A girl who had been jilted by her lover refused to go to a wedding to which she had been invited by her neighbours, and where there was to be music and dancing. In her grief and despair she raged and noised about at home, until the evil one in the form of a green huntsman appeared before her, and invited her to the dance. Without reflecting any longer she went with him to the wedding-feast, glad that her unfaithful suitor should no longer enjoy his triumph. The huntsman danced so fast and so well that all the guests admired him, for he sang and was the most spirited among them all. But in spite of this, every one shuddered when they looked at him, for his mien was like that of a snake, sly and venomous. The girl, however, did not care at all about it, and enjoyed herself all the evening.
On their way home the huntsman asked the girl if she would allow him to serenade her on the following evening, to which she gave a most joyful assent. On the following night, just as the church clock was striking twelve, some one knocked at the girl’s bedroom window. She opened the lattice to greet the huntsman, who now appeared before her in the devil’s most hideous form. He seized upon her and dragged her fiercely through the narrow iron bars which guarded it, so that pieces of skin and flesh remained hanging on them, and the warm blood ran in streams down the wall. He then flew off with the screaming girl through the air.
Up to the present day it has been impossible to wash or rub those blood stains away, and any one who passes through the little village of St. Johann, can see them for himself.
THE TYROLIAN GIANTS OF ALBACH.
In a wild mountain valley in which only savage animals and reptiles were to be found, and in which vast expanses of moss covered the swamps so treacherously that even bears and wolves had been engulfed in them, a huge giant arrived one day, looked at the surrounding country, and chose it for his abode. He dug himself a cave, built drains through which he sent off the superfluous water into the lower valleys; and as, after having chopped down enormous expanses of forest, he found that it had become quite to his taste, he set off in search of a wife. He neither wished for a fairy nor a moonlight maid, and for that reason he went upon the peaks of the mountains, from which he soon returned with a giantess who was as strong and savage as himself, and who assisted him dauntlessly in all his abominable works.
In three years they were obliged to considerably enlarge their habitation, as their three young giant sons began to grow up; and when these became strong enough, they helped their father to build a new house. The old giant felled the trees on the Alp Mareit, which stands about six miles from his former abode, and his sons dragged the trunks to the building-spot. They were not then very strong, and could only drag one tree each at a time, which, however, was no less than eight feet in diameter. Only the youngest of the giant’s sons, whose name was Bartl, sometimes dragged two at once, at which his father smiled with contentment.
To make his new residence like that of a civilized family, the giant caught a few “flies,” as he called them, which were men and clever carpenters, who were compelled to hew and shape the wood, in which work the giant’s sons helped in turning the trees, as it would have been impossible for the carpenters to do it themselves.
People call the swamp which the giant has drained the Rossmoos, and to the giants they gave the name of the Rossmooser Riesen (Rossmoos giants), while the new house received that of the Rossmooser Hof (Rossmoos farm), which still stands upon the peak of Albach opposite Stolzenberg.
After the building had been finished a few years, the old giant father felt the approach of age in the gradual loss of his strength; therefore he began to think of making over his property to one of his sons. But he did not know to which of them to give it, as all three were equally dear to him, and at that time the laws of birthright were not yet introduced into the giant-race, no more than the institution which exists in other places, and according to which the youngest son receives the house, and pays to his other brothers their share in ready money. Therefore in his perplexity he talked it over with his wife, who advised him thus, “Give it to the strongest of them, and then you have done.”