Note 5 — LUTZ FOREST

Professor Joseph Bergmann, in an extremely learned booklet (“Untersuchungen über die freyen Walliser oder Walser.” Vienna, Carl Gerold, 1844) has proved that our Walsers, an industrious people of Burgundian stock, emigrated hitherward from the Swiss Canton Wallis (Valais) at the end of the thirteenth century and settled in this wild valley and its surroundings. It is they who brought it to its present high state of prosperity. They have kept their Swiss accent to this day, with certain idioms of their own—not every Englishman can translate “Wie tüschalat’s Bobbe so schö im Pfülfli!”—and their costume is more strange than beautiful. In olden days nearly every settlement here (Bludenz, Feldkirch, Nenzing, etc.) had its own costume. There are only three left now; that of the Walserthal, the Montavon, and Bregenzerwald.