The Witschnauers cannot be accused of any dreamy longings after the recurrence of such prosperous times. They are among the most diligent tillers of the land to be found anywhere; the plough is carried over places where the uneven gradients make the guiding of horses or oxen a too great expenditure of time; in such places they do not disdain to harness themselves to the plough, and even the women take their turn in relieving them. Of one husbandman of olden time it is narrated that he was even too eager in his thrift, and carried his furrow a little way on to his neighbour’s land year by year, so that by the time he came to die he had appropriated a good strip of land not his own. His penance was, that after death he should continually tread up and down the stolen soil, dragging after him a red-hot ploughshare, in performing which his wail was often overhead—
O weh! wie is der Pflug so heiss
Und niemand mir zu helfen weiss![8]
until one of his successors in the farm, being a particularly honourable man, removed the boundary-stone back to its original position. He had no sooner done so than he had the satisfaction of hearing the spectre cry—
Erlöst, Gott sei Dank, bin ich jetzt
Der Markstein ist auch rechtgesetzt.[9]
Another class of legends has also a home in this locality. It is told that a peasant from Oberau was going home from Thierbach, one Epiphany Eve. It was a cold night; his feet crunched the crisp snow at every step; the air was clear, and the stars shone brightly. The peasant’s head, however, was not so clear as the sky, for he came from the tavern, where he had been spending a merry evening with his boon companions. Thus it happened that instead of walking straight on, he gave one backward step for every three forward, like the Umgehende Schuster;[10] and thus he went staggering about till he came to the Rastbank, which is even yet sought as a point where to rest and overlook the view. It struck twelve as he seated himself on the bench; then suddenly behind him he heard a sound of many voices, which came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl in her white clothing, her broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of little people[11] swept clattering and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a long shirt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compassion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in return for his compassion his children should never come to want. This story, I think there is little doubt, may be genuine; your Wiltschenauer is as fond of brandy as your Zillerthaler, and under its influence the peasant may very likely have passed a troubled night on the Rastbank. What more likely to cross his fancy on the Epiphany Eve than the thought of a visit from the Berchtl and her children (they always appear in Tirol at that season, and in rags and tatters[12]); his own temperament being compassionate, that he should help the stumbling little one, and that the Berchtl should give him promise of reward was all that might be expected from certain premises. But what are those premises? Who was the Berchtl? If you ask a Tirolean peasant the question, he will probably tell you that the Perchtl (as he will call her) is Pontius Pilate’s wife,[13] to whom redemption was given by reason of her intervention in favour of the Man of Sorrows, but that it is her penance to wander over the earth till the last day as a restless spirit; and that as the Epiphany was the season of favour to the Gentiles, among whose first-fruits she was, it is at that season she is most often seen, and in her most favourable mood. It must be confessed that some of his stories of her will betray a certain amount of inconsistency, for he will represent her carrying off children, wounding belated passengers, and performing many acts inconsistent with the character of a penitent soul, and more in accordance with that of the more ancient ‘Lamia.’
If you address your question to Grimm, or Wolf, Simrock, Kuhn, Schwartz, or Mannhardt, or any who have made comparative mythology their study, he will tell you that the stories about her (and probably all the other marvellous tales of the people also) are to be traced back to the earliest mythological traditions of a primeval glimmering of religion spread abroad over the whole world; and to the poetical forms of expression of a primitive population describing the wonderful but constantly repeated operations of nature.[14] That the wilder Jäger was originally the god Wodin, the hunter of unerring aim, that his impetuous course typifies the journey of the sun-god through the heavens,[15] his mighty arm represents his powerful rays; and in even so late a tale as ‘that of William Tell, he will see the last reflections of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.’[16] He will tell you that all ‘the countless legends of princesses kept in dark prisons and invariably delivered by a young bright knight can all be traced back to mythological traditions about the spring being released from the bonds of winter; the sun being rescued from the darkness of night; the dawn being brought back from the far west; the waters being set free from the prison of clouds.’[17] And of the Berchtl herself, he will tell you that she is Perahta (the bright), daughter of Dagha (the day), whose name has successively been transformed into Perchtl and Bertha; brightness or whiteness has made her to be considered the goddess of winter; who particularly visited the earth for twelve winter nights, and spoilt all the flax of those idle maidens who left any unspun on the last day of the year;[18] who carries in her hand a broken plough in token that the ground is hardened against tillage; whose brightness has also made her to be reckoned the all-producing earth-mother, with golden hair like the waving corn; the Hertha of the Swabian; the Jörtha of Scandinavian;[19] the Berecynthia of the Phrygian;[20] and to other nations known as Cybele, Rhea, Isis, Diana.[21]
Such ideas were too deeply rooted in the minds of the people to be easily superseded; as my friend, the Feldkirch postilion, said, they went on and on like the echoes of their own mountains. ‘The missionaries were not afraid of the old heathen gods; ... their kindly feeling towards the traditions, customs, and prejudices of their converts must have been beneficial; ... they allowed them the use of the name Allfadir, whom they had invoked in the prayers of their childhood, when praying to Him who is “our Father in heaven.”’ And as with the greater, so with the less, the mighty powers they had personified and treated as heroes and examples lived on in their imagination, and their glorious deeds came to be ascribed to the new athletes of a brighter faith. Then, ‘although originally popular tales were reproductions of more ancient legends, yet after a time a general taste was created for marvellous stories, and new ones were invented in large numbers. Even in these purely imaginative productions, analogies may be discovered with more genuine tales, because they were made after the original patterns, and in many cases were mere variations on an ancient air.’[22] More than this, there came the actual accession of marvels derived from the acts inspired by the new faith; but it cannot be denied that the two became strangely blended in the popular mind.
Brixlegg presents some appearance of thriving, through the smelting and wire-drawing works for the copper ore brought from the neighbourhood of Schwatz. It also enjoys some celebrity as the birthplace of the Tirolean historian Burgleckner, whose family had been respected here for generations; and it is very possible to put up for the night at the Herrenhaus. It is not much above a mile hence to Rattenberg, of which I have already spoken.