Note 4 — Chapter VII · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL (RIGHT INN-BANK). EXCURSIONS FROM SCHWATZ.

The break into the Weerthal is at some little distance from the high road; its church, situated on a little high-level plain, is surrounded with fir-trees. A little lake is pointed out, of which a similar legend is told to ‘the judgment of Achensee,’ which is indeed one not infrequently met with; it is said that it covers a spot where stood a mighty castle, once submerged for the haughtiness of its inhabitants, and the waters placed there that no one might again build on the site for ever. The greatest ornament of the valley is the rambling ruin of Schloss Rettenberg, on its woody height, once a fortress of the Rottenburgers; afterwards it passed to Florian Waldauf, whose history I have already given when speaking of Hall.4 It was bought by the commune in 1810, and the present church built up out of the materials it afforded, the former church having been burnt down that year. The old site and its remains are looked upon by the people as haunted by a steward of the castle and his wife, who in the days of its prosperity dealt hardly with the widow and the orphan, and must now wander sighing and breathing death on all who come within their baleful influence. A shepherd once fell asleep in the noontide heat, while his sheep were browsing on the grass-grown eminence. When he woke, they were no longer in sight; at last he found them dead within the castle keep. ‘Guard thy flock better,’ shouted a hoarse voice, ‘for this enclosure is mine, and none who come hither escape me.’ None ventured within the precincts after this; but many a time those who were bold enough to peep through a fissure in the crazy walls reported that they had seen the hard-hearted steward as a pale, weary, grey-bearded man, sit sighing on the crumbling stones.