The Innkeeper, Anton Trebo, in Enneberg, who died in the year 1853, was a firm-minded man and noted as a great quarreller; he was sharp and enterprising in his business, and laughed to scorn all his guests when they ventured to recount anything about the Orco, who was held in most terrible dread by all the inhabitants of the surrounding country. Anton Trebo used to say that he believed in no apparition from either heaven or hell.
It was in the year 1825 that he returned from the market of St. Lorenz in his cart, with his son Franz. As he arrived at the rock called “Delles Gracies” (Rock of Grace), where in the hollow niches of the rock still stand many carved wooden statues of Christ and His saints, and just as he passed by, there all at once appeared a huge monstrous black dog, which ran round his cart and horses, and looked so diabolically that even the otherwise courageous bully was almost terrified. He held the reins tightly, and said to his son, “What is the dog doing there? Drive him away.” Franz tried to frighten the brute off with stones and blows, but the dog would not move, and Trebo, becoming more and more frightened, made the sign of the cross, and all at once the dog disappeared before their eyes.
Since this adventure, the innkeeper of Enneberg, believed firmly that it had really been the Orco, and has always defended his conviction of the existence of this fearful mountain ghost. Franz has taken the place of his father, and is now innkeeper of Enneberg, where one of his brothers lives with him.
In 1816 a brave peasant woman of Brenta, in the valley of Buchenstein, whose name was Maria Vinazzer, went with her son, who was nine years old, to meet her herd of cows which were returning from the Crontrin Alp. It was a beautiful autumn day, and they advanced the more gaily, as they were accompanied by the worthy parish singer, Lazar. As they arrived on the mountain side, all at once a wild horse trotted before them so suddenly that it appeared as though he had sprung from the ground, and wherever he trod fire played round about his heels.
Lazar, who was a courageous mountaineer, threw stones at the brute, but they rebounded from his sides, as though he had thrown them at a rock. The horse would not be driven away, and always galloped before them. On seeing this extraordinary apparition, Maria said, “This is certainly the Orco, and if he meets the herd he will surely disperse it, as he has often done, and the cows will run in all directions over the precipices and chasms.” They all three crossed themselves and repeated a prayer.
At that moment they arrived at the cross-way, called Livine, where stands a crucifix, and as the Orco approached near to it, he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared; he neither sank into the earth, nor flew away through the air, but like a soap-bubble he vanished in an instant.
All three stood and prayed a little time before the cross, where the herd soon after gaily arrived, and the pious mother said joyfully to her son, “Look, dear child, he who is with God is everywhere safe, and no Orco or other evil spirit can harm him.”