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

The following legend of St. Kümmerniss is very popular in Tirol. Churchill, in his ‘Titian’s Country,’ mentions a chapel on the borders of Cadore and Wälsch-Tirol, where she is represented just as there described, but he does not appear to have inquired into its symbolism. There was once a heathen king who had a daughter named Kümmerniss, who was fair and beautiful beyond compare. A neighbouring king, also a heathen, sought her in marriage, and her father gave his consent to the union; but Kümmerniss was distressed beyond measure, for she had vowed in her own heart to be the bride of heaven. Of course her father could not understand her motives, and to force her to marry put her into a hard prison. From the depths of the dungeon Kümmerniss prayed that she might be so transformed that no man should wish to marry her; and in conformity with her devoted petition, when they came to take her out of the prison they found that all her beauty was gone, and her face overgrown with long hair like a man’s beard. When her father saw the change in her he was indignant, and asked what had befallen her. She replied that He whom she adored had changed her so, to save her from marrying the heathen king after she had vowed herself to be His bride alone. ‘Then shall you die, like Him you adore,’ was her father’s answer. She meekly replied that she had no greater desire than to die, that she might be united with Him. And thus her pure life was taken a sweet sacrifice; and whoso would like her be altogether devoted to God, and like her obtain their petition from heaven, let them honour her, and cause her effigy to be painted in the church. So many believed they found the efficacy of her intercession, that they set up memorial images of her everywhere, and in one place they set one up all in pure gold. A poor minstrel once came by that way with his violin; and because he had earned nothing, and was near starving, he stood before St. Kümmerniss and played his prayer on his violin. Plaintive and more plaintive still grew his beseeching notes, till at last the saint, who never sent any away empty, shook off one of her golden shoes, and bid him take it for an alms. The minstrel carried the golden shoe to a goldsmith, and asked him to buy it of him for money; but the goldsmith, recognizing whence it came, refused to have anything to do with sacrilegious traffic, and accused him of stealing it. The minstrel loudly protested his innocence, and the goldsmith as loudly vociferated his accusation, till their clamour raised the whole village; and all were full of fury and indignation at the supposed crime of the minstrel. As their anger grew, they were near tearing him in pieces, when a grave hermit came by, and they asked him to judge the case. ‘If it be true that the man obtained one shoe by his minstrelsy, let him play till he obtain the other in our sight,’ was his sentence; and all the people were so pleased with it, that they dragged the minstrel back to the shrine of St. Kümmerniss. The minstrel, who had been as much astonished as anyone else at his first success, scarcely dared hope for a second, but it was death to shrink from the test; so he rested his instrument on his shoulder, and drew the bow across it with trembling hand. Sweet and plaintive were the shuddering voice-like tones he sent forth before the shrine; but yet the second shoe fell not. The people began to murmur; horror heightened his distress. Cadence after cadence, moan upon moan, wail upon wail, faltered through the air, and entranced every ear and palsied every hand that would have seized him; till at last, overcome with the intensity of his own passionate appeal, the minstrel sank unconscious on the ground. When they went to raise him up, they found that the second golden shoe was no longer on the saint’s foot, but that she had cast it towards him. When they saw that, each vied with the other to make amends for the unjust suspicions of the past. The golden shoes were restored to the saint; but the minstrel never wanted for good entertainment for the rest of his life.

‘Puss in Boots’ figures in the Folklore of Wälsch-Tirol as ‘Il Conte Martin della Gatta;’ its chief point of variation is that no boots enter into it at all, otherwise the action of the cat is as usual in other versions.

There is another class of stories in which the townspeople indulge at the expense of the uninstructed peasants in outlying districts, and which their extreme simplicity and naïveté occasionally justify. I must not close my notice of the Volklore of Wälsch-Tirol without giving some specimens of these. It may be generally observed that stories which have no particular moral point, and are designed only to amuse without instructing, are as frequent in the Trentino as they are rare in the German divisions of Tirol.

Turlulù234 was such a simple boy that he could not be made to do anything aright; and what was worst was, he thought himself so clever that he would always go off without listening to half his instructions. One day his mother sent him with her last piece of money to buy a bit of meat for a poor neighbour; ‘And mind,’ she said, ‘that the butcher doesn’t give you all bone.’ ‘Leave that to me!’ cried Turlulù without waiting for an explanation; and off he went to the town. The butcher offered him a nice piece of leg of beef. ‘No, no, there’s bone to that,’ cried Turlulù; ‘that won’t do.’ The butcher, provoked, offered him a lump of lights. Turlulù seeing it look so soft, and no bone at all to it, went off with it quite pleased, but of course the poor neighbour had to starve. When his mother found what he had done, she was in great distress, for she had no money left; so she sent him with a piece of home-spun linen to try to sell it. ‘But mind you don’t waste your time talking to gossiping old women,’ she said. ‘Leave that to me, mother,’ cried Turlulù; and off he ran. As he got near the market-place, he began crying, ‘Fine linen! who wants to buy fine linen!’ Several countrywomen, who had come up to town to make purchases, came to look at the quality. ‘Go along, you gossiping old things; don’t imagine I’m going to sell it to you!’ cried Turlulù, and he ran away from them. As he ran on he saw a capitello235 by the wayside. When he saw the image of the Blessed Virgin, looking so grave and calm, he said, ‘Ah, you are no gossip, you shall have my linen;’ and he threw it at her feet. ‘Come, pay me!’ he cried presently; but of course the figure moved not. ‘Ah, I see, you’ve not got the money to-day; I will come back for it to-morrow.’ When he came back on the morrow the linen had been picked up by a passer-by, but no money was forthcoming. ‘Pay me now,’ said Turlulù; but still the figure was immovable. Again and again he repeated the demand, till, finding it still unheeded, he took off his belt, and hit hard and fast upon the image. So great was his violence, that in a very short time he had knocked it to the ground; and lo and behold, inside the now uncovered pedestal were a heap of gold pieces, which some miser had concealed there for greater security. ‘My mother herself will own this is good pay for the linen,’ cried Turlulù, as he filled his pockets, ‘and for once she won’t find fault.’ His way home lay along the edge of the pond, and as he passed the ducks were crying, ‘Quack! quack! quack!’ Turlulù thought they were saying Quattro, meaning that he had four pieces of gold. ‘That’s all you know about it,’ cried Turlulù; ‘I’ve got many more than four, many more.’ But the ducks continued to cry ‘Quack.’ ‘I tell you there are more than four,’ reiterated Turlulù impetuously, but the ducks did not alter their strain. ‘Then take them, and count them yourselves, and you’ll see what a lot there are!’ So saying, he threw the whole treasure into the mud; and as the ducks, scared by the noise, left off their ‘quack,’ he satisfied himself that he had convinced them, and went home to boast to his mother of the feat.

A showman came through a village with a dancing-bear. The people went out to see him, and gave him plenty of halfpence. ‘Suppose we try our luck, and go about showing a bear too; it seems a profitable sort of trade,’ said one of the lookers-on to another. ‘Ay, but where shall we find one?’ objected the man addressed. ‘Oh, there must be bears to be found; it needs only to go out and look for them.’ They went out to look for a bear, and at last really found one,236 which ran before them and plunged into a cave. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said the peasant who had proposed the adventure, ‘I’ll creep into the cave and seize the bear, and you take hold of my legs and pull us both out together.’ The other assented; and in went the first. But the bear, instead of letting him seize it, bit off his head. The other pulled him out as agreed, but was much astonished to find him headless. ‘Well, to be sure!’ he cried, ‘I never noticed the poor fellow came out this morning without his head. I must go home and ask his wife for it.’ So saying, he ran back to the man’s house. ‘I say, neighbour,’ he cried, ‘did you happen to notice, when your husband went out this morning, whether he had his head on?’ ‘I never thought to look,’ replied the wife, ‘but I’ll run up and see if he left it in bed; but tell me,’ she added, ‘will he catch cold for going out without his head on?’ ‘I don’t know as to that,’ replied the man; ‘but if he should want to whistle he might find it awkward!’

A woman working in the fields one day saw a snail, which spread out its horns as she looked at it. In great alarm, she ran to the chief man of the parish, and told him what she had seen. He, too, was horribly frightened, but he mastered his fear, as became the dignity of his office. In order to provide duly for the safety of his village, he sent two trustworthy men with a large sum of money to Trent, to buy a sharp sword; and till their return placed all the able-bodied men on guard. When the man brought the sharp sword back from Trent, he called the heads of the Commune together, and said to them: ‘I will not exercise my right of sending any of you in peril of his life, but I ask you which of you is ready to encounter this great danger, and whoever has the courage shall receive a great reward.’ Hereupon two of the most valiant came forward as volunteers, and were invested with the sharp sword. In solemn silence they marched boldly to the field where the snail was, and they saw him sitting on the edge of a rotten leaf; but at the moment when they had screwed up their courage to smite him with the edge of the sword, the breeze blew down the leaf and the snail with it. They, however, thought the snail was preparing to attack them, and ran away so fast that they tumbled over the edge of an abyss.

The people of a certain village were envious because the church tower of the neighbouring village was higher than theirs. So they held a council to consider what remedy they could apply. No one could think of anything to propose, till the oldest and wisest of them at last rose and advised that a great heap of hay should be laid by the side of their tower, so that it might eat and grow strong, and increase in height. The counsel was received with applause, and every one cheerfully brought his quota to the common sacrifice, till there was a mighty heap of hay laid at the base of the church tower. All the horses and asses that went by, finding such a fine provision of provender laid out for them, ate the hay; but the people seeing the heap diminish, were quite satisfied, and said, ‘Our tower must be beginning to grow, you see how fast it eats!’

In Wälsch-Tirol the graves are not decked with flowers on All Souls’ Day, as in Germany, but on the other hand it is customary for the parish clergy to gather their flocks round them, and say the Rosary kneeling amid the graves. Doles of bread, locally called cuzza, and alms, are given away to the poor on that day, and in some places a particular soup made of beans. The symbolism was formerly carried so far, that these alms, devoted to the refreshment of the souls of the departed, were actually laid on the graves, as if it was supposed that the holy souls would come out and partake of the material food. And thus some even placed vessels of cold water as a special means of solace from their purgatorial pains.237 In the north of Italy, the feast of Sta. Lucia (December 13) holds the place of that of St. Nicholas among children in Germany; in Wälsch-Tirol the children have the advantage of keeping both.

In Val Arsa, part of the loaves baked on Christmas Eve are kept, as Cross-buns used to be among us. In Folgareit they have a curious game for Christmas-tide. A number of heaps of flour, according to the number of the household, are arranged on the table by the father of the family, some little present being covered up in each; when they are thus prepared the family is admitted, and the choice of places decided by various modes of contest. In several parts, particularly in the Rabbithal, the Lombard238 custom prevails of putting a huge log on the fire, called the Zocco di Natale and the Zocco di ogni bene, that it may burn all night and keep the Divine Infant from the cold. The idea, more or less prevalent all over Christendom, that beasts have the gift of speech on Christmas Eve, prevails here no less. A story is told of a peasant who determined to sit up and listen to what his oxen said. ‘Where shall we have to go to-morrow?’ he heard one say. ‘We shall have to fetch the boards for our master’s coffin,’ replied his companion. The man was so shocked, that he went to bed and died next day. Animals are blessed on St. Anthony’s day (January 18), as in Rome.

Carnival is celebrated with representations partaking somewhat of the character of ‘Passion Plays,’ though always with more or less humorous treatment of their subject. Till lately there lingered a curious pastime at this season, in which on Giovedì grasso there was a contest, according to fixed rules, between the masked and unmasked inhabitants, for certain cakes (gnocchi) made of Indian corn, whence the day is still called Giovedì dei gnocchi. It commemorated a fight between the men of Trent and them of Feltre, who tried to carry off their provision while they were building the walls of Trent, in the time of Theodoric King of the Visigoths. S. Urban is considered the patron of vineyards in Etschland, and on his feast his images are hung with bunches of grapes.

Here are a few specimens of their popular sayings and customs. When it thunders the children say, Domeniddio va in carozza. The chirping of a cricket, instead of being reckoned a lucky token, forebodes death. Sponsors are regarded a person’s nearest relations, and at their funeral they go as chief mourners before all others. Marriages in May are avoided. The reason why the bramble always creeps along, instead of growing erect, is, because once a thorny bramble branch caught the hair of the Blessed Virgin; before that it grew erect like other trees. Cockchafers are blind, because one of them once flew into the Blessed Virgin’s face and startled her; before that they had sight. Swallows are called uccelli della Madonna, but I have not ascertained the reason. Scorpions, which are venomous in Italy, are not so in the Italian Tirol, because one fell once into St. Vigilius’ chalice at Mass. I will conclude with some popular riddles, showing a traditionary observation of the movements of the heavenly bodies, but not much humour:

Due viandanti,Due ben stanti,E un cardinal?239Gh’ è ’n pràTutto garofalà:

Quanca se vien el Papa con tutta la sô paperia

En garòfol sol no l’è bon de portar via?240

Piatto sopra piatto,Uomo ben armato,Donna ben vestita.Cavalleria ben fornita?241

C’è un palazzo, vi son dodici camere, ognuna ne ha trenta travi, e vi son due che si corrono sempre l’uno dietro all’ altro e non si raggiungono mai?242

O mein Tirol! wie ich mit SchmerzentzückenDich nun geschaut vor meinen feuchten Blicken.So lebt dein rührend Bild im tiefsten Sinn.Nimm denn, Tirol, des Schmerzbegeistrungstrunk’nen,Des ganz in dich Verlornen und Versunk’nenLiebvolles Lebewohl, mit Liebe hin!Eduard Silesius.

1

This is what the introduction of manufactories is doing in Italy at this moment. The director of a large establishment in Tuscany, which devours, to its own share, the growth of a whole hill-side every year, smiled at my simplicity when I expressed regret at hearing that no provision was made for replacing the timber as it is consumed.

2

Except the Legends of the Marmolata, which I have given in ‘Household Stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular Myths of Tirol,’ I hardly remember to have met any concerning its prominent heights.

3

I published much of the matter of the following pages in the first instance in the Monthly Packet, and I have to thank the Editor for my present use of them.

4

See Steub ‘Über die Urbewohner Rätiens und ihren Zusammenhang mit den Etruskern. Münich, 1843,’ quoted in Dennis’ Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, I. Preface, p. xlv.

5

See it in use below, p. 28, and comp. Etruscan Res. p. 302, note.

6

Somewhat like pleurer. A good many words are like French, as gutschle, a settle (couche); schesa, a gig; and gespusa, mentioned above, is like épouse; and au, for water, is common over N. Tirol, as well as Vorarlberg, e. g. infra, pp. 24, 111. &c.

7

Comp. Etrus. Res. 339–41.

8

Several places have received their name from having grown round such a hut; some of these occur outside Vorarlberg, as for instance Kühthei near St. Sigismund (infra, p. 331) in the Lisenthal, and Niederthei in the Œtzthal.

9

Comp. ma = earth, land, Etrus. Res. pp. 121, 285.

10

Comp. subulo, Etrus. Res. 324. Dennis i. 339.

11

Infra, p. 411.

12

See e.g., infra, p. 202.

13

Etrus. Res. p. 330.

14

P. 79.

15

Professor Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop.

16

Rev. G. W. Cox, Prof. De Gubernatis, Dr. Dasent, &c.

17

In the Contemporary Review for March 1874.

18

Mr. Cox had pointed it out before him, however, and more fully, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ii. 200.

19

L’una vegghiava a studio della culla,E consolando usava l’idioma,Che pria li padri e le madri trastulla:L’altra traendo alla rocca la chiomaFavoleggiava con la sua famigliaDe’ Troiani, e di Fiesole, e di Roma.Dante. Paradiso, xv. 120 5.

20

Tullio Dandolo.

21

Depping, Romancero, Preface.

22

The usual fate of relying on Road-books. Ours, I forget whether Amthor’s or Trautwein’s, said there was regular communication between Oberriet and Feldkirch, and nothing could be further from the fact, as will be seen a few pages later.

23

If Pfäffers is visited by rail (see p. 23), it is convenient to take it before Feldkirch.

24

See further quaint details and historical particulars in Vonbun, Sagen Vorarlbergs, p. 103–5.

25

Vonbun, pp. 113–4.

26

Historical particulars in Vonbun, pp. 110–1.

27

Vonbun, pp. 86–7.

28

It may also be reached by railway as it is but three or four miles from Ragatz, two stations beyond Buchs (p. 13).

29

It has been suggested by an eminent comparative mythologist that it is natural Luc-ius should be said to have brought ‘the Light of the Gospel’ to men of Licht-enstein.

30

The traitor was loaded with heavy armour and thrown over the Ill precipice. See Vonbun’s parallel with the tradition of the Tarpeian rock, p. 99 n. 2.

31

Notably at Raggal, Sonntag, Damüls, Luterns, and also in Lichtenstein. – Vonbun, pp. 107–8.

32

Infra, Chapter viii., p. 238.

33

Vonbun, pp. 92–3.

34

Some analogous cases quoted in Sagas from the Far East, pp. 365, 383–5.

35

Father! take me also with you.

36

Vonbun, pp. 115–7.

37

The story of its curious success against the Bavarians in 1703, p. 287–8. From Landeck there is a fine road (the description of which belongs to Snitt-Tirol), over the Finstermünz and Stelvio, to the baths of Bormio or Worms.

38

The chief encounter occurred at a place called Le Tezze, near Primolano, on the Venetian border, where the Tiroleans repulsed the Italians, in numbers tenfold greater than their own, and no further attempt was made. The anniversary is regularly observed by visiting the graves on August 14; mentioned below at Le Tezze.

39

Following are the names of the fourteen, but I have never met any one who could explain the selection. 1. S. Acatius, bishop in Asia Minor, saved from death in the persecutions under Decius, 250, by a miracle he performed in the judgment hall where he was tried, and in memory of which he carries a tree, or a branch of one, in pictures of him. 2. S. Ægidius (Giles, in German, Gilgen), Hermit, of Nimes, nourished in his cell by the milk of a hind, which, being hunted, led to the discovery of his sanctity, an episode constantly recurring in the legendary world. Another poetical legend concerning him is that a monk, having come to him to express a doubt as to the virginity of Our Lady, S. Giles, for all answer traced her name in the sand with his staff, and forthwith full-bloom lilies sprang up out of it. 3. S. Barbara. A maiden whom her heathen father shut up in a tower, that nothing might distract her attention from the life of study to which he devoted her; among the learned men who came to enjoy her elevated conversation came a Christian teacher, and converted her; in token of her belief in the doctrine of the Trinity she had three windows made in her tower, and by the token her father discovered her conversion, delivered her to judgment, and she suffered an incredible repetition of martyrdoms. She is generally painted with her three-windowed tower in her hand. 4. S. Blase, Bishop of Sebaste and Martyr, A.D. 288. He had studied medicine, and when concealed in the woods during time of persecution, the wild beasts used to bring the wounded of their number to his feet to be healed. Men hunting for Christians to drag to justice, found him surrounded by lions, tigers, and bears; even in prison he continued to exercise his healing powers, and from restoring to life a boy who had been suffocated by swallowing a fishbone, he is invoked as patron against sore throat. He too suffered numerous martyrdoms. 5. S. Christopher. 6. S. Cyriacus, Martyr, 309, concerning whom many legends are told of his having delivered two princesses from incurable maladies. 7. S. Dionysius, the Areopagite, converted by S. Paul, and consecrated by him Bishop of Athens, afterwards called to Rome by S. Peter, and made Bishop of Paris. 8. S. Erasmus, a bishop in Syria, after enduring many tortures there, he was thrown into prison, and delivered by an angel, who sent him to preach Christianity in Italy, he died at Gaeta 303. At Naples and other places he is honoured as S. Elmo. 9. S. Eustachius, originally called Placidus, a Roman officer, converted while hunting by meeting a stag which carried a refulgent cross between its horns; his subsequent reverses, his loss of wife and children, the wonderful meeting with them again, and the agency of animals throughout, make his one of the most romantic of legends. 10. S. George. 11. S. Catherine of Alexandria. 12. S. Margaret. 13. S. Pantaleone, another student of medicine; when, after many tortures, he was finally beheaded, the legend tells us that, in token of the purity of his life, milk flowed from his veins instead of blood, A.D. 380. 14. S. Vitus, a Sicilian, instructed by a slave, who was his nurse, in the Christian faith in his early years; his father’s endeavours to root out his belief were unavailing, and he suffered A.D. 303, at not more than twelve years of age. The only link I can discover in this chain of saints is that they are all but one or two, whose alleged end I do not know, as S. Christopher, credited with having suffered a plurality of terrible martyrdoms. To each is of course ascribed the patronage over some special one of the various phases of human suffering.