Swiss Mountain Legends: Tell, a Dragon and a Bargain on the Gotthard
Mountains generate stories the way rivers generate silt. A rock that looks like a face, a storm that comes down without warning, a pass that has killed travellers — each one demands an explanation, and the explanation turns into a tale. This second Swiss edition of Mythical Mondays stays up in the Alps, moving from the shores of Lake Lucerne to a valley in Valais.
Bürglen and the Rütli: William Tell
Tell is the most famous Swiss story and the one with the least certainty behind it. In the traditional account, set in 1307, the Austrian bailiff Gessler orders him to shoot an apple from his son's head with a crossbow. Tell hits the apple, then admits that the second bolt was intended for Gessler if the first had gone wrong. He is arrested, escapes during a storm on Lake Lucerne, and later kills the bailiff.
The earliest written version is a fifteenth-century song, and its historicity is disputed; the apple shot appears in folktales all over Europe. The Rütlischwur is a different matter. The oath of 1291 on the Rütli meadow is the founding document of the Swiss Confederation, and nobody argues about it. Tell may be invented, but the confederation he is attached to is real, and the two have been bound together since the eighteenth century, when Schiller's play and Rossini's opera made him famous across the continent.
If you go: the Tell museum and the Tell chapel at Bürglen in Uri, and the Rütli meadow above Lake Lucerne, the site of the 1291 oath.
Mount Pilatus: the dragon stone
The dragon of Pilatus, above Lucerne, comes with unusually precise paperwork. In 1421 a farmer called Stempflin was said to have been attacked by a dragon and to have fainted; when he came round he found a stone that he believed the animal had dropped. It was a piece of red rock with a dragon-like shape inside, and it was kept and eventually shown to scholars.
Other reports followed: a dragon seen flying over the mountain in 1509, a dragon stone found in a stream, and a belief that Pilate's ghost haunted a lake on the mountain, which is where the name comes from. For centuries the mountain was officially out of bounds, partly because of that ghost. These days the dragon is the mountain's mascot and the Drachenweg leads walkers past the places where the stories are set.
If you go: the cable car, the dragon path and the views — the reason most people come up in the first place.
Andermatt: a bargain at the Devil's Bridge
The Teufelsbrücke near Andermatt is one of the oldest bridges on the Gotthard route, and its legend is the standard European bargain. The devil offers to build a bridge in a single night, on condition that he takes the first soul to cross it. The villagers drive a goat over first. The devil, cheated and furious, tries to destroy the bridge with a boulder.
There are several versions of the tale, and the bridge itself has been rebuilt repeatedly after floods and avalanches. The stone bridge standing now dates from the eighteenth century; the older wooden one is gone. The story is less about the devil than about the crossing: the Gotthard was a place where people genuinely died, and a bargain with a supernatural builder is one way of saying that passage was never free.
If you go: the old Gotthard road and the ravine below the bridge.
Lötschental: the Tschäggättä
In the Lötschental in Valais, between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, young men put on heavy carved wooden masks, animal skins and bells and move through the villages as the Tschäggättä. The masks are grotesque, with exaggerated teeth and noses. The figures are meant to frighten, and they are permitted to touch spectators and chase them.
The custom is usually read as a winter expulsion rite, driving out the dark and the cold ahead of spring. The Church banned it at various times and it survived regardless. Local craftsmen still carve the masks, and one can cost more than a thousand francs — a fair measure of how seriously the valley takes its monsters.
If you go: the masked processions in winter, between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday.
The small people of the mines
Swiss mines and high pastures have their own little people. The Erdmannli, the "little earth men", live underground, help miners find ore and punish greed. In some tellings they are the original owners of the mountains, pushed aside by humans but still there.
Then there are the Venediger, Venetian strangers who turn up in Alpine legend as magicians or expert miners in search of gold and precious stones. The name probably reflects real medieval trade and mining contacts; in the stories they carry dangerous knowledge, able to find treasure and to curse anyone who tries to follow them.
If you go: the old mining valleys of Valais and Graubünden, and the local museums that keep their tools and maps.
Questions about Swiss legends
Did William Tell exist?
There is no reliable evidence that he did. The apple shot is a motif found across Europe and the first written version is from the fifteenth century. The Rütlischwur and the Confederation are historical; Tell is best treated as a founding legend.
What is the dragon of Mount Pilatus?
A local legend about a dragon on the mountain, supported by a handful of sightings reported in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and by a "dragon stone" kept in Lucerne. The mountain was also said to be haunted by Pilate's ghost, which gave it its name.
What happens during the Tschäggättä?
In the Lötschental in Valais, young men in carved wooden masks, animal skins and bells walk the villages between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, chasing onlookers and driving out the winter.
Why are there so many devil's bridges in the Alps?
Because throwing a bridge across a gorge was dangerous and costly, and a story about a supernatural builder who wants a soul in payment expresses that cost. The trick with the goat, where an animal crosses first, is a common European variation.
More from the Mythical Mondays series
- Myths and legends from Switzerland: the first edition
- German folklore: myths, legends and folktales
- Italian folklore and legends: from Romulus to the Befana
- All Mythical Mondays posts
If this edition of Mythical Mondays entertained you, pass it on to a friend who likes stories, and tell me which country you would like next.