The Three Fairies of the Ungarkopf

Between the village of Imst and the railway station of Nassereit lies

the Gurgl Thal (Gurgl valley), through which runs the little stream of

the Pilgerbach. On the way from Imst to Nassereit stands the little

hamlet of Strad, and on making the ascent from this hamlet up the

Ungar mountain, or Ungarkopf, one arrives after an hour’s walk at a

vaulted grotto, which is the entrance to a vast cellular cavern noted

in former times as the abode of three fairies, called by the villagers

‘die Heiligen’ (the Holy Ones). These fairies appeared from time to

time at the entrance to their grotto, bleaching linen and hanging out

snow-white clothes in the sun; they are said to have even come down as

low as Strad, and helped the village girls to spin, but people were

generally afraid of them, and they who saw the clothes hanging out in

the wind ran off in terror. In this grotto, which is generally called

the Eggerskeller, there is a small hole just large enough for a child

to creep through.

One day the cowherd of Strad went up the mountain to cut birch for

brooms, and as the lovely green before the grotto was just convenient

for his work, he sat down there, and stripping the leaves from the

branches, set about making his brooms. On the following day when he

returned to the same spot on the same business, he found to his great

astonishment that every little leaf had been swept away, and not a

vestige of one of them left. He sat down on a rock and began his

work, when all at once he heard from the interior of the mountain the

voices of three girls, which sounded so charmingly to his ears that he

was quite entranced. He listened and held his breath until the song

finished, and then he descended the mountain to the village in a state

of enchantment.

The cow-herd was soon afterwards on his favourite place, while his

herd, guarded by his faithful dogs, browsed around him; and again he

found the leaves he had left on the preceding day swept away; and as

he looked up he saw three white robes floating in the wind, but as he

could not see the cord upon which they ought to have been suspended,

he was seized with an unutterable terror, and hurried away from the

spot. “Had he only taken one of these dresses,” still now say the

superstitious people of Strad, “one of the Heiligen would have been

bound to his service for ever.”

Although the dresses had frightened the youth so much, an irresistible

longing compelled him a few days afterwards to climb once more the

Ungarkopf, where all at once one of the fairies appeared to him with

love and joy beaming on her countenance, but she did not approach him,

and it seemed rather as though she wished him to follow her, for she

looked smilingly behind, entered into the mountain and disappeared from

his gaze. He dared not follow her. Henceforth he listened only to their

enchanting songs, which resounded from the interior of the mountain,

and consumed himself in silent longing.

About fifteen years ago there lived in the village of Strad a peasant

of the name of Anton Tangl, who is now dead. One day this peasant went

up the mountain in the neighbourhood of the grotto, to dig up young

fir-trees, which he intended to place round his Alpine hut. While

digging up these trees, one of them was more firmly fixed in the ground

than the others, and he was obliged to go very deep to get the tree

up. When he lifted it out of the ground he discovered a deep hole, and

looking down he saw far below a green meadow, through which trickled

a milk-white rippling stream. At this the man was greatly astonished,

but still more so when upon the green meadow far beneath him he saw on

the grass, like little tiny dolls, the three fairies. They were sitting

close to one another, interlaced together by their arms, and singing

a sweet song whose air he could distinctly hear, without being able

to catch the words. Tangl listened until nightfall, when he could no

longer see into the interior of the mountain. Then he descended to the

village, and recounted what an extraordinary thing had befallen him.

But of course no one would believe, and therefore on the following

day several of his friends went with him up the Ungarkopf. Tangl went

on bravely before the others, and searched for the spot, but in vain;

and he was now compelled to suffer the ridicule of his companions, who

called him a fool, a liar, and a dreamer.

“If I had only held my tongue,” Tangl used to say when he recounted

this story, “and had entered into the mountains instead of telling

others what I had seen, I should have been able to bring many precious

things out of them, and should have been rich and happy all my life;

but man after all is but a stupid animal.”