The Perjurer

On the Kummersee, which is also called Hindersee, in the Tyrol, the

parish of Schönna possesses two beautiful mountains which they had

only hired in former times from the villagers of Passeir. But at last

the inhabitants of Schönna affirmed that they were their own property,

and therefore commenced a law-suit which was to be decided by oath.

A man of Schönna committed perjury, which he thought to do safely in

the following manner. He stuck in his hat a ladle called in the Tyrol

schöpfer, which is also the German word for Creator, and put in his

shoes some earth out of his own field. So he appeared on the Alp before

the judges and swore: “As truly as I have the Schöpfer above me and my

own earth beneath me, the two Alps belong to Schönna.” In consequence

of that oath they were awarded to the villagers of Schönna by the

judges.

But at the same moment the devil flew down the precipices, seized the

perjurer by his neck, and dragged him straight off to hell, leaving

behind him as he rushed through the air a dreadful smell of sulphur

and a train of fire. With his prey he beat an enormous hole through

the Weisse Wand, a huge mountain close to the Kummersee, which hole is

still to be seen up to the present day as a warning. From thence he

flew over the Christl Alp down to the village of St. Martin, where he

rested himself upon a stone, and then dragged the body through the mud

of the village streets, and as he passed, the devil is said to have

grunted, “For there is nothing so weighty as a perjurer’s body.”