THE FIREMAN PIGERPÜTZ.
At the foot of the Ischürgant mountain, near Imsh, stands a stone hut, called the Hirnhutte, because it had been erected by a former wood merchant whose name was Hirn, as a resting-place for his woodmen when he was felling timber on the banks of the torrent Pigersbach. This place is regarded with horror on account of a terrible shade which wanders from the Pigersbach upwards through an immense forest of gigantic oaks, and then passes over Strad up to the dense forest of firs which lies beyond.
This apparition, which is generally called the Pigerpütz, appears as a headless black form, or tears through the air in the shape of a flame which is sometimes larger and sometimes smaller, sometimes lighter and sometimes darker, and which often has been seen to rise above the ground expanding as it goes to the height of sixty feet and more.
In the year 1849 it happened that four peasants set out during the night from Imst to Tarenz, and as they walked along the Pigersbach which flowed on their right through mossy plains, they saw a brilliant flame floating across their path. “There goes the Pigerpütz,” said one of the men, and the others who were a little hot from the wine which they had taken at Imst, began to laugh and sneer at him; but they had scarcely done so ere the flame rushed upon them, and as they saw this the three tipsy men ran off as fast as their legs could carry them, but the one who had first seen and spoken of the Pigerpütz stood firmly on the spot. He was the peasant banker of Tarenz, who is still alive and recounts his adventure thus:—
“I stood firm and let him approach, and, by my soul, he really came on and grew to the size of a haystack as he approached. Then I said to him: ‘I shall never help you; for if you had led a better life, and not committed so many crimes, you would not now be obliged to wander about in this form. Now off with you!’ And then, by my soul, he really fled away over the Pigersbach.”
THE PILLER-SEE.
Where the lovely Piller-See now lies, with its green rippling waters about one and a half miles long by three-quarters wide, close to the village of St. Ulrich, there used to stand one of the most beautiful and most fertile Alps of the whole Tyrol, belonging formerly to several peasants, who pastured large herds of animals upon it. They were rich in cows, and grass, and had their beautiful Alp besides to depend upon; so they were the happiest and wealthiest peasants in all the world. But instead of being grateful to Heaven for all its blessings, they became vain, thinking only of amusement and dancing, and every Sunday and fête-day they passed in all sorts of frivolous pleasures. The Alp soon assumed the appearance of a heathen garden, and all those who paid no regard to the opinion of the world flocked there to enjoy their guilty pleasure.
The dissolute villagers wanting one day to play at their favourite game of nine-pins, and having neither balls nor pins, seized upon the beautiful alpine which they found in a farm close by, ready for the morrow’s market, and turned it to the purposes of their game; but suddenly the shed in which they were amusing themselves began to give way, and all the surrounding ground, together with the adjacent mountains, sank beneath their feet. Upon whatever spot they trod the earth slipped from under them, and out of the earth water sprang, and every one of them was drowned in the new-formed lake. Only a musician who had been forced against his will to climb the Alp and play to them was saved, for, sitting on his chair, he was driven to the borders of the lake by the swelling current.