The Valleys of Tirol: Their traditions and customs and how to visit them

The most prominent group – and their special home, I am assured, clusters round the Dolomite mountains – are those concerning certain beings called ‘Salvan’ and ‘Gannes;’ and traditions about ‘Orco.’ A local collector of such lore, to whom I am chiefly indebted for the above fact, is inclined to identify the ‘Salvan’ with ‘Orco;’ but I think it can be shown that they are distinct ideas. Both are only ordinarily, not always malicious, but the ‘Salvan’ is one of a number of sprites, Orco has the dignity of being one by himself. The Salvan in some respects takes the place of the wild man of the North, and of the satyr whom I also found called in Rome ‘salvatico’ and ‘selvaggio.’213 ‘Orco’ clearly takes the place of Orcus in Italy; and that of the ‘Teufel’ in German legend. Yet so are the traditions of neighbouring peoples intermingled, that the Germans, not content with their own devil, have sprightly imitations of Orco in their ‘Nork’ and Lorg, softened in the intermediate Deutsch Tirol into Norg.214 In Norway the same appellation is found, hardened into Nök, Neck, Nikr,215 which seems to bring us round to our own ‘Old Nick;’ for in Iceland he is ‘Knikur,’ and, perhaps, he gave his name to Orkney.216

It is curious, in tracing the seemingly undoubtable connection between the Norg and Orco, to observe that though the Norg possesses almost invincible strength, and often prevails against giants, yet in stature he is always a dwarf, while Orco himself is considered a giant. But then it is the one essential characteristic of Orco which forms the link between all conceptions of him, whether men call him Orco, Nork, or Nyk, that he is a deceiver ever; a liar from the beginning; whenever he appears it is continually under some ever-changing, not-to-be-expected form, and only the wise guess what he is before it is too late.217 Thus it happened to two young lads of Mori, who had been up the mountains to visit their sweet-hearts, and coming back, they met Orco prowling about after his manner when all good people are safe in bed asleep – this time in the form of an ass. The Mori lads, never thinking but that it was a common ass, jumped on its back. They soon found out their mistake, for Orco quickly resented their want of discrimination, and cantered off with them past an old building which had once been a prison, and skilfully chucked them both in at the window. It was some days before they contrived to crawl out again, and not till they were nearly starved.

But we have in English another affinity with ‘Orco,’ besides ‘Old Nick;’ we have seen him take the place of our ‘ogre’ in deed as well as in name in the Roman fairy tales, and in Italy he is also the bugbear of the nursery which we have almost literally in ‘Old Bogey.’ And now Mr. I. Taylor has found another affinity for him if he be justified in identifying our ‘ogre’ with “the Tatar word, ‘ugry,’ a thief.”218

To return to Orco’s place in Tirol, we find his name assumes nearly as many transliterations as his external appearance assumes changes. In Vorarlberg they have a Dorgi or Doggi (i being the frequent local abbreviation for the diminutive lein, —klein), there considered as one personation of the devil. The Doggi spreads over part of Switzerland, and overflows into Alsace as the Doggele.219 In the zone of Tirol where the Italian and German elements of the population mingle, there is a class of mischievous irrepressible elfs called Orgen; soft, and round, and small, like cats without head or feet, who establish themselves in any part of a house performing all sorts of annoyances, but who are as afraid of egg-shells as the Norgs in other parts are said to be. Their chief home is in the Martelthal, south of Schlanders in the Vintschgau, and their name is devoted to the brightly shining peak seen from it – the Orgelspitz. In the Passeyer, on the north side of the Vintschgau, they go by the name of Oerkelen.

Since we have seen him, too, divested of his ‘r’ in Doggi from Vorarlberg to Alsace, and the Germans have already given him an L in Lorg, he assumes a mysterious likeness to Loki himself, and as a sample of how elastic is language, and how misleading are mere sounds, though for no other purpose, it might be said, we had found in this Doggi a relation of the dog who guards the entrance to the regions of Orcus!

The Salvan and Gannes, as described by the local observer above alluded to, seem to partake very much of the character of the good and evil genii of the Etruscans, though the traditions that remain of them refer almost exclusively to their action on this side the grave. ‘Their Etruscan appellation,’ says Mr. Dennis, ‘is not yet discovered;’220 when it is, it will be very satisfactory if it has any analogy with ‘Gannes.’221 The Gannes were gentle, beauteous, beneficent beings, delighting in being helpful to those they took under their protection; harmful to none. The Salvans were hideous, wild, and fierce, delighting in mischief and destruction, with fiery serpents for their chief companions. They seem to have done all the mischief they could as long as their sway lasted, but they were scared by advancing civilization; and I have a ludicrous description of how they stood gazing down in stupid wonderment from their Dolomite peaks, when the first ploughs were brought into use in the valleys.

Schneller, who with all his appreciation of Wälsch-Tirol, looks at its traditions too much through German spectacles, gives us some little account of these beings too.222

He has also a ‘Salvanel,’ who seems a male counterpart of his Gannes, helpful and soft-natured, with no vice save a tendency to steal milk. In return he teaches mankind to make butter and cheese, and other useful arts, and is specially kind to little children; his name bears some relation with the local word for the ‘Jack-’o-lantern’ reflection from glass or water. But he found also the ‘Salvan’ in his pernicious character under the names of ‘Bedelmon,’ ‘Bildermon,’ and ‘Salvadegh.’ But the most pernicious spirit that came in his way was the ‘Beatrik,’ who is an unmitigated fury,223 and the natural enemy and antagonist of a gentle, helpful, beauteous spirit called Angane, Eguane, and Enguane, but possessed with his German ideas, he saw in the being so designated nothing but ‘a witch, or perhaps a fairy-natured being.’224 In another page he pairs them off more fairly with the ‘Säligen Fräulein’ of Germany. Here is a story of their ways which was given me, but I do not know if it was founded on his at page 215, or independently collected: – A young woodman was surprised one day to meet, in the midst of his lonely toil, a beautiful maiden, who nodded to him familiarly, and bid him ‘good day’ with more than common interest. Nor did her conversation end with ‘good day;’ she found enough to prattle about till night fell; and then, though the young woodman had been sitting by her side instead of attending to his work, he found he had a bigger faggot to carry home than he had ever made up with all his day’s labour before. ‘That was a sweet maiden, indeed,’ he mused on his way home. ‘And yet I doubt if she is all right. But her talk showed she was of the right stuff to make a housewife; but then Maddalena, what will she say? ha! let her say what she will, she won’t stand comparing with her! I wonder if I shall see her again! And yet I don’t think she’s altogether right, either.’ So he mused all through the lonely evening, and all through the sleepless night; and his first thought in the morning was of whether he should meet that strange maiden again in the wood. In the wood he did meet her, and again she wiled away the day with her prattle; and again and again they met. Maddalena sat at home weeping over her spinning-wheel, and wondering why he came no more to take her for a walk; but Maddalena was forgotten, and one day it was her fate to see her former lover and the strange maiden married in the parish church. The woodman was not surprised to find his seiren the model of a wife. The house was swept so clean, the clothes so neatly mended, the butter so quickly churned, that though all the villagers had been shy of the strange maiden, none could deny her excellent capacity. The woodman was very well satisfied with his choice; but as he had always a misgiving that there was something not quite right with her, he could not help nervously watching every little peculiarity. It was thus he came to notice that it was occasionally her custom to lay her long wavy tresses carefully outside the bedclothes at night; he thought this odd, and determined to watch her. One night, when she thought him asleep, and he was only feigning, he observed that she took a little box of salve from under her pillow, and rubbing it into her hair, said, Schiva boschi e schiva selva (shun woods and forests), and then was off and away in a trice. Determined to follow her, he took out the box of salve, and rubbing it into his hair, tried to repeat her saying, but he did not recall it precisely, and said instead, Passa boschi e passa selvi (away through woods and forests), and away he went, faster than he liked, while his clothes and his skin were torn by the branches of the trees. He came, however, to the precincts of a great palace, where was a fresh green meadow, on which were a number of kine grazing, and some were sleek and well-favoured, while some were piteously lean; and yet they all fed on the same pasture. The palace had so many windows that it took him a long while to count them, and when he had counted them he found there were three hundred and sixty-five. He climbed up and looked in at one of them – it was the window of a great hall, where a number of Enguane were dancing, and his wife in their midst. When he saw her, he called out to her; but when she heard his voice, instead of coming she took to flight, nor could he overtake her with all his strength for running. At last, after pursuing her for three days, he came to the hut of a holy hermit, who asked him wherefore he ran so fast; and when he had told him, the hermit bid him give up the chase, for an Enguane was not a proper wife for a Christian man. Then the woodman asked him to let him become a hermit too, and pass the remainder of his life under his guidance. To this the hermit consented; so he built him a house, and they lived together in holy contemplation. One day the woodman told the hermit of what he had seen when he went forth to seek his wife; and the hermit told him that the palace with three hundred and sixty-five windows represented this temporal world, with its years of three hundred and sixty-five days; but the fresh green meadow was the Church, in which the Redeemer gave His Flesh for the food of all alike; but that while some pastured on it to the gain of their eternal salvation, who were represented by the well-favoured kine, there were also the perverse and sinful, who eat to their own condemnation, and were represented by the lean and distressed kine.225

It is less easy to collect local traditions in Wälsch-Tirol than in any other part of the principality, but legends and marvellous stories exist in abundance; and so long as the institution of the Filò (or out-house room where village gossips meet to spend their evenings in silk-spinning and recounting tales) last, they will not be allowed to die out:226 it is said that there are some old ladies who can go on retailing stories by the week together! And though by the nature of the case these gatherings must consist almost exclusively of women, yet it is thought uncanny not to have any man about the place; in fact, that in such a case Froberte227 is sure to play them some trick. They narrate that once when this happened, one of the women exclaimed, ‘Only see! we have no man at all among us; let’s be off, or something will happen!’ All rose to make their escape at the warning, but before they had time to leave, a donna Berta knocked and came in. ‘Padrona! donna Berta dal nas longh,’228 said all the women together, trying to propitiate her by politeness; and the nearest offered her a chair. ‘Wait a little, and you’ll see another with a longer nose than I,’ replied Froberte; and as she spoke, a second donna Berta knocked and entered, to whom the women gave the same greeting. ‘Wait a bit, and you’ll see another with a longer nose than I,’ said the second donna Berta; and so it went on till there were twelve of them. Then the first said, ‘What shall we be at?’ To which the second made answer, ‘Suppose we do a bit of washing:’ and the others agreeing, they told the women to give them pails to fetch water with; but the women, knowing that their intention was to have suffocated them all in the wash-tubs, gave them baskets instead. Not noticing the trick, they went down to the Etsch with the baskets to fetch water, and when they found that all their labour was in vain, they ran back in a great fury; but in the meantime the women had all escaped to their home, and every one was safe in bed with her husband. But a Froberte came to the window of each and cried, ‘It is well for you you have taken refuge with your husband!’ The next night the women were determined to pay off the brava Berta for the fright they had had, so they got one of their husbands to hide himself in the crib of the oxen; had he sat down with them, the Froberte would not have come at all. Not seeing him, Froberte knocked and came in, and they greeted her and gave her a chair, just as on the previous night; and the whole twelve soon arrived. Before they could begin their washing operations, however, the man sprang out of the crib, and put them to flight with many hard blows; so that they did not return for many a long day. The last day of Carneval was called il giorno delle Froberte, probably because many wild pranks in which sober people allow themselves to indulge on that day of licence were laid on the shoulders of Mistress Bertha. But it is also said, that since the sitting of the Holy Council of Trent, the power for mischief of these elves has grown quite insignificant. Here are some few specimens of the multifarious stories of the Filò.229 Once there was a man and his wife who had two daughters: one pretty, but vain and malicious; the other ugly, but docile and pious. The mother made a favourite of the pretty daughter, but set the ugly one to do all the work of the house; and though she worked from morning to night, was never satisfied with her. One day she sent her down to the stream to do the washing; but the stream was swollen with the heavy rains, and had become so rapid that it carried off her sister’s shift. Not daring to go home without it, she ran by the side of the stream, trying to fetch it back. All her pains were vain; the stream went on tumbling and roaring till it swelled out into a big river, and she could no longer even distinguish the shift from the white foam on which it was borne along. At last, hungry and weary, she descried a house, where she knocked with a trembling hand, and begged for shelter. The good woman come to the door, but advised her not to venture in, for the Salvan would soon be home; but the child knew nothing about the Salvan, but a great deal about the storm, and as one was brooding, and night coming on, she crept in. She had not been long inside, when the Salvan came home, also seeking shelter from the storm. ‘What stink is this I smell of Christian flesh?’ he roared; and the child was too truthful to remained concealed, and so came forward and told all her tale. The Salvan was won by her artlessness, and not only allowed her a bed and a supper, but gave her a basketful of as much fine linen as she could carry, to make up for her loss. When her pretty sister saw what a quantity of fine linen the Salvan had given her, she determined to go and beg for some too; but when the Salvan saw her coming, he holloaed out, ‘So you’re the child who behaves so ill to your sister!’ and he gave her such a rude drubbing, that she went back with very few clothes on that were not in rags.

In selecting a specimen or two of the fiabe I will take first a group going by the name of ‘Zuam’ or ‘Gian dall’ Orso’ (Bear-Johnny),230 because the Wolf-boy group is a very curious one, and this is our nearest approach to it,231 though it deals with a bear-child and not a wolf-child;232 and because we have already found Orso and Orco confounded in Italian folk-lore at Rome. The following is from Val di Non: – A labourer and his wife had their little boy out with them as they worked in the fields. A she-bear came out of the woods and carried him off. She treated him well, however, and taught him to be strong and hardy, and when he was twenty years old she sent him to his parents. He had such an appetite that he eat them out of house and home, and then he made his mother go and beg all over the country till she had enough to buy him three hundredweight of iron to make him a club. Armed with this club, he went forth to seek fortune. In the woods he met a giant carrying a leaden club called Barbiscat (‘Cat’s Beard’), and the two made friends went out together till they met another giant, who carried a wooden club called Testa di Molton (‘Ram’s Head’). They made friends and went out together till they came to a house in a town where magicians lived. The giant with Barbiscat knocked first, and at midnight a magician came out and said, ‘Earthworm, wherefore are you come?’ then he of Barbiscat was frightened and ran away. The next night the giant with Testa di Molton knocked with the same result. But the third night Gian dall’ Orso himself knocked, and he had no fear, but when the magician came out he knocked him down with many blows of his iron club, and went to fetch the other two giants. When they returned no magician was to be seen, only a trail of blood. They followed the trail till they came to a deep pit, and Zuam dall’ Orso made the giants let him down by a rope. In a cave he found the wounded magician and three others besides, by slaying whom he delivered a beautiful maiden. The giants drew her up, but abandoned him. Then he saw a ring lying on the ground, and when he took it up and rubbed it two Moors appeared and asked him what he wanted. ‘I want an eagle, to bear me up to earth,’ he said. So they brought him a big eagle, ‘but,’ said they, ‘he must be well fed the while.’ So he bid them bring him two shins of beef, and fed him well the while, and the eagle bore him to the king; who finding he was the deliverer of his daughter, killed the two giants, and gave him plenty of gold and silver, with which he went back to his home and lived happily and in peace, – a very homely termination, welcome to the mountaineer’s mind. In the Lederthal version he was so strong at two years old that he lifted up the mountain under which the bear’s den was, and ran back to his mother; but at school he killed all the children, and knocked down the teacher and the priest, and was sent to prison. Here he lifted the door off its hinges, and went to the judge, and made him give him a sword, with which he went forth to seek fortune. With the two companions picked up by the wayside, who for once do not play him the trick of leaving him below in the cave, he delivers three princesses, and all are made happy. In another version, where he is called ‘Filomusso the Smith,’ and is nurtured by an ass instead of a bear, the provision of meat for feeding the eagle is exhausted before he reaches the earth, and he heroically tears a piece of flesh out of his own leg, and thus the flight can be completed.

2. The following version of the story of Joseph and his Brethren is quaint: – A king had three sons. The two elder were grown up, while Jacob (the Italian is not given) was still quite small, and was his father’s pet. One day, when the king came back from hunting, he was quite out of sorts because he had lost the feather (la penna dell’ uccello sgrifone) he was wont always to wear. When everyone had sought for it in vain, little Jacob came to him, and bid him eat and be of good cheer for he and his brothers would find the feather. The king promises his kingdom to whichever of the three finds it. Little Jacob finds the feather, and carries it full of joy to his brothers. The brothers, jealous that he should have the kingdom, kill him and take the feather to their father. A year after a shepherd finds little Jacob’s bones, and takes one of them to make a fife, but as soon as he begins to play upon it the fife tells the whole story of the foul play. The shepherd takes it to the king, who convicts his two sons, has them put to death, and dies of grief.

3. Here is a homely version of Oidipous and the Sphinx: – A poor man owed a large debt and had nothing to pay it with. The rich man to whom he owed it came to demand the sum, and found only the poor man’s little boy sitting by the hearth. ‘What are you doing?’ asked the rich man. ‘I watch them come and go,’ replied the boy. ‘Do so many people come to you then?’ enquired the rich man. ‘No man,’ replied the boy. Not liking to own himself puzzled, the rich man asked again, ‘Where is your father?’ ‘He’s gone to plug a hole with another hole,’ replied the boy. Posed again, the rich man proceeded, ‘And where’s your mother?’ ‘She’s baking bread that’s already eaten,’ replied the boy.

‘You are either very clever or a great idiot,’ now retorted the rich man; ‘will you please to explain yourself?’ ‘Yes, if you will reward me by forgiving father his debt.’ The rich man accepted the terms, and the boy proceeded.

‘I’m boiling beans, and the bubbling water makes them seethe, and I watch them come and go. My father is gone to borrow a sum of money to pay you with, so to plug one hole he is making another. All the bread we have eaten for a fortnight past was borrowed of a neighbour, now mother is making some to pay it back with, so I may well say what she is making is already eaten.’

The rich man expressed himself satisfied, and the poor man was delivered from the burden of his debt.

4. A poor country lad once went out into the wide world to seek fortune. As he went along he met a very old woman carrying a pail of water, with which she seemed sadly overladen. The poor lad ran after her, and carried it home for her. But she was an Angana, and to reward him she gave him a dog and a cat, and a little silver ring, which she told him to turn round whenever he was in difficulty. The boy walked on, thinking little about the old woman’s ring, and not at all believing in its efficacy. When he got tired with his walking he laid down under a tree, but he was too hungry to sleep. As he lay tossing about he twirled the ring round without knowing what he was doing, and suddenly an old woman appeared before him, just like the one he had helped, and asked what he wanted of her. ‘Something to eat and drink,’ was the ready and natural answer. He had hardly spoken it when he found a table spread with good things before him. He made a good meal, nor did he neglect to feed his dog and cat well; and then they all had a good sleep. In the morning he reasoned, ‘Why should I journey further when my ring can give one all one wants?’ So he turned the ring round; and when the old woman appeared he asked for a house, and meadows, and farming-stock, and furniture; and then he paused to think of what more he could possibly desire; but he remembered the lessons of moderation his mother had taught him, and he said, ‘No, it is not good for a man to have all he wants in this world.’ So he asked for nothing more, but set to work to cultivate his land. One day when he was working on his land, a grand damsel came by with a number of servants riding after her. The damsel had lost her way, and had to ask him to lead her back to the right path. As they went, she talked to him about his house and his means, and his way of life; and before she had got to her journey’s end they were so well pleased with each other that she agreed to go back with him and marry him; but it was the ring she was in love with rather than with him. They were no sooner married than she got possession of the ring, and by its power she ordered the farm-house to be changed into a palace, and the farm-servants into liveried retainers, and all manner of luxuries, and chests of coin. Nor was she satisfied with this. One day, when her husband was asleep in a summer-house, she ordered it to be carried up to the highest tip of a very high mountain, and the palace far away into her own country. When he woke he found himself all alone on the frightful height, with no one but the dog and cat, who always slept the one at his head and the other at his feet. Though he was an expert climber it was impossible to get down from so sharp a peak, so he sat down and gave himself up to despair. The cat and dog, however, comforted him, and said they would provide the remedy. They clambered down the rugged declivity, and ran on together till they came to a stream which puss could not cross, but the dog put her on his back and swam over with her; and without further adventure they made their way to the palace where their master’s wife lived. With some cleverness they manœuvred their way into the interior, but into the bed-room there seemed no chance of effecting an entrance. They paced up and down hour by hour, but the door was never opened. At last, when all was very still, a mouse came running along the corridor. The cat pounced on the mouse, who pleaded hard for mercy in favour of her seven small children. ‘If I restore you to liberty,’ said the cat, ‘you must do something for me in return.’ The mouse promised everything; and the cat instructed her to gnaw a hole in the door, and fetch the ring out of the princess’s mouth, where she made no doubt she kept it at night for safety. The mouse kept her word, and obeying her directions punctually, soon returned with the ring; and off the cat and dog set on their return home, in high glee at their success. It rankled, however, in the dog’s mind, that it was the cat who had all the glory of recovering the treasure; and by the time they had got back to the stream he told her that if she would not give him the satisfaction of carrying the ring the rest of the way, he would not carry her over it. The cat would not accept his view, and a fight ensued, in the midst of which the ring escaped them both and fell into the water, where it was caught by a fish. The cat was in despair, but the dog plunged in and seized the fish, and by regaining the ring earned equal right to the merit of its recovery, and they clambered together in amity. Their master was rejoiced to receive his ring once more, and by its power he got back his homestead and farm-stock, and sent for his mother to live with him, and all his life through took great care of his faithful dog and cat; but the perverse princess he ordered the ring to transfer in the summer-house to the peak whither she would have banished him. When all this was set in order he threw away the ring, because he said it was not well for a man to have all his wishes satisfied in this world.233