His motto, which ran, "The more opponents the greater honour," was characteristic of himself and of his race. But with his death, and the financial embarrassments which afflicted his heirs, owing to the heavy mortgages on the estates which he had left behind him, with no means of discharging the same, the Frundsbergs declined rapidly in power, and the race came to an end in the male line on the death of his son George (one of nine children) in 1586,[25] though there are descendants in the female line of the Frundsbergs living at the present time.
The castle afterwards fell into ruins, and its history may be said to have ceased with the close of the sixteenth century. The Bavarians, however, made use of the ruined walls for "cover" during the campaign of 1809, when they were attacked by the forces raised by Hofer and his comrades.
CHAPTER XII
THROUGH THE OBER-INNTHAL: ZIRL, ITS CHURCH, LEGENDS, AND PAINTED HOUSES—THE MARTINSWAND AND MAXIMILIAN—SCHARNITZ—LANDECK—BLUDENZ—BREGENZ AND ITS LEGEND OF THE MAID
From Schwaz to Zirl,[26] beyond Innsbruck, is between twenty-nine and thirty miles, either by train or road. The latter is quite good for cycling, and those who are not cyclists or pedestrians will find to make the journey by carriage a delightful way of reaching the picturesque little village from which the ascent of the Gross Solstein may be made, and that also of the more romantic and famous Martinswand.
The village is, unlike many of those lying in the Unter-Innthal, east of Innsbruck, an agricultural one, with most of the houses built in straight rows, and having quaint and picturesque, but not very clean or salubrious, courtyards in the rear. Some of the most charming groups of peasants, ox-carts, and "farm scenes" are to be found at Zirl, which is a good deal visited by artists, and invites the attention of amateur photographers.
In most cases the houses have their dwelling-rooms and sleeping accommodation on the first floor, which is reached by flights of steps, and the exteriors of the dwellings are made picturesque and quaint by the projecting gables of carved wood, and the galleries which jut out beneath them, where the corn, herbs, and other produce is either laid out or hung up to dry. As in other villages of the Inn Thal, one sees the love of colour in the delicate pink, blue (almost a lavender), and green tints of the stucco-work on the house-fronts and walls. Zirl is a picture-village, too, and on the houses, as one drives or walks through the narrow streets, one catches glimpses of paintings of Virgins, saints engaged in vigorous and deadly combats with evil-looking monsters of the dragon tribe, and here and there, set in a niche in the wall, a tiny figure of a Madonna, saint, or crucifix protected with glass, and often surrounded with a chaplet or bunches of withered flowers.
One of the Inns, named "the Regenbogen," has a most vivid and even startling representation of a rainbow (which gives it its name) painted over the arched doorway.
The church of Zirl is chiefly interesting from the frescoes it contains, which are the work of Schöpf. The churchyard is a spot in which to linger. It is instinct with the pathos which comes in a measure from partial neglect, and picturesqueness of environment.