Wind's Brides

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Geographic Coordinates: 47° 2' 34.75" N, 9° 58' 44.93" E 47° 15' 26.00" N, 10° 5' 32.00" E

a) Once, a man from the Montafon was cutting hay in the vicinity of the Zamang alpine pasture. There is a gathering spot for witches at Zamang which is infamous in the entire valley. It is circular and covered with black moss, and witches often danced on it in merriment. It was witches from the Alsace in particular who ventured here in order to dance at this protected spot. When the man from Montadon was cutting hay near precisely this location, a “wind’s bride” arrived and scattered the dried-up hay throughout the area. Enraged, the haycutter threw his stiletto into the wind’s bride, which soon disappeared.

The next fall, the man from Montafon went to Alsace in order to harvest cabbage. There, he once visited a house where he saw his stiletto sticking into the corner of a table. When he asked how this stiletto had come to Alsace and to this table corner in particular, the owner of the house replied that this stiletto had been thrown into his daughter’s knee when she had been in the Montavon valley. (Oral tale from Schruns.)

b) One afternoon, a family was busy gathering hay on the alpine pasture of Schröcken. The hay had dried up, and thus was ready to be stored in the barn. Suddenly, a thunderstorm approached, which is not uncommon on hot days during the height of summer. Out of nowhere, a strong wind arose, which formed a vortex in the immediate vicinity of these people. It rushed into a pile of dried-up hay, and thrust it high into the air before the eyes of the hay-cutters. While this was not exactly an uncommon occurrence, the workers observed this with much more heightened interest, as they believed they were able to see a dense, but unrecognizable strange body within the cloud of hay that had been sucked into the air by the whirlwind. This was an apparition which they tried to understand in vain.

Then one of the young men half-seriously, half-jokingly pulled out his knife, which was carried in a pocket on the left side of his trousers according to local garb and custom. Then he hurled it high up into the air, towards the hay cloud which seemed so mysterious to everyone. But everyone was astonished when the knife did not drop back to the ground, and could not be found despite a lot of searching between the cut grass stalks. The whirlwind quickly moved away, and nothing else strange occurred.

The next spring, a group of young men eager to work went to Romandy or the nearby regions of France as they usually did in order to earn some money by working as quarrymen, masons, and day laborers. One day, when they were already close to their destination, they entered a pub in order to strengthen themselves for the rest of the journey. Here the man who had thrown the knife in the previous year, and who was a part of the traveling party, saw a knife lying openly on the window sill. Due to the strange shape, which was unusual for stilettos of this type, he immediately recognized it as his own — the knife which he had thrown into the rising hay vortex the previous summer.

Surprised to find it here, he took it into his hand in order to ascertain whether he had not been mistaken. While he was still busy examining it, the publican entered the common room. Seeing the knife in the hand of the young man, he stepped towards him and asked if he knew that knife. The young man from Tannberg was overcome by a disturbing, dark premonition and denied this. He replied that he had noticed it due to its unusual shape, and wanted to see if he could recognize the engraved symbol of the knife smith who had made it.

Then the publican responded that he needed to “have a few serious words” with the owner of this tool if he should have the opportunity to make the latter’s acquaintance, and continued: “My daughter had this knife with her the previous summer when she came home. She had traveled for the ‘free arts’, and then this knife was thrown into her ‘hollow body’. She was hurt so badly by this that she was only able to reach her father’s house and briefly relate her misfortune before her young life ended. I put the knife on this window sill so that one of the many transients passing through here might recognize it, and thus reveal themselves as the owner as well as the murderer of my daughter.”

It goes without saying that the mason from the alpine pasture of Schröcken was now even less inclined to claim this knife as his property. But now he had learned the truth about the mystery of the haypile that had been lifted up by the wind’s bride, and where his pocket knife had vanished.

Note: Grimm says (I, 599): “The wind’s bride is a whirlwind where our mythology involves the highest gods.” It is also important to note that the user of the stiletto (or the knife-carver) also reappears in the legends of the processions of the Night Folk or Wuotan’s Army. (See above I, 17a.)

Source: Vonbun - Die Sagen Vorarlbergs, p. 153ff