This lake is now called the “Piller-See,” which in certain places is fathomless. One day some people tried to measure its depth, when they heard a hollow voice proceeding from the bottom of the See, calling out:—
“If you fathom me, I swallow you.”[4]
This, like many other of the Tyrolian lakes, is supposed to have the power of dragging into its fathomless depths all those who are unfortunate enough to fall asleep on its fatal shores.
THE BURNING PINES.
A poor widow of Rattenberg, who was blessed with a large family, had been, through endless misfortunes, reduced to such a pitch of poverty that she only had left of all her possessions a small wood in the valley of Scheibenthal, which is close to Rattenberg. A wicked-hearted wretch took advantage of her troubles to try and prove that the wood was his own property, and by means of false witnesses and many failures of justice matters were driven so far that the unfortunate widow had to give up the wood, and died of grief soon afterwards. The children were taken care of by good neighbours, and when they were strong enough they were obliged to go out to service, and soon no more was heard of the matter.
Everything would have been forgotten had there not been One in whose remembrance all lives; and up to the present day the crime of the forest thief is constantly recalled through the circumstance that burning trunks often roll down through the wood, sending sparks in all directions, sometimes assuming the terrific appearance of a forest fire. But this dreadful phenomenon is ascribed to the fact that the wicked man, with his vile companions who had robbed the poor widow of her wood, have been condemned to burn in the forest which they stole, under the form of fiery pines, and roll in their agony through the forest, vainly seeking to release themselves from their everlasting punishment.
THE JAUFEN-FAIRY
Under the summit of the Jaufen, a mountain in Passeier, about 8000 feet high, used to reside a fairy who fell passionately in love with a young Baron of the castle of Jaufenburg, which lies at the foot of the aforesaid mountain, and was formerly the residence of the lords of Passeier. But whether the heart of the Baron was no longer free, or whether the fairy’s love frightened him, cannot be said; but he never responded to the attention of his fairy admirer, who took his coolness so much to heart that she pined away and transformed herself into a beggar woman, in which form she wandered along all the lanes and passes through which the Baron generally took his way, the image of injury and grief. One day she hid herself in a chalk-burner’s hut at which the Baron often stopped, as the man had been his former servant. When the young nobleman arrived and asked for a draught of water, the transformed fairy brought it to him after having dropped a pearl into the glass. While the Baron drank, the fairy assumed her real form, and now she appeared to him most beautiful, for the pearl had bewitched the water so that it coursed through his whole frame like fire, inspiring him with a never-before-felt sensation. The beautiful cup-server who stood before him seemed the acme of his ideal. He set her before him on his charger and galloped off to the Jaufenburg.