Note 4 — Chapter V · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL. (LEFT INN-BANK.)

With regard to ‘the Cold Torment,’4 they have the following legend in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck:—There was once a peasant who had been very unlucky, and got so deep in debt that he saw no way of extricating himself. Unable to bear the sight of his starving family, he wandered out into the forest, until at last he met a strange-looking man in the old Frankish costume, who came up to him and said, ‘You are poor indeed, and know no means of help.’ ‘Most true,’ replied the peasant; ‘of money and good counsel I can use more than you can have to bestow.’ ‘I will help you,’ said the strange-looking man; ‘I will give you as much money as you can use while you live, and all you have to do for it will be to bear the Cold Torment for me after you die; nothing but that, only just to feel rather too cold, and all that time hence—what does it matter?’ The peasant retraced his steps, and as he drew near home his children came out to meet him with their pinafores full of gold, and all about the house there were heaps of gold, more than he could use; and he lived a merry life till the time came for him to die. Then he remembered what was before him; so he called his wife to him, and got her to make him a whole suit of the thickest rough woollen cloth, and stockings, hood, and gloves of the same. In the night, before they had buried him, his boys saw him, just as the De profundis bell rang, get up from the bed in all this warm clothing, and shut the gate behind him, and go out into the forest to deliver the spirit which had enriched him.5