Rachel Busk - The Valleys of Tirol - Their traditions and customs and how to visit them

The reason given why this hill is called Our Lady’s Mound is, that on it once stood a fortress called Schönberg. Schönberg having been burnt down, its owner, the knight of Hörnlingen, set about rebuilding it; but whatever work his workmen did in the day-time, was destroyed by invisible hands during the night. A pious old workman, too, used to hear a mysterious voice saying that instead of a fortress they should build a sanctuary in honour of the mother of God. The knight yielded to the commands of the voice, and the church was built out of the ruins of his castle. In this church, too, is preserved a singular antique cross, studded with coloured glass gems, which the people venerate because it was brought down to them by the mountain stream. It is obviously of very ancient workmanship, and an inscription records that it was repaired in 1347.

Winding round the mountain path which from Rankweil runs behind Feldkirch to Satteins, the convent of Valduna is reached; and the origin of this sanctuary is ascribed to a legend, of which counterparts crop up in various places, of a hermit who passed half a life within a hollow tree, 25 25 Vonbun, pp. 113–4. and acquired the lasting veneration of the neighbouring people.

Another mountain sanctuary which received its veneration from the memory of a tree-hermit, is S. Gerold, situated on a little elevation below the Hoch Gerach, about seven miles on the east side of Feldkirch. It dates from the tenth century. Count Otho, Lord of Sax in the Rhinethal, was out hunting, when the bear to which he was giving chase sought refuge at the foot of an old oak tree, whither his dogs durst not follow it. Living as a hermit within this oak tree Count Otho found his long lost father, S. Gerold, who years before had forsaken his throne and found there a life of contemplation in the wild. 26 26 Historical particulars in Vonbun, pp. 110–1. The tomb of the saint and his two sons is to be seen in the church, and some curious frescoes with the story of his adventures.

Another way to be recommended for entering Vorarlberg is by crossing Lake Constance from Rorschach to Lindau, a very pleasant trajet of about two hours in the tolerably well-appointed, but not very swift lake-steamers. Lindau itself is a charming old place, formed out of three islands on the edge of the lake; but as it is outside the border of Tirol, I will only note in favour of the honesty of its inhabitants, that I saw a tree laden with remarkably fine ripe pears overhanging a wall in the principal street, and no street-boy raised a hand to them.

The first town in Tirol by this route is Bregenz, which reckons as the capital of Vorarlberg. It may be reached by boat in less than half an hour. It is well situated at the foot of the Gebhartsberg, which affords a most delightful, and in Tirol widely celebrated, view over Lake Constance and the Appenzel mountains and the rapid Rhine between; and here, at either the Post Hotel or the Black Eagle, there is no lack of carriages for reaching Feldkirch. Bregenz deserves to be remembered as the birth-place of one of the best modern painters of the Munich-Roman school, Flatz, who I believe, spends much of his time there.

Among the objects of interest in Bregenz are the Capuchin Convent, situated on a wooded peak of the Gebhardsberg, founded in 1636; on another peak, S. Gebhard auf dem Pfannenberge, called after a bishop of Constance, who preached the Christian faith in the neighbourhood, and was martyred. Bregenz has an ancient history and high lineage. Its lords, who were powerful throughout the Middle Ages, were of sufficiently high estate at the time of Charlemagne that he should take Hildegard, the daughter of one of them, to be his wife, and there is a highly poetical popular tale about her. Taland (a favourite name in Vorarlberg) was a suitor who had, with jealous eye, seen her given to the powerful Emperor, and in the bitterness of his rejected affection, so calumniated her to Charlemagne, that he repudiated her and married Desiderata, the Lombard princess. 27 27 Vonbun, pp. 86–7. Hildegard accepted her trial with angelic resignation, and devoted her life to tending pilgrims at Rome. Meantime Taland, stricken with blindness, came to Rome in penitential pilgrimage, where he fell under the charitable care of Hildegard. Hildegard’s saintly handling restored his sight – not only that of his bodily eyes, but also his moral perception of truth and falsehood. In reparation for the evil he had done, he now led her back to Charlemagne, confessed all, and she was once more restored to favour and honour. Bregenz has also another analogous and equally beautiful legend. One of its later counts, Ulrich V., was supposed by his people to have died in war in Hungary, about the year 916. Wendelgard, his wife, devoted her widowhood to the cloistral life, but took the veil under the condition that she should every year hold a popular festival and distribution of alms in memory of her husband. On the fourth anniversary, as she was distributing her bounty, a pilgrim came forward who allowed himself the liberty of kissing the hand which bestowed the dole. Wendelgard’s indignation was changed into delight when she recognized that the audaciously gallant pilgrim was no other than her own lord, who, having succeeded in delivering himself from captivity, had elected to make himself thus known to her. Salomo, Bishop of Constance, dispensed her from her vow, and Ulrich passed the remainder of his life at Bregenz by her side. Another celebrated worthy of Bregenz, whose name must not be passed over, is ‘Ehreguota’ or ‘Ehre Guta,’ a name still dear to every peasant of Vorarlberg, and which has perpetuated itself in the appellation of Hergotha, a favourite Christian name there to the present day. She was a poor beggar-woman really named Guta, whose sagacity and courage delivered her country people from an attack of the Appenzell folk, to which they had nearly succumbed in the year 1408; it was the ‘honour’ paid her by her patriotic friends that added the byname of ‘Ehre,’ and made them erect a monument to her. One of the variants of the story makes her, instead of a beggar-woman, the beautiful young bride of Count Wilhelm of Montfort-Bregenz; some have further sought to identify her with the goddess Epona.

Pursuing the journey southwards towards Feldkirch, every step is full of natural beauty and legendary interest. At first leaving Bregenz you have to part company with Lake Constance, and leave in the right hand distance the ruins of Castle Fussach. On the left is Riedenberg, which, if not great architecturally, is interesting as a highly useful institution, under the fostering care of the present Empress of Austria, for the education of girls belonging to families of a superior class with restricted means. From Fussach the road runs parallel to the Rhine; there is a shorter road by Dornbirn, but less interesting, which joins it again at Götzis, near Hohenembs. The two roads separate before Fussach at Wolfurth, where there is an interesting chapel, the bourne of a pilgrimage worth making if only for the view over the lake. The country between S. John Höchst and Lustenau is much frequented in autumn for the sake of the shooting afforded by the wild birds which haunt its secluded recesses on the banks of the Rhine at that season. At Lustenau there is a ferry over the Rhine.

The favourite saints of this part of the country are Merboth, Diedo, and Ilga – two brothers and a sister of a noble family, hermit-apostles and martyrs of the eleventh century. Ilga established her hermit-cell in the Schwarzenberg, just over Dornbirn, where not only all dainty food, but even water, was wanting. The people of Dornbirn also wanted water; and though she had not asked the boon for herself, she asked it for her people, and obtained from the hard rock, a miraculous spring of sparkling water which even the winter cold could not freeze. Ilga used to fetch this water for her own use, and carry it up the mountain paths in her apron . One day she spilt some of it on the rock near her cell on her arrival, and see! as it touched the rock, the rock responded to the appeal, and from out there flowed a corresponding stream, which has never ceased to flow to this day.