Near the village of Kitzbühel used to stand a magnificent forest, about which two peasants had a law-suit of several years’ duration, which finished with the judge being corrupted by one of the two peasants, to whom he awarded the Alp, and sent the defendant off, without the least hope of ever regaining his right.
The losing party, who through this iniquitous proceeding had become a poor man, could not rest, and constantly bewailed his misfortune, saying that he had been cheated and unjustly condemned. But the other, hearing the constant complaining of the poor injured man, one day called out, “Well, then, by all the devils, keep on crying. If I have unlawfully gained the forest, may it sink three thousand feet beneath the ground.” These words had scarcely gone out of his mouth, when an earthquake took place, together with a fearful thunderstorm, and the majestic forest sank beneath his feet, and black waves directly rolled over it. Though enormously deep as the See is, during certain weather the forms of trees can be distinctly seen far down below.
The same is the case with the Lanser-See, upon whose bottom trees are also to be seen growing. Where now this See stands, there used to be a magnificent forest of pines, about which, too, a dispute took place, though not between two peasants, but between a peasant and a nobleman, and the trial was conducted in such a manner that the nobleman gained the forest away from the poor man, to whom it really belonged; for, according to the old Tyrolian saying, “Noblemen do not bite each other.”[7] But the poor peasant, in his anger, cursed the forest, root and branch, and it sank into the depths of the earth. Next morning it was no longer to be seen, but a deep See stood in its place, which, after the village of Lans, not far from the renowned castle of Ambras, has taken the name of Lanser-See.
TANNEN-EH’.
High up in the Tyrolian Alps formerly stood a fine city, called Tannen-Eh’, whose inhabitants for ages past had led honest and God-fearing lives. There used to be a Paradise of peace and happiness; no one ever thought of hunting or killing any game; domestic animals, and Alpine plants and fruits being sufficient for the wants of the good-hearted simple people. There were never quarrels or disputes about “mine or thine,” the rich man willingly helped his poorer neighbour, and there was no extremity of wealth or poverty at Tannen-Eh’.
But in course of time all was altered. With increasing wealth the lust of gain approached, which brought vanity and luxury in its train. They said, like the people of Babel, “Let us build a tower whose top shall reach the skies, so as to gain ourselves a name, and in the tower there shall be a bell, whose sound can be heard by all those who live on mountain or valley; and at every christening, wedding, and burial, the bell shall sound, but only for us, the rich, and for the poor it shall not sound, because for them it is of no use.”
And this wicked plan was executed. The complaints of the oppressed rose through the skies to Heaven, and in the autumn a great famine fell upon the city. The poor suffered dreadfully, whilst the rich locked up their treasures and store-rooms, and only gave the poor people, who came to beg for bread, insolent words, telling them that, after all, they were but a miserable lot, and the best thing they could do was to die in God’s name, and go straight to Heaven. In this fearful dearth numbers died of absolute starvation.
Towards the end of the autumn, snow began to fall, and rose higher and higher, up to the windows up to the roofs, and then far above the roofs. In this extremity the rich people of Tannen-Eh’ began to toll their bell for help, but its sound could scarcely penetrate through the thick walls of snow, and no help arrived, for down in the surrounding valley poor people alone were living, who had been cruelly treated and oppressed by the rich citizens above. So the snow fell thicker and thicker, just as long as it rained in the days of the Flood.