The Petrified Lovers of Kramsach

Near Kramsach, in the Under-Inn valley, on the spot where the

Brandenberg Achenthal commences, lie on the Middle Mountain some small

lakes, and above the farms called Mösern and Freundsheim, about three

miles above Kramsach, stands another beautiful lake, close beneath the

Mooswand mountain, and above the lake is still to be seen the ruin of

an old stronghold, called the Gruckenbühl. The daughter of the last

Baron who resided there was passionately fond of a poor forester, and

when the proud and cruel Baron came to hear of the secret rendezvous

between his daughter and the huntsman, he ordered him, one pitch-dark

night, to be chased out of the castle by the hounds, and, in the hurry

of the flight, the poor fellow fell over a rock into the See, and was

drowned.

After this act of cruelty and injustice, the poor girl wandered about

silent and abstracted, and would neither enter into any amusement,

nor take part in any ordinary pursuit of life. One day she went with

her maid down to the lake, and, as she looked into its gloomy depths,

she saw the dead body of her lover, and, in the frenzy of grief, she

threw herself down into the water. The maid ran home recounting this

misfortune, and when the wicked Baron, with all his retinue, arrived on

the borders of the lake, neither the body of his poor daughter nor that

of the forester were to be found. The two lovers had been changed into

rocks, both of which rise out of the lake, like little islands; the one

overgrown with ferns and water weeds, and the other bare as a polished

piece of granite.