The Schachtgeist
About an hour’s walk from Reit, on the left-hand side of the entrance
to the valley of the Alpbach, is situated a farm which bears the name
of Larcha, and close to this farm is a deep mine in the side of the
mountain, which at the time of this legend was being worked, and it
was called the Silber Stollen (silver mine) of the Illn. Nine miners
were employed in working the mine, and in it resided a Schachtgeist
(mine ghost), who showed to the poor honest miners the richest lodes of
silver. Their luck was extraordinary, and huge bars of the precious ore
were carried every day out of the mine; and as the men worked on their
own account, they soon became enormously rich, and for this reason they
became also very dissolute and profligate. They were no longer content
with their simple miners’ attire, but bought fine clothes; they would
no longer wear their grey blouses, but they would have velvet and rich
cloth, and their wives went about dressed up in the most gorgeous
colours.
The proverbially simple Alpböcker Tracht (costume of the Alpböck) was
entirely set on one side by them, and a new fashion introduced; besides
that, all sorts of iniquities were practised by them, which it would be
impossible to describe.
This made the benevolent Schachtgeist intensely angry; he became fierce
and savage, and when he appeared at the entrance of the mine his mien
foreboded anything but good. Meanwhile the miners went on more badly
than ever, and got so extravagant in their notions, that they even
cleaned their tables and chairs with bread-crumbs. One day the farmer
of Larcha was standing taking the fresh air at his door; the clouds
foreboded a thunderstorm, and the air was dark and heavy. He had
been working with his men down in the cellar, from which they could
distinctly hear the noise of the miners’ hammers, as they shouted and
sung over their work. All at once the Schachtgeist passed by the door
of the farm, and called out to the farmer in a terrible voice, “Shut
your doors, and misfortune shall escape you; I am away to the Illn to
silence the miners.” The terror-stricken farmer crossed himself, and
on his knees implored Divine protection, while the ghost tore up the
mountain, and then he shut his doors and returned to his work. Not
long after, the farmer and his men heard fearful shrieks, which were
immediately followed by a crash like thunder, which shook the earth,
and made the cellar in which they were working tremble. They rushed
up into the farmer’s room, and began to repeat the rosary, and as the
noise abated they went to bed.
On the following morning the news of a terrible calamity spread far
over mountain and valley. The miners had been buried in the mine by an
earthquake, and their shrieking wives rushed wildly about, rolling in
the dust, and, in their agony and despair, they nearly tore off the
feet of the crucifix which stands just above the farm on a cross-road.
But still more horrible was it when it was discovered that the buried
miners were alive in their prison, and screaming for help in the depths
of the mountain. For ten long days the terrible scene lasted; when at
last, after having worked night and day, the villagers succeeded in
entering the passage in which the miners were entombed; but there a
horrible spectacle presented itself to their eyes. Over the dead bodies
of the nine miners was sitting the Schachtgeist, covered with blood,
and terrible to look at, with the visage of the devil, and glowering at
the victims of his just wrath and judgment. The miners had been starved
to death, and were holding the leather of their shoes in their teeth,
after having gnawed their fingers to the bones.
Every one who wanders over the mountain, and passes by the farm of
Larcha, can hear this dreadfully true legend, up to the present day,
from the farmer, who is the son of the man who was witness of the fact.
And if after the evening Angelus has rung, by any chance a door in the
farm remains open, the housewife directly calls out, “Shut the door,
so that misfortune may escape us.”