The White Snake

Close to Mitterwald, on the little river Eisach, rises on the

right-hand side of the village the enormous mountain called the

Mitterwalder Alp, upon which, on account of the great number of

venomous snakes which were there, no cattle could be pastured. The

majority of these were huge white reptiles, of which the people were

particularly fearful. About fifty years ago there arrived in the

country one of those students, or as they called them, “Fahrende

Schüler” (wandering collegians), to whom people used to attribute

supernatural power, and the peasants asked him to rid them of the

plague of snakes.

The student promptly assented to their request, and went up the

mountain, where he made a circle upon the Alp-meadow, and ordered the

peasants to plant a tree in the middle of the ring; then he climbed

the tree, and by his incantations he charmed all the snakes into the

large fire which he had lighted around it. But all at once a huge snake

hissed loudly and fiercely, and on hearing this the student cried out,

“I am lost;” and at the same moment a white snake darted with the

swiftness of an arrow through his body, and he fell dead from the tree,

and was consumed in the fire.

Those who recounted this tale added, “It was a hazel-worm, for only

those snakes have the power to dart through the air like an arrow and

pierce through people’s bodies.” On the spot where this accident took

place, and where the student made the fiery circle, there has never

since an atom of grass grown again.

It is asserted the blindworms had once the same power, until it was

taken away from them by the Blessed Virgin, who has caused them ever

afterwards to remain sightless.