As they mounted higher and higher they heard the mass bells ringing at Unken; the youngest brother said, “Let us go back.” But the others jeered at him and said, “The whistle of a gazelle is more to our taste than the mass bells and sermon.” When the enthusiastic huntsmen had arrived on the very top of the mountain, the bells rang again, and the youngest brother said, “Listen, there is the elevation, we ought to have been there.”
But his brothers sneered at him, and replied, “A fat gemsbock here is much more to our mind than the body of the Lord in the village church below.” These words were scarcely out of their mouths, when clouds as black as ink enveloped the mountains, and everything became dark as night; then came on a thunderstorm, as though the world was at its end. After the storm was over the three brothers were found on the peak of the mountain, turned into stones in the form of gigantic rocks, and there they still stand, known to every little Tyrolian child under the name of “the Three Brothers.”
THE FIERY BODY.
Round about the village of St. Martin, in the Passeierthal, the parish comprises a great many single-lying farmsteads, which are dispersed about to the north in every direction for seven or eight miles towards the parish of Platt. In one of these farms a man was lying very ill, because on a Sunday, instead of going to church, he had hunted in the neighbouring forest, and had slightly wounded his foot with the iron heel of his other boot. It seemed as though the wound was poisoned, for it grew continually worse and worse, and at last threw the man into a deadly fever. The neighbours implored him to give up his evil ways, for he was a wicked fellow, and took delight in mocking at religion, and always, above every other, chose a Sunday or fête day for his hunting excursions.
But, wishing to appear an esprit fort, he answered that he preferred to arrange his own affairs with the Creator without their interference. In spite of all this, a good priest tried to persuade him out of his evil ways; but the wicked man replied to his exhortations by throwing a plate at him, out of which he had just been eating his milk soup. He remained obstinate and hardened, “determined,” as he called it, to the last.
One day, when he was dying, the people of the house ran down to the priest, and implored him to come and save the unhappy sinner if it was still possible. The good priest, accompanied by his sacristan, hastened directly up the mountain, carrying the Holy Sacrament with them. As they arrived close to the farm, they were met by a fiery red body rushing through the air, spitting flames as it flew. It aimed directly at the priest, and was the body of the unbelieving Sabbath-breaker, who had died without repentance. The sacristan fell to the earth terror-stricken; but the priest said, “Fear not, Christ is with us,” and as he spoke these words the fiery body rushed by, leaving them unhurt, and hurled itself down the fearful precipice of the Matatz valley.