The Three Brothers

At Reut, a village between Unken and Lofer, lived a peasant who had

three sons. The two eldest of these were hardy gazelle hunters, and

feared God as little as they did the dangers of the mountains; but the

youngest was better, and different from his brothers; he took interest

in the farm, though now and then he was induced by them to accompany

them to the chase. So it happened once that he went with them to the

high mountains, and on a Sunday they were already standing high on the

peaks when the day dawned, and at that moment they heard the Angelus

ringing from the village of Unken. The younger huntsman implored his

brothers to return, so that they might be in time for church; but as

they would not go, he did not go either.

As they mounted higher and higher they heard the mass bells ringing

at Unken; the youngest brother said, “Let us go back.” But the others

jeered at him and said, “The whistle of a gazelle is more to our taste

than the mass bells and sermon.” When the enthusiastic huntsmen had

arrived on the very top of the mountain, the bells rang again, and the

youngest brother said, “Listen, there is the elevation, we ought to

have been there.”

But his brothers sneered at him, and replied, “A fat gemsbock here is

much more to our mind than the body of the Lord in the village church

below.” These words were scarcely out of their mouths, when clouds as

black as ink enveloped the mountains, and everything became dark as

night; then came on a thunderstorm, as though the world was at its end.

After the storm was over the three brothers were found on the peak of

the mountain, turned into stones in the form of gigantic rocks, and

there they still stand, known to every little Tyrolian child under the

name of “the Three Brothers.”