But a wonderful thing came to pass; his beautiful bride suddenly disappeared from his side, and he could not imagine where she had gone. He rode day and night and never reached his castle. The poor exhausted charger at last fell beneath the weight of his infatuated master, and died. Then the Baron sought his home on foot, but without avail; he found himself in a strange country where he knew nobody and nobody knew him. He became so poor that he was obliged to sell his rich attire, and at last was forced to beg his way through the country. Miserable, weak, and ill, he reached one evening the hut of the smith in the Kalmthal, where, half dead with hunger and exposure, he fell down upon a heap of straw.
The fairy now saw good to bring to an end the hard penance which she had imposed upon him for his first slighting of her. She appeared to him again in all her grace and splendour. All his magnificent attire was restored to him; his charger stood waiting for him at the door of the hut, and all the hardship through which he had passed appeared to him but as a dreadful dream. He now conducted his fairy bride back to the Jaufenburg, united himself to her for ever, and lived happy and blessed, though without any heir. After his death the fairy disappeared, and the Jaufenburg descended by marriage to the family Von Fuchs, and, later on, the beautiful castle fell into the hands of a rich peasant and crumbled to ruins under his keeping.
THE WETTER-SEE.
Close beneath the mountain Gerlos, in the Zillerthal, lies the “Wetter-See” (weather-lake), into which no one dares to throw a stone, and it is not advisable for even a stranger to do so, or he would find himself involved in great trouble from the surrounding mountaineers, among whom still exists the firm belief, which has been corroborated by hundreds of examples, that directly a stone has been thrown into the lake fearful thunderstorms arise, accompanied by devastating hail and wind.
The See lies in a desolate basin on the heights of the mountains, and every one who is shown the lake hears from his guide, or any cowherd, the following legend: A shepherd arrived one day on the borders of the See, where he saw a huge golden chain lying, the other end of which remained in the water. Just as he stooped to grasp it he saw, glittering on the other side of the lake, one of much larger size, so he left the first to go and take the other; but as he approached it and was about to put his hand upon it, both chains disappeared under the water, while the poor fellow stood stupefied with amazement on the shore.
People say that “the herdsman was too avaricious; for, had he been content with the one chain which was within his grasp, he would never have lost them both.” As the chains are said to appear from time to time, people are still on the look-out for them, because they are of such enormous length that he who finds one of them would be rich during all his days.