Legends from Uri

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Between 1903 and 1925 Pastor Josef Müller collected stories about strange occurrences and stories of mountain people in the Uri Cantonal Hospital . The approximately 1,600 legends were published as legends from Uri in three volumes and one illustrated book. Some of the stories can be found all over the Alps . The collection is the most extensive collection of legends from the Alpine region.

The legends used to be told on long evenings in winter. They were used for entertainment and instruction.

Content of the sagas

The sagas are mainly folk tales. They are linguistically and stylistically rather sparse and one-episodic. Only classic sagas such as the saga of the Devil's Bridge , the Suren saga or the Urnerboden saga are richly decorated sagas. The stories give an insight into the soul of the mountain population and are just as narrow and profound as the world in which the narrators live.

Examples

Buried alive

“In Altdorf they told of a woman who lived in the former Crivellian house that the night after her funeral she rang the bell at home with a lantern and, when she was recognized with horror, declared that the gravedigger had come opened the coffin to take a precious ring from her fingers. But since the ring was not easy to remove, he cut her finger, which also woke her. When she straightened up, the grave digger had jumped away and left his lantern. The woman is said to have never laughed again in her life. "(Narrated: Colonel Epp-Schmid)

In fact, there are two entries in the church book of Altdorf UR about the death of the same woman. The entries are within 14 days.

The ghostly shepherd

“Every year on a certain day on the Bristenstock, namely in the Blackialp, the alpine farmers see a young boy who, with great difficulty, carries a cow on his back through a ravine. Before he reaches his goal, the animal falls down, and the boy leaves the ravine, wailing and screaming miserably. That is a former cows from the alp who, through criminal negligence, had a cow 'threatened'. "(Narrated: Josef Zgraggen)

The saga takes up the theme of the Sisyphus punishment and warns against being “criminally negligent”.

Literature and web links

  • Theodor Vernaleken : Alpine legends. Folk traditions from Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Carinthia, Styria, Salzburg, Upper and Lower Austria. Seidel, Vienna 1858, ( digitized version ).
  • Josef Müller : Legends from Uri. Collected from the vernacular.
    • Volumes 1–2: (= publications of the Swiss Society for Folklore. Vol. 18, 20, ISSN  0080-732X ). Edited and provided with subject index and notes by Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli . Swiss Society for Folklore and Others, Basel 1926–1929;
    • Volume 3: (= Writings of the Swiss Society for Folklore. Vol. 28). Edited and provided with indexes for all three volumes by Robert Wildhaber . Swiss Society for Folklore and Others, Basel 1945.
  • Urner sagas ( Memento from July 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).