Dann wird das Wetter gut;
Hat er einen Degen
So giebt es sicher Regen.”
He had heard that and said it was quite true; if the mountain was adorned with a little cloudy cap it meant that there would be fair weather; fortunately the peak wore his hat and not his dagger, so we had bright sunshine and not rain.
But Ned did not know the legend which connects Pilate with the mountain. Of course it should be Mons Pileatus—the capt mountain; but the story became widespread that after Christ was put to death, Pilate was recalled to Rome. He wore Christ’s robe. He was found guilty of malfeasance and was put to death. His body was thrown into the Tiber which refused it and angry storms arose. It was sent to Vienna: the Danube refused it; it was brought to the Rhône; again storms; the lake refused it; new disasters came upon Lausanne. Then it was brought to the Frankmünt—that is what the rough upper part of the mountain is called; the mons fractus—where Pilate’s ghost fought with the spectre of King Herod—the red of the conflict was seen then and afterwards at sunset on the mountain-top. Up came a necromancer and laid a terrible spell. In the days that followed nothing would grow there, and on Good Friday the disgraced procurator was doomed to appear on a black mule with a white spot—like a Roman knight—and show himself.
So great was the fear of Pilatus that until comparatively modern times no one dared to go up to it. Now there is a railway, and the ghost of Pilate is laid. Sir Edwin Arnold speaks of the legend in his lilting poem:—
“He riseth alone,—alone and proud
From the shore of an emerald sea;
His crest hath a shroud of the crimson cloud,
For a king of the Alps is he;