The Glunkezer Giant

In the Volder valley, out of which rises the Glunkezer, and where now

stands the sheep Alp, called Tulfein, is a very picturesque mountain

meadow, in the middle of which, some centuries ago, a peaceful King

had built his palace, in which he lived with his four daughters, of

whom each was more beautiful than the other. Round about the palace was

a magnificent garden, full of Wonder-Flowers, and large expanses of

meadow-lands, upon which tame Alpine animals browsed in large herds,

and of these the four daughters of the King were very fond. They went

also very often down into the huts of poor herds-people, to whom

they did all sorts of charity, and all around they were honoured and

reverenced as protecting genii.

This quiet happiness was troubled, and at last destroyed, by the

arrival of a wild giant in this Alpine paradise, who built himself

a cavern on the top of the Glunkezer, from whence, during the night,

he roared so dreadfully that the mountains trembled, and huge masses

of rock rolled down into the valleys. After he had caught sight of

the four daughters of the King, he determined to try and gain one of

them for his wife; so he decorated his bearskin mantle with enormous

new buttons, tore up a fine tree for a walking-stick, passed his

long finger-nails a few times through his shaggy beard and hair, and

set off down to the Tulfein to pay his addresses. The King’s heart

trembled with fright as he saw this pretender to the hand of one of his

daughters, and replied that his daughters were perfectly free to choose

their own husbands, therefore, if one of them would accept him, he

should have no opposition to make.

Upon this the giant made himself as small as possible, but that was

not very much, and did not bring him in much either, for one after

the other of the girls refused him. This enraged the giant out of

bounds, and he determined upon the most terrible vengeance, which he

did not tarry in executing as quickly as possible. In the following

night, rocks as large as a house rolled down upon the Tulfein, hurled

against the palace, which they carried along with its inhabitants into

the Wild-See, into whose depth it disappeared, and which was almost

completely filled up with the tumbling rocks. The little of its dark

waters which is still left, now bears the name of the “Schwarzenbrunn”

(black spring), and round about it is a “death valley,” for nothing

will grow there.

After the vengeance of the giant was satiated, repentance came over

him, and he mourned for the murdered innocent father and daughters,

he sat for whole nights on the borders of the Wild-See, into which he

gazed, and howled and cried so incessantly, that even the stones had

pity on him, for they became quite soft, and his cavern trembled and

fell to ruin. At last he bewitched himself and became a mountain dwarf,

while the King’s daughters were transformed into fairies or mermaids,

and appear often on moonlight nights, floating over the water. There

then sits the small grey dwarf, stretching longingly his hands towards

their light forms, which however dissolve in mist; the dwarf then

plunges again into the See, with a noise so great that it seems as

though a large rock had fallen into it, and cools in a cold bath the

agony of his remorse.