Part 26 (1/2)
And the former, no doubt, relieved in mind and not disposed to stand upon ceremony or resent so unconventional a greeting, replied, ”I am on the look out.”
To which the newcomer replied, ”And so am I. Shall we venture down together?”
And upon the Emperor agreeing to make the attempt--after, according to various accounts, having spent from twenty-four to seventy-two hours in his perilous position--they set out to descend the remainder of the cliff face, and ultimately succeeded in doing so in safety. The daring hunter (who various accounts say was a brigand, and others an outlaw), to whom a secret path was known, was naturally well rewarded by the grateful monarch, and ultimately was enn.o.bled with the t.i.tle of Hollaner von Hohenfelsen; the last word, ”High Rock,” commemorating the incident. As is perhaps natural, some accounts place a supernatural aspect upon the Emperor's deliverance, and state that it was an angel which guided him to safety, sent by Heaven in answer to the prayers of the priests and people and the Emperor's trust in Providence.
Amongst the treasures of Schloss Ambras is the monstrance in which the Host was carried by the priests of Zirl when they celebrated Ma.s.s for the comfort of the Emperor on Martinswand and offered up prayers for his deliverance.
Maximilian, finding afterwards that many of the people of Zirl and the district were determined to make the perilous descent to the little cave which had afforded him shelter and foothold, employed some of the Schwaz miners to cut a path down to it and to enlarge the cavity, which became known as the Max-Hohle. In the cave was placed a crucifix, with figures of the Virgin and St. John on either side, of sufficiently large size to be visible from the valley below. The cavern can be reached by this path (or one made since) in about an hour and a half; but the climb is distinctly one which should be attempted only by the clear-headed and sure-footed. A very excellent view of the ”hole” used to be obtainable from the ruins of the little hunting-box and chapel to St. Martin which Maximilian afterwards erected upon the green knoll opposite to it, known as the Martins-buhel, but now private property.
Those who stop at Zirl and visit the Martinswand should not fail to proceed a few miles further northward to the pretty little village of Seefeld. On the way along the six miles of winding and picturesque road one pa.s.ses Fragenstein, once a strong fortress and afterwards converted by ”Kaiser Max” into one of his numerous hunting seats, which lie scattered about the Inn Thal and the district round about.
There is quite a romantic story of buried treasure in connection with ruined Fragenstein, in which a huntsman clad in green is mixed up, who appears periodically and invites the peasants by his gestures to come and a.s.sist him in digging up the treasure. Several attempts have been made to discover the latter in past times, but all have been frustrated when success appeared to be certain. On one occasion the peasants of the valley say those who were digging, and had worked hard for many days turning up the soil in every direction, actually had the metal chest, in which the treasure is reputed to lie buried, in sight, when a terrific storm burst over the valley, and when it had subsided all traces of their work had been washed away or otherwise obliterated, and the clue was never again discovered. The road to Seefeld, though tempting for pedestrians, is steep, especially up to Leiten and Reit; but those who walk may take some short cuts on the curves, and will be well repaid by the pretty scenery and fresh, invigorating air.
Neither at Leiten nor Reit is there much to detain the traveller--a few picturesque houses; nothing more. And so on to Seefeld. In connection with the village and its Heilige Blutskapelle there is one of those many legendary stories, of which there are so great a number known to Tyrolese Folk-lore.
Many centuries ago there appears to have lived at Seefeld a man named Oswald Milser, who was rich and powerful and generous both to the Church and to his poorer neighbours. His one besetting sin, however, was pride, and so one day when he went to take the Easter Eucharist he insisted that to distinguish him from the other communicants and mark his importance the priest should give him one of the larger wafers reserved for the use of the priests alone. Afraid to offend Milser, who had been a generous supporter of the Church and a giver of large alms, the priest complied with his request. No sooner, however, was the host placed upon his tongue than the weight of it bore Milser to the earth. And although in his terror and predicament he clung to the altar, and then to the altar steps as he sunk further, the latter gave way, and he continued to sink lower and lower, till in his terror he called upon the priest to take the host back from him. This the priest did, and when Oswald Milser had recovered from his fright he recognized that the circ.u.mstance was a lesson to his pride, and ultimately he gave his goods to the poor and the Church, and entered a monastery to lead a life of penance and contemplation.
[Sidenote: A MIRACULOUS ROSEBUSH]
When his wife was told the miracle, she refused to credit it, saying that sooner than do so she would believe that a dead rose-tree could blossom. The story goes on to tell how immediately ”a rose-tree which was near by and had been dead for a long time, put forth the most beautiful blooms, and so confounded the wicked woman that she went out of her mind, rushed from her house, and was never more seen in the flesh.” But her spirit was often heard at night, wailing and moaning on the mountain-side.
It was to contain this miraculous host which had confounded Oswald Milser's pride that the Archduke Ferdinand, in 1575, built a special little chapel on the left side of the fine fourteenth-century Gothic church of Seefeld. This is even nowadays an object of veneration, to which a considerable number of pilgrims come. The altar-piece is a fine one, and was well restored about five-and-thirty years ago. The statues which adorn it are those of the favourite legendary heroes of Tyrol, St. Oswald and St. Sigismund, whilst the subjects of the bas-reliefs are the incidents of Biblical history, known as ”The Mysteries of the Rosary.” Amongst the ”treasures” of the church are a remarkably fine and interesting crystal reliquary and crown, given by the Archd.u.c.h.ess Eleonora.
From Seefeld there are many interesting excursions to be made into the picturesque Mittenwald district, which lies to the north, upon the Bavarian frontier.
Scharnitz lies at the point where the Hinderan and Karwendel valleys unite. It has memories of many a struggle against the Bavarian invaders, and more particularly of the defence of the fortress Porta Claudia, built during the Thirty Years' War by Claudia de Medici, by an Englishman named Swinburne, an ancestor of the late Algernon Charles Swinburne the poet. He was an officer in the Austrian service, and had a force of only 600 against Marshal Ney, with nearly 20,000, and made so gallant and stubborn a defence that when the garrison at length surrendered to such vastly superior numbers they made their own terms and were allowed to march out as prisoners of war whilst retaining their side-arms. They were sent as prisoners to Aix-la-Chapelle, but the ”colours” were saved by one of the garrison, a Tyrolese, who made his escape with them wound round his body. He was sought for amid the mountains for many weeks, but was not recaptured, and lived to, later on, reach Vienna and hand the precious colours to his gallant chief, who had so well defended the fortress.
We reached Telfs from Seefeld by road. The village, which boasts a large cotton factory, is prettily situated and pleasant, but there is nothing in the place itself to detain the traveller. The same remark applies to Imst, once given over to the breeding of canaries, which were so celebrated for their singing qualities that they were exported to all parts of Europe. The old Inn, however, is worth inspection should a stop be made at the little town, and there are many excursions of a charming character to be made in the district round about.
[Sidenote: LANDECK]
Landeck is a prettily situated and important little town in a wide bend of the Inn Thal, having a fine prospect of environing mountain summits occupying both sides of the river and dominated by Castle Landeck, whose grim, square, and battlemented tower forms a striking feature of the landscape. Another prominent building, which at once strikes one on approaching the place either by road or rail, is the fine fifteenth-century parish church standing on the slope of the hill, which is crowned by the castle.
The church was founded by two natives of the place, only the Christian names of whom appear to have survived, who, having lost their two children in the forest near by, vowed that if the latter were found they would show their grat.i.tude by erecting a church to the Holy Virgin. Hardly had the vow been uttered, the legend states, when the distracted parents saw a bear and a wolf advancing towards them, each bearing a child unharmed in its mouth!
The spire of the church, which has a curious double bulb surmounting it, is of considerably later date than the building itself, which, although thoroughly restored some forty years ago, was done very carefully and sympathetically, and preserves many of its most interesting architectural features, including some very early sculpture. In the churchyard, from which such a delightful prospect of the valley of the Inn is obtained, there are two monuments, which should not be missed by any one interested in antiquities and history.
One is to Oswald von Schrofenstein, dating from early in the fifteenth century; the other takes the form of a little Gothic chapel, dating from 1870, which was erected to the memory of the Landeckers who fell whilst a.s.sisting to defend the Italian frontier of Tyrol during the Austro-Italian campaign of 1866.
[Sidenote: A TYROLESE VICTORY]
Landeck bore a brave part in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1703, when Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, joined forces with the French and Italians against Austria, and invaded Tyrol. The Tyrolese, always ready to speedily a.s.semble in defence of their beloved country, soon made the main road over the Brenner impossible of pa.s.sage by the enemy, and Maximilian thought to elude the sharpshooters who swarmed upon the hillsides commanding that way, by sending his forces round by the Finstermunz and Ober-Innthal. They reached the neighbourhood of Landeck without much opposition; but the Tyrolese had gathered to dispute their further advance on the first favourable opportunity.
The Judge of the district, one Martin Sterzinger, had speedily summoned all the available Landsturm forces of the neighbourhood, and worked out a plan of campaign. The latter were to permit the enemy to advance until they were well into the gorge, and then attack them so fiercely and from so commanding a position as to have some hope--in spite of their greater numbers--of severely and finally defeating them. They were in consequence allowed to advance into the narrow gorge, the road through which was spanned by the Pontlatzerbrucke. But before they entered the defile the bridge had been destroyed by the Tyrolese. The Bavarians, who were compelled to traverse a steep and narrow mountain path, when they came in sight of the destroyed bridge at once realized that they were entrapped. The precipitous sides of the hills above them were practically unscalable, and there was no way now the bridge was destroyed by which they could cross the roaring, rus.h.i.+ng Inn to safety on the other side. In the panic which ensued numbers fell or were pushed from the road into the river, to be swept swiftly away.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LANDECK AND ITS ANCIENT FORTRESS]
Then suddenly the heights above literally swarmed with Tyrolese, who had remained hidden until the right moment to attack, who poured into the huddled and panic-stricken ma.s.s of the enemy a hail of bullets, supplemented by stones and pieces of rock hurled down by those who were not possessed of guns. Only a mere handful of the force was able to turn back and escape along the path by which they had come, and these were speedily overtaken by the active mountaineers and made prisoners. Not one, we are told, made good his escape to bear news of the disaster to headquarters, and thus the French and Bavarian commanders were for some considerable time in doubt as to what had occurred. In the end they learned how their immensely superior force had been literally cut to pieces and wiped out, and perhaps also to hold the ”rough jackets” of Landeck and the Inn Thal in greater respect than they had done before. The victory of July 1st, as it is known amongst the many other successes of the peasants' campaign against the invaders of their land, is celebrated every year by a procession and _fete_.
Besides being a most interesting little town, Landeck is yearly growing more popular with holiday makers and rest seekers as a fine centre from which to make some of the most delightful excursions and short tours in the whole of the Inn Thal. The chief of these are either in the immediate neighbourhood into the Lotzer Thal, and Medriol Thal, or along and by way of the splendid Finstermunz high road to Sulden, Trafoi, and other smaller places. There is also, of course, the famous Stilfserjoch, the highest carriage-road in Europe, and the pretty villages and valleys of the Kaunser Thal to invite a long stay amid surroundings which are scarcely excelled in any other district of North Tyrol.