Chapter XII · WÄLSCH-TIROL. VAL SUGANA.—GIUDICARIA.—FOLKLORE.

Legends are echoes of the great child-voices from the primitive world; so rich and sweet that their sound is gone out into all lands.

Val Sugana is watered by the Brenta through its whole course, running nearly direct east from Trent. It is reached by the Adler Thor, and over the handsome bridge of S. Ludovico, through luxuriant plantations of mulberries and vines, and with many a summer villa on either hand. The road leads (at a considerable and toilsome distance) to the low range of hills (in Tirol called a Sonnenberg) of Baselga, locally named Pinè, whose sides are studded with a number of villages and groups of houses. In one of these, Verda or Guarda by name, near the village of Montanaga, is the most celebrated pilgrimage of the Trentino—the Madonna di Pinè, also known as the Madonna di Caravaggio. It was the year 1729; a peasant girl, Domenika Targa, native of Verda, who was noted by all her neighbours for the angelic holiness of her life, had lost some of her herd upon the mountain one hot August day; in her distress, she knelt down to ask for help to bring back her charge faithfully. Suddenly the place was bathed in a light of glory, and before her stood a lady so benign and glorious, she could be none other than the Himmelskönigin. ‘Go, my child, and tell them that you have seen me here, and that I have chosen this spot for my delight; and that their prayers will be heard which they offer before the picture of the Madonna di Caravaggio.’ The light faded away, and Domenika turned to seek her flock. She found them all in order, waiting for her to drive them home. There was considerable discussion after this as to what ‘Madonna di Caravaggio’ might mean; and it was at last decided that it could mean nothing but the picture of the Madonna by Caldara, surnamed Caravaggio from his birthplace, venerated at Milan. Domenika could not leave her herds to go to Milan, and she was perplexed how to obey the vision. In her simple faith she addressed her prayer on high for further direction, and once more the heavenly sight was vouchsafed to her, and it was explained that the Madonnabild meant was not that of Milan, but the one in the little field-chapel of S. Anna, near Montanaga. Domenika did not fail to go there the next festival on which it was open, the Ascension Day, which was, that year, May 26. Above the faint light of the tapers tempered by the incense clouds, and amid the chanted litanies of the choir, the fair Queen once more appeared to her in garments of gold, and surrounded by a glittering train of attendants. Some months passed, and though the people had wondered at the marvel, nothing had been done to commemorate it; Domenika was kneeling, on September 8, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, in the Chapel of S. Anna. A sound of soft chanting broke on her ear, which she thought must be the procession of the parish coming up the hill to pray for rain. But as it grew nearer, the same heavenly radiance overspread the place, and once more she saw the Virgin Mother; but this time she looked stern, for the great favour of her visit had been overlooked, and she reasoned with Domenika on the ingratitude it betokened. Domenika honestly outspoke her inward cogitations on the subject—what could a poor cattle-herd do? It was given her to understand that much might be done even by such a poor peasant, if she exercised energy and devotion. With new strength and determination, she girt herself for the task of building a shrine over the spot so dear to her. At first she met with great ridicule and scorn, but she pursued her way so steadily and so humbly, that all were won to share her convictions. Offerings for the work began to flow in. Those who had no money gave their corn, or their grapes, their ornaments, and their very clothes. Year by year the new church rose, according as she could collect the means; and at last, on May 26, 1751, she had the consolation of seeing the complete edifice consecrated. It is a neat cruciform building, sixty-three feet long and fifty-three feet wide, with three marble altars, on one of which is a copy of the Madonna di Caravaggio of Milan painted by Jakob Moser after he had made three pilgrimages to the original. I was not able to ascertain what was supposed to have been intended in the first instance by calling the old picture in S. Anna’s field-chapel the Madonna di Caravaggio. Possibly the little Milanese town, which has given two painters to fame, had produced some ‘mute inglorious’ ‘Caravaggio,’ who painted the earlier picture. The commemoration of Domenika’s vision is celebrated every year in Val Pinè by pilgrimages on May 26 when the most striking gatherings of Tirolese costume are to be observed there.

Pergine is the first large village on returning into the main valley, about six miles from Trent. It well deserves to be better known: the neighbourhood is of great beauty, and the form of the surrounding heights is well likened by the inhabitants to a theatre. The church, built in 1500–45, is spacious and handsome, adorned in the interior with red marble columns. In the churchyard are the remains of the older church, where every Lent German sermons are still preached for the benefit of the scattered German population, whose name for the place is Persen. The German and Italian elements within the village are blended with tolerable amity. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, silver, copper, lead, and iron, were got out in the neighbouring Fersinathal; and though the works are now nearly given up, the Knappen then formed an important portion of the community. They cast the bell as an offering to the church when building, and it is still called the Knappinn—by the Italians canòppa. The chief industry now is silk-spinning. The greatest ornament of the place is the Schloss of the Bishop of Trent, which is well kept up, and from the roof of which an incomparable view is obtained. Among the peculiar customs of the place those concerning marriages deserve to be recorded, as they tend to show the character of the people. Two young men of the bridegroom’s friends are selected for the office of Brumoli so called; they have to carry, the one a barn-door fowl, the other a spinning-wheel, before the bride as she goes to and from church, to remind her of her household duties. After the wedding, as she returns with her husband to his house the door is suddenly closed as she approaches, and there is then carried on a dialogue, according to an established form, between her and her husband’s mother—the latter requiring, and the former undertaking, that she will prove herself God-fearing and domesticated; that she will be faithful and devoted to her husband, and live in charity with all his family. The little ceremony complete, the mother-in-law throws wide the door, and receives her with open arms.

On the south side of the valley, opposite Pergine, is the clear lake of Caldonazzo, whose waters reflect the bright green chestnut woods around it; it is the source of the Brenta, and one of the largest lakes of Tirol; about three miles long, and half as broad. Count Welfersheim, an Austrian general, and his adjutant, were drowned in attempting to walk over the thin ice on it in March 1871. On a rugged promontory jutting into its midst stands the most ancient sanctuary of the neighbourhood, San Cristofero; once a temple to Saturn and Diana, but adopted for a Christian church by the earliest evangelizers of the valley, for which reason the produce of the soil and waters yet pays tithe to the presbytery of Pergine. Other villages add to the surrounding beauties of the lake, particularly Campolongo, with its church of St. Teresa high above the green waters, and the church and hermitage of San Valentin; the latter is now used for a roccolo, or vogeltennen, by which numbers of birds of passage are caught on their migrations. The land is very poor. To eke out their living, most of the male inhabitants of the villages around are wont to go out every winter as pedlars, with various small articles manufactured in the valley, and with which they are readily trusted by those who stay behind. On their return, which is always at Easter, they distribute honourably what they have earned for each, deducting a small commission. So straightforward and honourable are they, that though they have little idea of keeping accounts, and the sums are generally made out with a bit of chalk on the inn table, yet it is said that such a thing as a dispute over the amounts is utterly unknown. The church of St. Hermes, at Calzeranica, is reckoned the most ancient of the whole neighbourhood; remains of an ancient temple, thought to have been to Diana of Antioch, have been found when repairing it. In the forest behind Bosentino, a neighbouring village, is a pilgrimage chapel called Nossa Signora del feles; die h. Jungfrau vom Farrenkraut—St. Mary of the Fern. Some two hundred years ago, Gianisello, a little dumb boy of Bosentino, who was minding his father’s herd in the forest, was visited by a bright lady, who pointed to a tuft of fern growing under a chestnut tree, and bid him go and tell the village people she would have them built a chapel there. When the people heard the boy tell his story, who for all the twelve years of his life had never spoken a word before, they felt no doubt it was the Blessed Virgin he had seen. The chapel was soon built, and furnished with a painting embodying the little boy’s story. In time of dearth, drought, epidemic, or other local calamity, many are the processions which may yet be seen wending their prayerful way to the chapel of St. Mary of the Fern.

The village of Caldonazzo, with its ancient castle, is another ornament of the lake. Further south is the village of Lavarone, or Lafraun, accessible only to the pedestrian. A house close to the edge of a little lake here is pointed out, which in olden time was the residence of two brothers, the owners of the meadow over which the lake is now spread. These two could never agree; their strife grew from day to day, till at last one night they called each other out to settle their quarrels once for all by mortal combat. The noise of the strife within had made them oblivious to the strife of the elements which was waging without. The gust which entered as the eldest turned to open the cottage door, and the blinding rain, drove them back; even their fierce passions seemed mastered by the fiercer fury without. In silence they returned into the room, and neither cared to raise his voice amid the angry voices of the storm, which now made themselves heard solemnly indeed. In sullen silence they passed the night, and during the silence there was time for reflection; each would have been glad to have backed out of the promised fight, but neither had the courage to propose a reconciliation. Sullenly they rose with the morning light; the pale gold rays rested on the trees, now calm and tranquil, and both shuddered to carry their vengeance out on to the fair scene; but neither dared speak, and once more the eldest opened the door. This time it was not the rain descending from above which drove him back; it was the flood rising from beneath! The Centa torrent had overflowed. The disputed meadow had become a lake, and with their united efforts they scarcely kept the waters banked out. The community of labour, of danger, and of distress, ended the strife; and though their worldly possessions were lost to them for ever, they had found a greater boon, the bond of fraternal charity.

I must pass over Levico, near which the Brenta has its source, and the intervening villages; but Borgo di Val Sugan’ demands our attention for its beautiful situation. The view over both may be enjoyed by mountain climbers from the neighbouring height of Vezzena. Borgo is commonly called the Italian Meran, for its likeness with that favourite watering-place. Its buildings extend over both sides of the Brenta, being united by a massive stone bridge, built in 1498. Those on the left bank were nearly destroyed by fire in 1862, but the rebuilding has been carried on with great spirit. Its ecclesiastical buildings do not date far back; the rebuilding of the parish church in 1727 nearly obliterated all traces of the earlier edifice; its chief glories are three paintings it possesses, one by Titian’s brother, one by Karl Loth, and one by Rothmayr. The fine campanile was added in 1760. There is also a Franciscan convent, but it does not date back further than 1603, there is the following curious tradition of its origin.

The pass I have mentioned between the Rochetta and the Grolina—the importance of which as a defence was not unknown to the Romans, of whose remains the town possesses a considerable collection dug up at different times—was not without its share of work in the French invasions of 1796 and 1809. In the former, a handful of Tirolese successfully repulsed five hundred of the enemy in an obstinate encounter of three hours’ duration. In the latter, the place was attacked by tenfold greater numbers. General Ruska was so infuriated, not only by their determined and galling fire, but by the derisive shouts and gestures of the mountaineers, who carried their daring so far as to fling the dead bodies of the soldiers they had killed down under the wheels of his carriage, that he ordered the pillage and destruction of the town. His guns were ready planted to pour out their murderous fire, when the parish priest, heading a procession of aged house-fathers, came to implore him to spare their homes. At the same moment news was brought him that two Austrian battalions were advancing with dangerous haste. One or other of the considerations thus urged effected the deliverance of the town, which was only required to buy itself off at the price of a large supply of provisions.

Borgo has further advantage of the mineral spring of Zaberle, and a creditable theatre. Silk-spinning is again the chief industry of the place; and there are several so-called Filatoriums, employing a great number of hands. The most remarkable excursions in the neighbourhood are to the deserted hermitage of San Lorenzo and the stalactite caves of Costalta, both in the Sellathal, whence there is a path leading to the curiously primitive and typically upright community of the Sette Comuni.

Pursuing the valley further in its easterly course, I must not omit to mention Castelalto, not only remarkable for its share in the mediæval history of Tirol, but for being still well kept up. At Strigno, one of the largest hamlets of the valley, is another ancient castle, which after its abandonment in the fourteenth century acquired the name of Castelrotto. The parish church, rebuilt in 1827, contains a Madonna del Rosario by Domenichino; and a Mater Dolorosa in Carrara marble, by the Venetian sculptor Melchiori. This is the generally adopted starting-place for the Cima d’Asta, the highest peak of the Trentino (8,561 feet), and commanding a panorama of exceptional magnificence. Under favourable circumstances it is reached within thirty hours, sleeping in the open at Quarazza. The interest of the way is heightened by two considerable lakes; the lower, that of Quarazza, closed in by wall-like cliffs, is fed by a cascade from the higher lake, which receives several torrents. Near the summit is a garnet quarry. Just below Strigno is another inhabited castle, that of Ivano, belonging to the Count of Wolkenstein-Trostburg, who makes it a summer residence. The church is dedicated to S. Vindemian; near it was once a hermitage. Further down the valley is Ospedaletto, famous in border warfare, and once a hospice for travellers, served by monks, still a mountain-inn with a chapel attached. Grigno has another once-important castle. S. Udalric, Bishop of Augsburg, had occasion to pass through the village on his way to Rome in the time of Pope Sergius III. (A.D. 904–11), and left behind him so profound an impression of his sanctity, that the devotion of the people to his memory has never diminished. In the eleventh century a chapel was built in his honour, with the picturesque instinct of the people of that date, on the steep way leading to Castel Tesino. It was always kept in good condition till 1809, when it was desecrated by the French soldiery. It was restored within ten years, and a rustic piazza in front planted with lime trees, which have at the present time attained considerable dimensions. In July 1869, processions consisting of more than four thousand villagers met at this shrine, to pray for deliverance from the heavy rains, which were causing the inundation of their homesteads.

From Grigno there is a path which few persons however will be tempted to follow, across the so-called Canal San Bovo, to Primiero, a country which has already been so ably laid open to the tourist that I need not attempt a fresh description of its beauties. If any one penetrates its recesses as far as the village of Canal San Bovo, I think they will not be sorry to have been advised to ask for a certain Virginia Loss, who has a touching story to tell them of her adventures. On a stormy day, the last of October 1869, she was making her way, though only thirteen, with her mother and another woman, along the dangerous path leading hither from the Fleimserthal, following their occupation of carriers. They had passed Panchià and Ziano, and were in the midst of the verdant tract known as the Sadole. The fierce wind that blew exhausted her poor mother’s strength, and she saw no help but to lay down her burden by the way, and try to reach home with bare life. Domenica Orsingher, the other woman, however, who had already got on a good way beyond her, no sooner learned what she had done than, considering what a loss it must be to her, with a humble heroism went back to fetch the pack intending to carry it in addition to her own! The next day some men travelling by the same path found her body extended by the wayside. She had died of cold and exhaustion.

The land is strong with such as these,

Her heroes’ destined mothers.

Further along they found Elisabetta Loss and her daughter huddled together. On carrying the bodies to Cauria they succeeded in reviving only the child. Virginia has a tragic story to tell of; of how her mother sank to her rest, and her own unavailing and inexperienced efforts to call her to life; then the horror of the approaching night, the snow storm in which she expected to be covered up and lost to sight, yet had not strength to move away; and, worst of all, the circling flight of crows and ravens which she spent her last energies in driving with her handkerchief from her mother’s face; and yet the presence of death, solitude and helplessness, made the approach of even those rapacious and ill-omened companions seem almost less unwelcome. The insensibility which ensued was probably the most welcome visitant of all.

Le Tezze is a smaller village than Grigno, but one that has done good service to the patriotic cause, having many a time stayed the advance of invading hosts; and never more successfully than in the latest Garibaldian attempt on the Trentino, upon the cession of Venice by Austria after Sadowa. The tombs of the bold mountaineers who fell while driving back the tenfold numbers opposed to them are to be seen appropriately ranged along the stony declivity they defended so well. These graves are yearly visited by their brethren on the 14th of August.

They fell devoted and undying,

The very gale their deeds seems sighing;

The waters murmur forth their name,

The woods are peopled with their fame,

The silent pillar, lone and gray,

Claims kindred with their sacred clay.

Le Tezze is the last Tirolean village of the valley, and the seat of the Austrian custom-house against Italy. On the other side of this frontier is the interesting Italian town of Primolano, whence there is an easier way into Primiero-thal than by crossing the Canal San Bovo. Val Sugana retains more of the German element than any other district of Wälsch-Tirol.

Judicarien or Giudicaria bifurcates westwards and south-westwards from the Etschthal opposite Val Sugana. Its first (south-west) division is called the Sarcathal and reaches to the Lago di Garda. Though no part of the beautiful Italian lake actually belongs to Tirol the town of Riva overlooks it; the country round is most productive in wine, silk, lemons, figs, and other fruits. Its pleasant climate, the warmest in all Tirol, is due not only to its southern latitude, but also to its being the lowest land of the principality. Innsbruck is 1,820 feet above the sea-level, Riva but 220. From the western division of Giudicaria there branch out northwards Val Rendena, north-westwards Val Breguzzo and Val Daone, and southwards Val Bona. The Val di Ledro or Lederthal, forms a parallel return towards the Garda-See. Here an attempt at invasion headed by Garibaldi was repulsed by the Innsbruck Student-brigade in 1866 at a pass called Bezzecca.

Giudicaria is little explored yet it contains some choice scenery and traditions. Castel Madruzz, which can be visited from Trent, is one of its most ancient and important castles. From the twelfth to the seventeenth century, the family which inhabited it and bore its name takes a foremost place in Tirol’s history. In the church are shown the portraits of seven of the family ascribed to Titian. From 1530 to 1658 four of its members occupied the See of Trent, and were successively invested with the Cardinalitial dignity. Cardinal Karl Madruzz became the last of his house. All his kindred having died without heirs, he applied to Rome for permission to marry—a dispensation which we have seen once before accorded in favour of a Tirolese prince. Cardinal Madruzz preferred his suit successively before Urban VIII., Innocent X., and Alexander VII., and at last obtained it, coupled with the proviso that he should only marry in his own station. As this did not accord with his intentions, the favour so tardily granted was never acted on. This fine castle had fallen into sad neglect but it is being restored. From its deserted terraces a glorious view is obtained, which takes in the two lakes of Toblino to the north, and Cavedine to the south, both being fed by the same torrents. Round the Lago di Cavedine lie the flowery slopes which bear the name of Abraham’s Garden. The Lake of Toblino is broken into by a picturesque promontory, bearing the castellated villa of the Prince-Bishops of Trent; though on flat ground, the round turrets at the angles with their pointed caps afford a wonderful relief to the landscape. The village is called Sta. Massenza, from the mother of S. Vigilius, who died here in the odour of sanctity, 381. Her relics were translated to Trent, 1120. At the foot of the height on which stands Schloss Madruzz is a double chapel, on the model of the Holy House of Loreto, the legend being inscribed on the walls.

At the westernmost reach of Giudicaria, the Rendenathal branches off towards Val di Sole. It was the cradle of the evangelization of Tirol, for here S. Vigilius suffered martyrdom, 405, and the valley is rife with traditions of him. He appears to have been stirred with zeal for the propagation of the faith at a very early age; and his piety and earnestness were so apparent that he was consecrated Bishop of Trent at the age of twenty. He made many conversions, and built a church to SS. Gervasius and Protasius, A.D. 375. But he was not content with establishing the faith here, and sending out missionaries hence; he would wander himself on foot through all the valleys where paganism still lurked, overturning idols and building Christian sanctuaries—more than thirty trace their origin to his work. Nowhere did he meet with so much opposition as in the Rendenathal, which was the last to accept the yoke of Christ. But he was untiring in his apostolic labours, nor could he rest while one token of a false religion remained erect. It is not to be supposed that, though he made many fervent converts, he effected all this without also exciting the opposition and fury of those whose teaching he had come to supersede. Yet though many were the snares set for him, no conspiracy against him succeeded till he had cast down the last idol. It was at Mortaso, one of the remotest villages of this secluded dell, he stood announcing the ‘glad tidings’ of the Gospel from the pedestal of the image he had overthrown, and the population crowded round, earnestly garnering in his words. He had left off preaching, and just raised his hands in benediction, when a body of heathen men and women, who had long determined to compass his end, rushed upon the scene from the surrounding grove, and stoned him with the fragments of the image he had overthrown. His hearers would have defended him, but he knew that his hour was come, for his work was accomplished; and forbidding all strife, he knelt down, and folding his arms on his breast meekly rendered up his spirit, while his constancy won many to the faith. His disciples reverently gathered his remains and bore them to Trent; but as soon as his murderers were aware of their intent, they set out to follow them. The Christian party, delayed by the weight of their burden, found that their pursuers were fast gaining ground. In this strait, says the legend, they called upon the rocky wall before them—

Apritevi, O sassa,

Che S. Vigilio passa,

and behold before them suddenly appeared a cleft in the rock, through which they passed in safety, and which is pointed out to this day. Another narrow cleft is pointed out near Cadine, which is said to have been rent asunder at his bidding, when once, at an earlier stage of his labours, he deemed it right to flee from those who would have taken his life. The Acqua della Vela now passes through it, and a dent is shown which is said to mark the place where the saint impressed his hand on the obedient stone. It was this suggested to the bearers of the bier to make a similar appeal on behalf of his relics. It is commonly reported that in Mortaso the bread never rises properly; and they couple with it this tradition, that when the pieces of the broken idol sufficed not for all who would attack the saint, the women brought out loaves from the oven to complete the work.

Riva, at the head of the Garda-See, is one of the most charming spots in Tirol. Its German name of Reif is not a mere corruption of the Italian name; it is an old German word, having the same signification, of a shore. The parish church is a really handsome edifice, and a great ornament to the town and neighbourhood. Outside the town is a curious octagonal church of the Immaculate Conception, built to enclose a wonder-working picture of the Blessed Virgin, by Cardinal Karl von Madruzz, who also founded a House of Friars Minor to attend to the spiritual necessities of the many pilgrims who came to visit it. The churches of S. Roch and S. Sebastian were built on occasion of visitations of the plague in 1522 and 1633. The neighbourhood supplies the whole of Tirol with twigs of olive to use in the office of Palm Sunday, and all kinds of southern produce grow on the banks of the lake. It was long considered the highest latitude at which the olive-tree would grow, but it has since been successfully cultivated as far north as Botzen. In order to gain a full enjoyment of the beautiful scenery around, the Altissimo di Nago should be ascended by all who have the courage for a six or seven hours’ climb. From San Giacomo, however, where there is a poor Wirthshaus and chapel, reached in not more than two hours, the scene at sunrise is one of inconceivable beauty. Behind are ranges beyond ranges and peaks beyond peaks of lordly alps. Before you lies the blue Lago di Garda, and the vast Lombard plains studded with fair cities, amid which you will not fail to distinguish Milan, which some optical illusion brings so near that it seems it would take but an easy morning’s walk to reach it.

On the way hence to Mori, at about half distance, lies Brentonico, with a new church perched picturesquely as a mediæval one on a bold scarped rock. The old parish church has a fine crypt. The Castello del Dosso Maggiore is a noble ruin. There is a bridge over a deep defile in the outskirts, called the Ponte delle strege—the Witches’ Bridge—being deemed too daring for human builders. Mori, though named from its mulberry trees, is more famed for its tobacco, which is reckoned the best grown in Tirol.

Wälsch-Tirol has many traditions, customs and sayings, which differ from those of the rest of the Principality, more resembling those of Italy, and some of which it cannot be fanciful to trace back to an Etruscan connection. Some bear the impress of the Roman occupation, and all are strung together by an overpowering Germanic influence.

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!

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.

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.

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!’

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,

Gh’ è ’n prà

Tutto garofalà:

Quanca se vien el Papa con tutta la sô paperia

Piatto sopra piatto,

Uomo ben armato,

Donna ben vestita.