The Tailor of the Zirockalm

For centuries past it has been the custom that on the Brenner Alp a

tailor should live, for the purpose of mending the clothes of the

teamsters who pass along that deserted road, on their way to or from

Italy. Not long since, one of these men who occupied the hut left it

to go and set up business in the inn, called ‘Schöllerwirthshaus,’

about three miles distant from the Brenner post-house. When not

otherwise employed, he occupied his time in rolling heavy stones down

into the valley below, knocking to pieces the carts of the teamsters,

and killing the horses or men, so that the poor fellows were generally

forced to stop at the inn, and when on their arrival, they complained

or lamented about their misfortune, the tailor sympathized with them,

while taking the occasion to cheat them the more in selling them bad

cloth, instead of good, and at much higher prices than were to be

had at Brixen or Stertzing, saying that the higher they went up the

mountain, the shorter was the wood, as they could see on the trees, and

so it was the same with his tailor’s yard.

This tailor died suddenly, and, as penance for his crimes, he was

obliged to walk in ghostly form between the Brenner post-house and

the Schöllerwirthshaus, and even as far down as Gossensass, where he

practised many a cruel trick, and still made stones roll down upon the

road. At last the harm he did was so great that the teamsters found

themselves forced to apply to some Capuchins of Stertzing to banish the

ghost. The Capuchins ascended the mountain, and banished him for the

winter to the Zirock Alp, while for the summer they consigned him to

the mountain called Hühnerspielspitze, which is plainly visible from

Stertzing, and from whose peak he often cries so loudly that he is to

be heard in the whole valley down below, “Ah! is then the last day not

yet near? Ah! if only the last day would soon arrive.”

The ghost is forced to roll a great number of stones down into the

valley, and every one of those stones he is obliged to carry up again

on his shoulders. One day an old herdsman placed upon one of these

stones a stick, upon which he had cut a cross, and when the ghost found

it he threw it on one side and rolled the stone on. When the herdsman

found his stick again, several days afterwards, there were five

finger-marks burned into it.