The Fassathal begins just after Moena. One of its wildest legends is that of the feuriger Verräther. It dates from the time of the Roman invasion. The mountain-dwellers appear to have been as zealous defenders of their native fastnesses then as in later times, and it is said the conquering legions were long wandering round the confines without finding any who would lead them into the interior of the country. It was at last an inhabitant of the Fassathal who betrayed the narrow pass which was the key to their defences, and which cost the liberty of the nation—all for the sake of the proffered blood-money. But he was never suffered to enjoy it; for a flash like lightning, though under a clear sky, struck him to the earth, and ever since, the traitor has been to be met by night wrapt in flames, and howling piteously.
Vigo is the principal town, and serves as the starting-point for the magnificent mountain excursions of the neighbourhood. The most difficult of these, and one only to be attempted by the well-seasoned Alpine climber,[22] is that of the massive snow-clad Marmolata, 10,400 feet high, surnamed the Queen of the Dolomites; but she is a severe and haughty queen, who knows how to hold her own, and keep intruders at a distance; and many who have been enchanted with her stern beauty from afar have rued the attempt at intruding on the cold solitude of her eternal penance. For the legends tell that in her youth she was covered with verdant charms, which made her the delight of the people; but they were not content to use with pious moderation the precious gifts she had in store, and for some sin of theirs—some say for selfish disregard of the law of charity to the poor;[23] some say for disregard of the Church’s law forbidding to work on the hohe Unser-frauentag (the Assumption),[24] some say for unjust striving for the possession of the soil—the vengeance of Heaven overtook them, and the once smiling meadows were converted into the hard and barren glacier. Near Vigo is a little way-side chapel, highly prized, because near it some French soldiers in the invasion of 1809 lost their way, and the town was thus saved from their depredations; and the legend arose that the Madonnabild had stricken them blind. Several of them died of falls and hunger, and tradition says, that on wild nights notes of distress from a dying bugler’s horn may be heard resounding still.
The Avisio was once the boundary against Venetian territory; and St. Ulrich dying on its banks, on his return from Rome, exacted of his disciples a promise that they would carry his body across, so that he might find his final rest on German soil.
[1] Circle.
[2] The sunnier and less thoughtful tone of mind in which the Italian particularly differs from the German character, is often to be traced in their legendary stories. Those of the Germans are nearly always made to convey some moral lesson; this is as often wanting in those of the Italians, who seem satisfied with making them means of amusement, without caring that they should be a medium of instruction.
[3] The Passion Plays of the Brixenthal, however, are reckoned the best. The performers gather and rehearse in the spring, and go round from village to village through the summer months, only, as amphitheatres are improvised in the open.
[4] It may be worth mentioning, as an instance of how the contagion of popular customs is transmitted, that on enquiring into some very curious grotesque ceremonies performed in Trent at the close of the carneval, and called its ‘burial,’ I learnt that it did not appear to be a Tirolean custom, but had been introduced by the soldiers of the garrison who, for a long time past, had been taken from the Slave provinces of the Austrian Empire, and thus a Slave popular custom has been grafted on to Tirol. Wälsch-Tirol, however, has its own customs for closing the carneval, too. In some places it is burnt in effigy; in some, dismissed with the following dancing-song (Schnodahüpfl) greeting,
Evviva carneval!
Chelige manca ancor el sal;