Note 10 — Chapter IV · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL (RIGHT INN-BANK). (ZILLERTHAL CUSTOMS.—THE WILDSCHÖNAU.)

Another class of legends has also a home in this locality. It is told that a peasant from Oberau was going home from Thierbach, one Epiphany Eve. It was a cold night; his feet crunched the crisp snow at every step; the air was clear, and the stars shone brightly. The peasant’s head, however, was not so clear as the sky, for he came from the tavern, where he had been spending a merry evening with his boon companions. Thus it happened that instead of walking straight on, he gave one backward step for every three forward, like the Umgehende Schuster;10 and thus he went staggering about till he came to the Rastbank, which is even yet sought as a point where to rest and overlook the view. It struck twelve as he seated himself on the bench; then suddenly behind him he heard a sound of many voices, which came on nearer and nearer, and then the Berchtl in her white clothing, her broken ploughshare in her hand, and all her train of little people11 swept clattering and chattering close past him. The least was the last, and it wore a long shirt which got in the way of its little bare feet, and kept tripping it up. The peasant had sense enough left to feel compassion, so he took his garter off and bound it for a girdle round the infant, and then set it again on its way. When the Berchtl saw what he had done, she turned back and thanked him, and told him that in return for his compassion his children should never come to want. This story, I think there is little doubt, may be genuine; your Wiltschenauer is as fond of brandy as your Zillerthaler, and under its influence the peasant may very likely have passed a troubled night on the Rastbank. What more likely to cross his fancy on the Epiphany Eve than the thought of a visit from the Berchtl and her children (they always appear in Tirol at that season, and in rags and tatters12); his own temperament being compassionate, that he should help the stumbling little one, and that the Berchtl should give him promise of reward was all that might be expected from certain premises. But what are those premises? Who was the Berchtl? If you ask a Tirolean peasant the question, he will probably tell you that the Perchtl (as he will call her) is Pontius Pilate’s wife,13 to whom redemption was given by reason of her intervention in favour of the Man of Sorrows, but that it is her penance to wander over the earth till the last day as a restless spirit; and that as the Epiphany was the season of favour to the Gentiles, among whose first-fruits she was, it is at that season she is most often seen, and in her most favourable mood. It must be confessed that some of his stories of her will betray a certain amount of inconsistency, for he will represent her carrying off children, wounding belated passengers, and performing many acts inconsistent with the character of a penitent soul, and more in accordance with that of the more ancient ‘Lamia.’