Myths and legends

How to live life well

A tale of the golden age

Once upon a time, the Alps were paradise. Where the snow line is today, there were golden fields of wheat. Where we find only rocks, there stood a huge forest. There was no winter, no ice to expire life. The sun shone day in day out, and everything thrived in its gentle light. The cows were so large they filled ponds with their milk, and had to be milked three times a day. In fact, there was so much milk people sailed on it in small boats to skim off the cream. Nature was on our side and provided us with a blissful existence.

There were no poisonous plants like those destroying our Alpine pasturelands today. Monkshood and spurge were not only harmless, but good for the cattle; the bees collected honey without stinging; and fruit ripened without blemishes. If there wasn’t time to pick it there and then, it did not rot, but hung on the branch until well into autumn. Everyone dressed well and was attractive to behold. Nobody’s face bore the marks of illness or hardship. Their hands were smooth, and no one broke their backs making a living.

However, all this earthly bliss went to people’s heads. They began to pave their garden paths with wheels of cheese to avoid dirtying their shoes in the rain. They scrubbed their stairs with milk to keep the soles of their feet as soft as their cheeks. On Sundays, the men would play skittles using balls made of butter and bowling pins made of bread. Wealthy as they were, they began worshipping money instead of God, and their hearts grew as hard as the coins they enjoyed counting. Nothing was of value any more. The mirror became the most precious item in the home because it revealed the one thing that remained sacred: people’s own image. The only love they had was for themselves.

Extract from Alpensagen – Der Traum vom Glück (Alpine Myths – the Dream of Happiness) by Alois Schöpf

Gamina

Gamina was charming and beautiful, and while everyone envied her, they envied the man she had chosen as her groom even more. He, however, seemed to think little of the future joys that lay ahead. On the wedding day, he jilted her. He went away, nobody knew where to or why, and she was left alone in all her beauty. Those who had envied her now felt contempt, even pity, which was even harder to bear. The humiliation turned all her love into hatred. She left her home and headed for the Cadini mountains, and, because she could neither forget nor forgive, she could find no peace. Her evil spirit appeared to newlywed men, dazzling them with her undiminished beauty, so that many marriages began with bitter arguments or even broke apart straight away.

One day, a wizard came to the Ampezzo Valley. The people asked him how to be rid the ghost of Gamina. He said to them: ‘Send a young man with a bouquet of roses to see her. But he must not have touched a woman before in his life, or he won’t come back alive.’

Although the wizard’s instructions seemed simple, they were not easy to follow: To satisfy the spiritual authorities, many young men had presented themselves as paragons of virtue, but as soon as their honour became a matter of life and death, they became much more reticent. Eventually, on a remote farm, a virtuous young man was found. His qualifications for the job were the result of a singular lack of opportunity rather than a particularly holy disposition. Offered a lot of money, the prospect of a farmer’s daughter, cows, fields and a good chunk of forest, he agreed, took the bouquet of roses, and headed for the Cadini mountains.

In the mountains, he arrived at a rock face in which there was a cave. By its entrance stood a beautiful woman. ‘Who do you seek?’ she asked. The young man answered, ‘I seek Gamina.’

‘I am she,’ the woman replied.

The boy handed her the roses and said, ‘Then I would like you to have these roses.’

Gamina took the roses, looked at them as if she didn’t know what to do with them, before finally asking, ‘Are the flowers from you or did someone give them to you?’

‘They were given to me, so that you may enjoy them,’ the boy answered.

Gamina remained silent, then she asked, ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen,’ he replied.

‘Have you known a woman?’

‘No.’

‘Have you seen one you would want to know?’

‘My mother is the only woman that I know.’

‘And me!’ added Gamina.

‘But I’m scared of you!’ replied the youth.

At these words, Gamina hid her face behind the roses and began to weep. Her tears rolled down her beautiful cheeks and, although she tried to prevent it, her whole body trembled. She turned away because she did not want the boy to see her pain and, still crying, she disappeared into the mountain and was never seen again.

Extract from Alpensagen – Der Traum vom Glück (Alpine Myths – the Dream of Happiness) by Alois Schöpf

Alois Schöpf’s new book ‘Der Traum vom Glück. Ausgewählte Alpensagen‘ (The Dream of Happiness. Selected Alpine Myths), only available in German.

approx. 400 pages. Large format. Hardback. ISBN 978-3-99039-191-4

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR ALOIS SCHÖPF

A multifaceted playwright, librettist, director and event organiser, Alois Schöpf has primarily made a name for himself as a freelance writer and journalist. He has written many novels and essays, as well as being a popular columnist for newspapers for 35 years. Tyrol is his home, and its traditions, mountains and stories have always appealed to him. In 1984, he published Alpensagen (Alpine Myths) in which he retold the old legends for young adult readers. We interviewed him to find out more about his relationship with mythology.

Where does your passion for myths come from? What made you start collecting them? Alois Schöpf: Myths try to explain unexplainable things while also being instructive, teaching children to keep a safe distance away from lakes and streams, for instance. All you have to tell them is that a water monster lives there – they’re too young to understand concepts such as death and drowning. Many of the explanations contained in myths have been overtaken by modern science. However, life and how to live life well continue to be topics of central importance, and are at the heart of many myths. This is why these stories are still relevant.

When I collect myths, I’m drawn by the question of how to live life well. My role model in this is Giovanni Boccaccio, whose The Decameron was in part written to re-examine the question of how life should be lived after the great plague caused the moral fabric in his hometown of Florence to collapse.

Why are regional myths so important? Schöpf: When it comes to regional myths, we can see that they all follow similar mythological patterns but add specific aspects of a region such as lakes, mountains and forests. It's a mistake to think that certain regions have certain distinctive myths. On the contrary: the distinctive character of a region is explained with narrative patterns that are always similar.

How did you go about your research? What were your sources? Schöpf: The narrative patterns of myths are recorded in large-scale and well-researched lexicons. The writer and poet’s task is to make these recurring themes or mythologems comprehensible to today’s reader, whilst also creating an emotional impact.

In your opinion, how culturally significant are myths?? Schöpf: Myths continue to be important in that they are fragments of old ways of explaining things which can still be relevant to people today, notwithstanding scientific advances. Fairy tales and myths are the material from which have sprung every culture’s major literary works. Think of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, which find their modern expression in James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses.