright light and the good wife with her basket of food,

never doubted but that it was morning, and springing up, he flapped

his wings, and crowed with all his might. At that very moment the

devil himself was coming by with the last roof-stone. [44] At the

sound of the premature cock-crow he was so much astonished that he

didn't know which way to turn, and sank into the ground bearing the

stone still in his hand.

'The house belonged to the peasant by every right, but no stone could

ever be made to stay on the vacant space. This inconvenience was

the penance he had to endure for the desperate game he had played,

and he took it cheerfully, and when the rain came in he used to kiss

his good wife in gratitude for the more terrible chastisement from

which she had saved him.'

The jaunty postilion whipped the horses on as he thus brought his story

to a close, or rather cracked his whip in the air till the mountains

resounded with it, for he had slackened speed while telling his tale,

and the day was wearing on.

'We must take care and not be late for the train,' he observed. 'The

Herrschaften have had enough of the inn of Oberriet, and don't want

to have to spend a night there, and we have no Vorarlberger-geist to

speed us now-a-days.'

'Who was he?' I inquired eagerly.

'I suppose you know that all this country round about here is called

the Vorarlberg, and in olden time there was a spirit that used to

wander about helping travellers all along its roads. When they were

benighted, it used to go before them with a light; when they were in

difficulties, it used to procure them aid; if one lost his way, it

used to direct him aright; till one day a poor priest came by who had

been to administer a distant parishioner. His way had lain now over

bog, now over torrent-beds. In the roughness of the way the priest's

horse had cast a shoe. A long stretch of road lay yet before him,

but no forge was near. Suddenly the Vorarlberger-geist came out of

a cleft in the rock, silently set to work and shod the horse, and

passed on its way as usual with a sigh.

'"Vergeltsgott!" [45] cried the priest after it.

'"God be praised!" exclaimed the spirit. "Now am I at last set

free. These hundred years have I served mankind thus, and till now

no man has performed this act of gratitude, the condition of my

release." And since this time it has never been seen again.'

We had now once more reached the banks of the Rhine. The driver of

the luggage van held the ferry in expectation of us, and with its

team it was already stowed on board. Our horses were next embarked,

and then ourselves, as we sat, perched on the carriage. A couple

of rough donkeys, a patriarchal goat, and half-a-dozen wild-looking

half-clothed peasants, made up a freight which seemed to tax the powers

of the crazy barge to the utmost; and as the three brawny ferrymen

pulled it dexterously along the guide rope, the waters of the here

broad and rapid river rose some inches through the chinks. All went

well, however, and in another half-hour we were again astonishing

the factotum of the Oberriet station with a vision of the 'Gepäck'

which had puzzled him so immensely the day before.