It seems that the possession of the Great or Hasli Scheidegg was once the cause of a serious dispute between the people of Hasli and Grindelwald. As the matter could not be settled otherwise, it was to be decided by oath. The people of Grindelwald, who could not swear truthfully that it belonged to them, nevertheless won it by stratagem, for their champion, filling his shoes with earth from his garden at Grindelwald, boldly presented himself before the judge on the disputed land. There he swore in a tone of such intense conviction that he stood upon Grindelwald soil, that the judge, persuaded of the rectitude of his claim, awarded the disputed land to his community.
The perjurer was, however, duly punished for this crime, for even now his soul can find no rest. Mounted the wrong way round upon a ghostly steed, he rides every night from the spot where he committed perjury down to Meiringen; and if one listens attentively one can often hear his sighs and groans as he takes this nightly jaunt.
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On either side of the Upper Grindelwald Glacier tower the Wetterhorn and the two Schreckhorn peaks. The latter mountains are said to be haunted by an unhappy chamois-hunter, who insisted on going in pursuit of game, although a terrible storm was raging and his wife frantically implored him to stay at home.
After climbing far up among the rocks, he detected a fine chamois, and crouching near the edge of a fearful abyss, took careful aim and fired. But just then his gun recoiled, and losing his insecure footing, he slipped over the edge. Instead of falling all the way down, however, the hunter landed on a narrow ledge of rock, whence he could not stir, for the cliff rose straight above and fell sheer below him hundreds of feet.
The poor man, unable to move, remained almost in the same position for three days and two nights, when, seeing no hope of escape, and unable to endure his sufferings any longer, he resolved to commit suicide. Writing the story of the accident which had befallen him and of his fatal resolve, he threw the scrap of paper down into the abyss at his feet. Then, reloading his gun, which he had held fast in his fall, he sent an unerring bullet straight through his brain.
Months later the paper was found close by his shattered corpse; and since then, whenever a storm rages, one can hear the sudden report of a gun, a crashing fall, prolonged heart-rending groans, and the people declare it is the suicide repeating the awful tragedy which ended his life.
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It seems that there was once a convent at Interlaken where the nuns, unmindful of their vows, led anything but pure lives. Banished after death to the Schreckhorn, these nuns lie buried deep in the snow; but the spots where they rest glitter in a peculiar way, and are known as Snow Eyes. People say that they are placed there to serve as a constant warning to the valley maidens not to follow the example of those dissolute nuns.
A legend claims that St. Martin once came to Grindelwald, and finding a valley too narrow to admit as much sunshine as he deemed necessary for the good of the people, determined to widen it. He therefore resolutely braced his back against the Mettenberg, and jamming his stick hard against the Eiger, pushed with such force that he partly accomplished his purpose. Such was the effort he made, that the imprint of his back can still be seen in the Mettenberg and a final thrust of his staff punched a hole through the Eiger! This perforation, far up the mountain, is known as the Heiterloch or Martinsloch, and the sun always shines through it on St. Martin’s Day, to keep bright the memory of the saint who made it.