Weekend Mountain Rail Blogging

Posted on February 11, 2017 by kcosumano

The Mittenwaldbahn meets the trail at the Seefelder Sattel. Photo shamelessly purloined from Martin Schönherr.

Tyrolean omniscient and Friend of the Blog Paschberg sends a photo of greeting from the Seefelder Sattel, a little pass over the most easily navigable part of the Karwendel Mountains, and known as a point along the alignment of the Via Raetia. What he may not remember is that I myself have a similar photo, previously posted here, from pretty much the same spot, but looking the other way — the thing is, I had indeed been looking for the Seefelder Sattel, but didn’t realize that I had been standing right on it until now.

In a somewhat related vein: the closed railway line which ran past my recent overnight accommodations in Passau’s Innstadt.

It turns out to be part of the former Passau-Hauzenberg Railway, now used primarily by dog walkers. (The Beau, charmingly sarcastic as ever, suggested that it had probably been left behind by the Romans.)

In Via: Raisting

Posted on January 29, 2017 by kcosumano

If one is interested, as I am, in the routes of the Roman roads in southern Bavaria, then one has probably heard of Raisting; the north-to-south road from the Brenner Pass to Augsburg (Via Raetia) and the southwest-to-northeast road from Bregenz to Gauting intersected here. Evidence of the latter road can be found further west, but the former has left traces in the land here which can be seen from the air. I wanted to find out what can be seen from the ground, and I wasn’t disappointed.

First one travels south of Raisting, to the field of giant satellite dishes belonging to the German Postal Service. Our starting point will be this church.

The old pilgrimage church St. Johann is supposedly the oldest church in the area, founded in the time of the first Christian community in Augsburg. This thesis is based on the fact that the old Roman Augsburg-Brenner road lay just 100 meters west of it.
According to legend it was built “on a holy place” by Tassilo III (748-788), the last Agilolfinger Duke. Tassilo, so the story goes, got lost on a hunt in the woods between the Lech and the Ammer rivers. He swore that when he figured out where he was, he’d build a church on the spot. Eventually he reached an open space from which he could make out the lake, and that is where Tassilo built his promised chapel. The altar was placed over a spring. (A church on a “holy place, built in the region’s earliest days of Christianity, with the alter over spring, near the Roman road? That sounds suspiciously like the former site of a roadside pagan temple.)

It was especially cold last week; the welcoming committee was surely happy to soak up the warm sunshine today. Our instructions were to follow the road past the church until the second ditch, and then look southeast into the field. And lo…

It’s difficult to see in this picture that the ribbon stretching before us is slightly raised, but it is easier to tell its presence by its lack of snow — underneath lies the pebble road bed. We left the marked road and trekked into the field.

And met up with a barbed wire fence. Which didn’t stop us, we slid over /under it and followed the track to the end of the field, observed only by a small herd of camera-shy deer. Here the road alignment is even clearer to the eye. There is supposed to be the remains of a peat cutting ditch in the strip of woods straight ahead, but we saw only a small border stone marker poking out of the deeper snow before turning back.

The satellite facility is surrounded by farmland and is easily accessible. It was impressive to see them up close. With the Via Raetia, St. Johann church and the satellite dishes, we had 2000 years of human achievement presented before us in one short walk.

And here the route of the Via Raetia is still in use, as the main road through Raisting and Diessen, after which it veers slightly westward on its way toward Augsburg. The next place to trace its route is in Achselschwang, which we documented back in May 2014. It has since become a regular walking route for us.

Weekend Mountain Blogging: Maria Tax – Wolfsklamm

Posted on June 18, 2015 by kcosumano

A half-day hike above Stans to the Maria Tax Chapel. Taxen is an old regional word for Tannen, or fir tree. Legend has it that the Virgin Mary made an appearance here in 1616, leaving behind her handprint on a stone, a picture of which was then attached to a tree for people to come and revere it. So we have here both a stone and a tree of religious importance (I was able to find neither, unless the stone is now part of the fountain behind the chapel*.) In 1627 a wooden chapel was built, in 1667 a stone one. In the same year the first hermit moved into the sacristy. Sacred trees were a thing with the pre-Christian inhabitants all over Europe. Christianity treated the worship of trees as idolatry and this led to their deliberate destruction. From this site I learned a little more (translation mine):

When St. Boniface took an axe to the sacred Donar’s Oak at Geismar, Germany in 724, and didn’t get struck by lightning for it, he was able to proclaim the victory of Christianity. One sacred tree after another fell, and the Teutons were forced to drop their local religion and accept Christianity. Nevertheless many may not have forgiven Boniface for this desecration; he was slain 754 by the Frisians. According to many legends, when a sacred tree is cut, it bleeds from the sacrilege. Therefore the woodcutter asks the tree for forgiveness before cutting it. And many legends report of cruel punishments for messing with sacred trees . Ultimately behind such legends is the idea of the tree as seat of the Godhead. From a fiery burning bush God speaks to Moses; to Joan of Arc from the branches of a tree. The Buddha’s enlightenment takes place under a tree. The old-rooted idea of the sanctity of trees survived within Christianity and continues in myths and legends of holy images on or in trees. Particularly frequently encountered are sightings of Mary, or her image, in a tree. Many names of pilgrimages hold the discovery of a miraculous image in trees, such as “Mary of the linden”, “Mary of the fir tree”, “Mary in the hazel”, “Mary of the larch”…

Further along on the trail, a pair of Steinmänner guard the way. Thirty minutes later, the St. Georgenberg-Fiecht Abbey looms above. I’ve been here before, but it’s getting late and so I turn in the direction of home by way of the Wolfsklamm. An army of Steinmänner! It’s like an Alpine version of the Terracotta Warriors, or the Kodama tree spirits in “Princess Mononoke”. How delightful and unexpected. The Wolfsklamm in Stans has been renovated and, apparently, re-routed, in that the path through it no longer involves the pitch-black tunnels that I recall from my previous visit. Too bad, because they were fun in a scary way (it was the the first time I ever used my old cell phone as a flashlight out of sheer necessity). It’s possible that someone complained. [Sorry, that’s the Partenachklamm! But the Wolfsklamm bridges have all been rebuilt with sturdy new boards.] ~~But~~ the gorge is still impressive and well worth the €4,50 “toll”.

*The Schwazer Heimatblätter suggests a different origin: that the St. Georgenberg Abbey was having an image problem with pilgrims, due to a prominent prisoner being kept there. It’s suspected that the monks themselves started the Mary-was-here story in order to keep the pilgrimages coming — that kind of thing is profitable for monasteries, after all.

Weekend Mountain Blogging: Mittenwald, Scharnitz, Seefeld

Posted on May 17, 2015 by kcosumano

I needed to go to Mittenwald because of something I’d promised to do, and since I had the day free it seemed like a good idea to get some hiking in along with some sights.
As there’s only so much ground one can cover in an afternoon, I broke up the journey with short train rides. First, to Mittenwald.

Every so often, a sign that I’m on the old original Roman road. In tracing the route over the Alps one has the advantages and disadvantages of the landscape. Humans are practical above everything: the first mule paths made by the more ancient inhabitants followed the easiest ways over. The Romans built mainly on these existing paths because they were there (once they got onto more open land they had more options). After the Roman retreat in the 4th century CE, the roads remained and continued to be used for trade, later providing for much of the route of the Via Imperii during the years of the Holy Roman Empire. And so on, through the ages, until that ancient road over the mountains is now mostly (not completely) under the B2.

From Mittenwald I walked parallel to the B2 on a quieter trail, to get a sense of what Goethe may have felt when he came through here for the first time, in 1786.

Left Mittelwald at 6, clear sky, a keen wind blowing, and the kind of cold only allowed in February. The near slopes dark and covered in spruce, the grey limestone cliffs, the highest white peaks against the beautiful blue of the sky made exquisite, constantly changing pictures. Near Scharnitz you get into the Tyrol and the border is closed with a rampart that seals off the valley and joins up with the mountains. It looks very fine. One one side the cliff is fortified, on the other it just goes steeply up.

The fortification to which Goethe refers is the Porta Claudia, built in the 17th century and named for Claudia di Medici.
Back on the train, next stop Seefeld in Tirol.

“Bee Hotel”

I had seen this path many times from the window of the train, and often wondered what the signs said. Were they historical markers? No, the trail is all about bees and honey!

This bee-themed nature trail ended at Reith bei Seefeld. From there a late-afternoon train brought me back to Innsbruck.

Oedenburg Castle, Bavaria

Posted on April 13, 2015 by kcosumano

Not far from the Ammersee in southern Bavaria lies a hill upon which the ruins of Oedenburg Castle are found. It was a small hilltop fortress, mostly a tower judging from the size of the hill. I have been looking at the region by way of the Bayerischer Denkmal Atlas which shows the exact locations of all sorts of historical landmarks in Bavaria. (Special thanks to fellow blogger Zeitspringer for bringing this online atlas to our attention.) // Nicht weit vom Ammersee in Südbayern liegt ein Hügel, auf dem man die Ruinen von Ödenburg Castle vorfindet. Es war eine kleine Festung vorwiegend aus einem Turm bestehend – wie aus der Größe des Hügels zu schließen ist. Ich habe mir das Gebiet im Bayerischen Denkmal Atlas angesehen, der die genauen Standorte von allerlei historischen Sehenswürdigkeiten in Bayern zeigt. (Vielen Dank an den Kollegen und Blogger Zeitspringer der uns auf diesen Online-Atlas aufmerksam machte.)

Above, how it may have looked (image found here)… // So mag die Burg einst ausgesehen haben …

…and how it looks today. // …und so sieht sie heute aus.

Earliest found mention of the castle in written records dates back to the 11th century and allegedly belonging to a Count von Abenstein. When the nobles died out, robber barons used the castle for its excellent views on all sides. (Two main Roman roads crossed here at Raisting, and they may well have been used into the High Middle Ages as trade routes.) By the 16th century it was already a ruin. The trees took over sometime after 1960 (we met a man on the hill who could remember, as a youth, sledding down the bare slope in winter.) // Die älteste vorgefundene Erwähnung der Burg in schriftlichen Aufzeichnungen stammt aus dem 11. Jahrhundert, in der sie angeblich einem Grafen von Abenstein gehörte. Als die Adligen ausgestorben ware, verwendeten Raubritter die Burg wegen ihrer hervorragenden Aussicht in alle Himmelsrichtungen. (Zwei wichtige Römerstraßen kreuzten sich hier bei Raisting, und sie sind wohl auch im Hochmittelalter als Handelswege benutzt worden) Im 16. Jahrhundert war die Anlage schon verfallen. Bäume überwucherten irgendwann nach 1960 den Platz (ein Mann den wir auf dem Hügel trafen, erinnerte sich, das er noch als Jugendlicher, dort auf dem damals freien Abhang im Winter Rodeln ging).

An article about the fortress in the Augsburger Allgemeine mentions an old local legend, similar to other old legends about other old fortresses around these parts: the castle was later occupied by robber barons who, one night, celebrated a recent conquest with revelry. The folks down in the village heard shouting and clanging through the evening right up until the stroke of midnight, at which point all was suddenly still. The next morning, their curiosity took them up the hill, where they found that the entire castle and its inhabitants had been swallowed up by the earth overnight. // Ein Artikel über die Festung in der Augsburger Allgemeinen erwähnt eine alte Legende, die jenen über anderen alten Burgen in dieser Gegend ähnelt: Das Schloss wurde später von Raubrittern, die eines Nachts, den kürzliche Raubzug mit einem Gelage feierten. Die Leute unten im Dorf hörten Geschrei und Klirren durch den Abend bis um Mitternacht, dann war alles plötzlich still. Am nächsten Morgen führte sie ihre Neugier auf den Hügel, wo sie feststellten, dass das gesamte Schloss und seine Bewohner über Nacht von der Erde verschlungen worden waren.

All that remains today is this round wall of earth, circling what is said to have been the tower’s dungeon. That probably gets the attention of the schoolchildren who are brought here on field trips. // Alles was davon heute übrige ist, ist dieser runde Erdwall, der den Platz umgibt von dem man sagte, es hätten sich dort Turm und Kerker befunden. Das wird wohl die Aufmerksamkeit der Schüler, die auf Exkursionen hierher gebracht werden, auf sich ziehen.

Forgotten Bavaria: St. Johannes auf der Bergerin

Posted on November 25, 2014 by kcosumano

(What’s left of a few signs which may have once indicated the original site./ Was von den Resten übrig blieb, die einmal den ursprünglichen Standort angedeutet haben könnten.)

Many centuries ago, west of the Ammersee in southern Bavaria, the main road from Diessen to Entraching crossed the road from Utting to Dettenschwang about right here in this forest. It was more meadow then, with a hermitage and a cemetery near the church.
Vor vielen Jahrhunderten kreuzte sich westlich des Ammersees in Südbayern die Hauptstraße von Dießen nach Entraching und die Straße von Utting nach Dettenschwang ungefähr hier, in diesem Wald. Damals war es eher eine Wiese, mit einer Kapelle und einem Friedhof daneben.

According to this article in the Augsburg newpaper, a local priest named Karl Emerich is credited for rediscovering the site of the church in 1916, a good hundred years after it had burned down in a fire and been forgotten. Father Emerich posited the theory that the place had been held sacred in pre-Christian times. “It is well known that the German Pagans liked their sacred sites in forests and groves.” The early Christian missionaries “preferred to convert pagan holy sites to Christian ones, and as there was a splendid spring nearby, which may have had religious significance,” they would have found it convenient to build a church here where the local people were used to coming, wrote Emerich.
Nach diesem Artikel aus der Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung ist die Wiederentdeckung des Standorts der Kirche im Jahre 1916, gut hundert Jahre, nachdem sie abbrannte und vergessen wurde, einem örtlichen Priester namens Karl Emerich zu verdanken. Pater Emerich vertrat die Theorie, dass der Ort bereits in vorchristlicher Zeit heilig war.”Die heidnischen Deutschen hatten bekanntlich ihre Heiligtümer gerne in Wäldern und Hainen”. Die christlichen Missionare hätten mit Vorliebe “heidnische Heiligtümer in christliche umgewandelt, und da sich eine prächtige Quelle vorfand, die vielleicht schon im heidnischen Kultus Bedeutung hatte, so lag für die Missionäre wohl nichts näher, als diesen Platz zu einer christlichen Kultusstätte und zwar zu einem Tauforte einzurichten, denn hier strömten die Umwohner ohnehin aus alter Gewohnheit zusammen zu ihren heidnischen Opfern (…)” – so Emerich.

Just down the main road is the rebuilt Johannesbrunnen with some information about the church and its spring. In 1718 the water was declared to hold healing powers. In the mid-eighteenth century it was reported that poachers kept breaking the the church windows and stealing the lead, in order to make bullets from it, and in 1759 Bavarian Elector Maximilian III Joseph arrived with his entourage and stayed around to hunt wild boar. By the end of the century the hermitage was down to just one hermit, and in 1802 the structures were destroyed in a fire.
Gerade am Ende der Hauptstraße steht der wieder errichtete Johannesbrunnen mit einigen Informationstafeln über die Kirche und ihre Quelle. Im Jahre 1718 wurde diese als Heilquelle anerkannt. In der Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts wurde berichtet, dass Wilderer die Kirchenfenster zerbrachen um die Bleifassungen zu Gewehrkugeln zu verarbeiten. Im Jahre 1759 weilte der bayerische Kurfürsten Maximilian III. Joseph mit seinem Gefolge dort, um Wildschweine zu jagen. Am Ende des Jahrhunderts war die Kapelle bis auf einen verbliebenen Einsiedler heruntergewirtschaftet, und im Jahr 1802 wurde das Gebäude bei einem Brand zerstört.

Now only the fountain remains, and a pretty forest of beech and spruce trees behind it. The site where the church once stood is now occupied by oak trees, which took root there there after the fire.
Heute zeugt nur mehr der Brunnen davon – und ein hübscher Wald aus Buchen und Fichten dahinter. Der Ort, an dem die Kirche stand stehen heute noch Eichen, die nach dem Brand dort aufkamen.

Licus

Posted on September 22, 2014 by kcosumano

A beautiful late-summer Saturday afternoon walking along the Lech River, south of Landsberg. The river was full of swans, dozens of them, and as we walked an enormous flock of honking wild geese came in over the trees and landed in the water. The Lech gets its name from the Celts who lived here and who were known to the Romans as Licates. Over the years it’s been referred to as Licus, Licca, Lecha, and finally Lech. According the the German Wikipedia, the Welsh word llech (stone slab) and the Breton word lec’h (gravestone) point to a Celtic origin, as the river is unusually gravelly.

Spaziergang an einem schönen Spätsommersamstagnachmittag den Lech entlang, südlich von Landsberg. Der Fluss war voll von Schwänen, Dutzende von ihnen, und während wir da gingen kam laut schreiend eine enorme Schar Wildgänse über die Bäume geflogen und landete im Wasser. Der Lech hat seinen Namen von den Kelten, die hier lebten. Diese waren bei den Römern als Licates bekannt. Im Laufe der Jahre ist er als Licus, Licca, Lecha und schließlich Lech bezeichnet worden. Nach der die deutsche Wikipedia, weisen die walisische Wörter Llech (Steinplatte) und die bretonische Wort lec’h (Grabstein) auf einen keltischen Ursprungs, zumal der Fluss ungewöhnlich viel Geschiebe führt.

Der Hofstetter Frauenwald

Posted on August 28, 2014 by kcosumano

A few months ago I quickly photographed a field of grave mounds along the main road from Hofstetten to Pürgen. / Vor ein paar Monaten habe ich schnell ein Feld von Grabhügeln entlang der Hauptstraße von Hofstetten nach Pürgen fotografiert.

The Wikipedia entry for the nearby community of Pürgen mentions a Totenstadt; that there once were said to be 200 grave mounds, and that by 1908 that number was down to 63. / Der Wikipedia-Eintrag für die nahegelegene Gemeinde Pürgen erwähnt eine Totenstadt; dass es einmal um die 200 Grabhügel gewesen sind, und dass um 1908 diese Zahl auf 63 gesunken war.

Today I took a tour of a large patch of woods, called the Hofstetter Frauenwald, across the road from that field. I don’t know why it’s called a “Ladies’ Forest” but postulate that the land had once belonged to a convent. I suspected that there may be many more grave mounds inside the forest. / Heute habe ich eine Tour durch einen großen des Waldes gemacht, dem so genannten Hofstetter Frauenwald, gerade jenseits der Hauptstraße dieses Felds. Ich weiß nicht, warum es eine “Frauenwald” genannt wird, aber nehme an, dass das Land einst zu einem Kloster gehörte. Ich vermutete, dass viele weitere Grabhügel im Wald sind.

And indeed, from the path alone I counted 28 of them. A visit in the winter, when one can leave the trails (too much thorny underbrush growing there right now) will surely lead to more. With the ten visible in the field across the main road, that’s 38 at least. / Und tatsächlich – vom Weg aus zählte ich bereits 28 von ihnen. Ein Besuch im Winter, wenn man die Wege verlassen kann, wird sicherlich zu mehr führen (zu viel dornigen Gestrüpp dort wächst dort im Augenblick). Mit den zehn sichtbaren Grabhügeln im Feld gegenüber die Hauptstraße sind es dann mindestens 38.

A dozen photographs of x-thousand-year-old grave mounds eroding in the woods might bring to mind Monty Python’s tree slide show, especially since they all look more or less alike… / Ein Dutzend Fotos von x-tausend Jahre alten Grabhügeln in den Wäldern Erodieren erinnert an Monty Pythons Baum Dia-Show, vor allem da sie alle mehr oder weniger gleich aussehen …

…and so I’ll spare you from any more! Suffice to say that I am very pleased to have found the Bronze Age necropolis in the woods just outside our village. There are no signs at the site and very little information online, but once you know where to look, they are all around you… / Und so erspare ich ihnen mehr davon! Es genügt zu sagen, dass es mich sehr freut, die Bronzezeit-Nekropole in den Wäldern vor den Toren unseres Dorfes gefunden zu haben. Es gibt keine Hinweise auf dem Gelände und sehr wenig Informationen online, aber wenn Sie wissen, wo sie suchen müssen, steht man schon mittendrin.

Forgotten Innsbruck: The Irrwurzel

Posted on August 17, 2014 by kcosumano

Fellow-blogger Paschberg has posted the following 1966 article from Innsbruck’s local newspaper, about a mysterious root found in certain places which, should you step on it, will send you wandering through the mountains, completely disoriented. Here is an English translation by me, because I find weird legends like this kind of cool.

MYSTERIOUS “IRRWURZEL” OF MARIA LARCH

from the Tiroler Tageszeitung, Innsbruck, 25 October, 1966, Nr. 247, S.6

“Was terrestrial radiation to blame for the mental state of Johann König from Gnadenwald?

In response to Dr. Dietmar Assmann’s article “300 Years of Pilgrimages to Maria Larch near Terfens” in the October 8 issue of “TT”, I would like to tell a story which is interesting on ethnological, scientific, psychiatric and mountaineering levels.

The history of Maria Larch the legend is exhaustively discussed in the article. In conclusion the author writes, “like many other cultural sites of this kind, we see close ties of nature with the desire for protection from its violence.”

The saga tells of such violence. According to it, a mythical root grows in the Larch valley. The Tyrolean ethnologist Johann N. from Alpenburg wrote over 100 years ago, “in the forests and meadows, on mountain and valley grows a root which possesses such powers, that whoever steps upon it will meander aimlessly for days, just as the witches and masters of the dark arts understand how to distract a person and lead him astray.” Such persons would wander the entire night and came to only by the morning call to prayers. Such instances are said to have been frequent in the Larch Valley, although no one knew anything for certain.

Dr. Guido Hradil, Adjunct Professor at the University of Innsbruck, described such occurrences as terrestrial radiation which, like that which has been measured in the Gastein Valley, may also be observed in Gnadenwald.

On January 4th, 1912, innkeeper Josef Heiss, whose inn stood at the edge of the Larch valley and who also owned a timber business, was busy with his men and horses pulling logs on sleds from the forest near Maria Larch to Gnadenwald on sleds. They had been delayed by the shying of the horses and it was getting dark. Hansel, a boy from a nearby farm, rode by on his sled as they were bustling about to go. The woodsmen called out, “Hey, where are you off to, so late?”, but he gave no answer. The company left the unfriendly boy alone and hurried home, as night was already upon them.

The next day word got out that the boy hadn’t come home. His family, the workers, the neighbors and soon the whole village was searching for him, along with the police. Soon enough they found tracks of the boy’s sled. The tracks led from Maria Larch, through the so-called Sau Valley through the woods, crossed the Umlberg road, went straight up nearly vertically on the steep and icy slope of the Walder Pass, cut through the meadow there to the summit and descended the north side into a gap, where with a sleepwalking instinct he had made his way between the cliffs down to the stream. Here his sled broke. His body was found frozen by the stream. He had pulled off his shoes and stockings.

The discovery caused an uproar in the region. Why did the boy leave the marked road in the Larch valley and sled through the fields? Even if he’d become snow-blind, how did he cross the road without noticing it? Why had he not noticed the village lights, clearly visible on the way up the mountain? How did he find his way through the pathless gorge in the dark? There were no answers, and no one wished to mention the Irrwurzel out loud.

In the Gnadenwald church’s chronicle the priest had written: “Johann König, single, farmer’s son, in the night of January 4th-5th, 1912, strayed in confusion, found frozen in the Vomp Gap and brought home.” In the city one spoke of an epileptic fit or schizophrenia, perhaps brought on by an unknown force of nature. — I.M. Metzler”

Also included in the post is an article written by the blog author’s father and found among his papers, and in English at that. Here with permission:

THE “IRRWURZEL”

TRADITIONAL FOLKLORISTIC INTERPRETATION OF A POSSIBLE

UNKNOWN GEOPHYSICAL PHENOMENON?

By Alois Schönherr

In the Tyrolean, Austrian and German folklore, there is the tradition of the so called “Irrwurzel”, a mythical root, which, if stepped on, allegedly distorts the orientation of the wanderer to such an extent that he or she will become unable to find one’s way even in a perfectly familiar environment. 1)

Alpenburg writing in 1857 relates that according to tradition the Irrwurzel is very frequent in the pastures below the Tratzberg castle, between Schwaz and Jenbach (30 kms east of Innsbruck), “where everybody is careful, not to walk through with bare feet” , but just how it looks – nobody knows. He also writes that “today the Irrwurzel is no longer known” (i.e. the term is not associated with a certain botanically known plant or root) because in 1803 a dying oil-trader from the Ziller-valley burnt the last specimen by order of a priest. 2) It seems that similar to the personifactions of natural forces like wind or ligthtning as gods, the Irrwurzel constitutes a sort of botanic rationalization for certain mysterious effects.

At least in the Tyrol, stories about the Irrwurzel aren’t always located in a vague, hazy, undated past or associated only with unknown persons and places. The following tale, also related by Alpenburg, can be considered as typical:

One day in 1832 at three o’clock in the morning the porter Jakob Tunner from Alpbach departed from the Kupal alp in the Hinterriss with a load of 100 pounds of butter for Jenbach. After a quarter of an hour, fog fell in but the porter proceeded as he knew the way very well, having used it a “thousand times” in both directions before. He walked for hours, but he never reached the pass leading to the Inn-valley. At noon he rested and prayed, then he went on again. Finally, late in the night, he perceived a hut in the distance. It was the Kupal alp, from where he had started twenty hours before. He was so confused that he asked after the name of the alp. The herdsmen there said he must have stepped upon an Irrwurzel. 3)

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1) In Germany the term “Irrfleck” is more popular, which means a definite spot, a sort of haunted place so to say, where orientation is distorted.

2) Alpenburg, Johann Nepomuk Ritter von, Mythen und Sagen Tirols, Verlag von Meyer und Zeller, Zürich 1857, p. 409.

3) Ibid. p. 410

below the Tratzberg castle, between Schwaz and Jenbach (30 kms east of Innsbruck)”

It’s All Related

Posted on March 26, 2014 by kcosumano

And here we tie the two previous posts together with a 15th-century ribbon:
Und hier fügen wir die beiden vorherigen Beiträge mit einem Band aus dem 15. Jahrhundert zusammen:

blog_Duerer_Brennerstrasse

Albrecht Dürer, Brenner Road in the Eisack Valley, 1495. Made, as with the Innsbruck paintings, from a journey to Italy. Note the wheel tracks in the road. This was the “Brenner Autobahn” during the Middle Ages and probably long before then as well.

Albrecht Dürer, Brennerstraße im Eisacktal, 1495. Gemacht, wie auch die Innsbruck Gemälde, auf einer Reise nach Italien. Beachten Sie die Spurrillen auf der Straße. Dies war der “Brenner Autobahn” im Mittelalter und wahrscheinlich auch lange davor.

Image found here

Licus Translation

German to English translation, ATA-certified

Category Archives: nature