Swiss tales: fairy tales and legends from whole Switzerland

By Francesca Orelli

Mysterious events, the fear of the forces of Nature and the timeless charm of the Alps are the background to these twenty-seven folk tales and legends, from all over Switzerland, which have been selected and translated by Francesca Orelli.

 

If one night you happen to meet a black horse near Gruyères, think twice before accepting its help, as you may find yourself dealing with Schawudawu's jokes and taking an unscheduled swim in the freezing waters of the nearby river.

 

Crossing the Devil's Bridge with the car, instead, you might feel a thrill to think that, in an unspecified time, the Evil One was its creator and, had it not been for the cunning of a peasant, he would have taken the soul of one of the inhabitants of Uri.

 

And if the mountain is your passion, be sure to respect its nature and its inhabitants if you decide to go on a hike on the Great Aletsch Glacier, because otherwise you could unleash the fury of the Rollibock, its monstrous protector.

 

These, and many others, are the stories that you can find in this collection.

 

After reading it, you will no longer look at Switzerland with the same eyes, and you will continue to think that, behind its quiet facade, there are fantastic creatures and tales of terror that have nothing to envy to the novels of Stephen King.

FRANCESCA ORELLI

 

She was born on February 9, 1988 and, since 1991, she has lived in the Muggio Valley (Canton of Ticino) with her family. "Swiss tales: fairy tales and legends from whole Switzerland" is her fourth book, but the first to be published in self publishing.

Part of the proceeds from this book will be donated to charities and development projects active in Switzerland and in the Canton of Ticino.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Self published
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223969365

Book preview

Translated and edited by Francesca Orelli

Title: swiss tales: fairy tales and legends from whole Switzerland

Original Italian title: fiabe e leggende svizzere

Translated into English by: Francesca Orelli

Edited by: Francesca Orelli

Cover graphic: Francesca Orelli with Krita

Cover picture: Devil's Bridge The Devil and the billy goat by Heinrich Danioth (photo taken and edited by Francesca Orelli)

First edition: January 2022

Copywright @ 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, photocopied, photographed, broadcasted through radio, social media and other medias without the written authorization of the authoress, except for brief quotations in reviews and interviews. Any reference to real characters, living or deceased, historical places and events, is to be understood as purely coincidental or for narrative purposes.

Swiss tales: fairy tales and legends from whole Switzerland

Translated and edited by Francesca Orelli

Preface

Eighteen years ago, upon returning from my last vacation in Brittany, I began a very ambitious project: translating the Breton fairy tales and legends, which were still little known at the time, into Italian and making them known to readers.

Later, for various reasons, that project was not realized, but it is precisely by remembering it that, shortly before Christmas 2021, I decided to embark on a similar adventure: translating the Swiss fairy tales and legends into Italian, then proposing them also in English and French.

Exploring the big world of the web and the books in my possession, I noticed that these fairy tales and legends, although part of our cultural and folkloristic heritage, except for the legend of The Devil's Bridge (which, and I can confidently state this, is now a national fairy tale, since it is told in all swiss cantons), were present only in German, but not in Italian, in English and French.

I therefore decided to fill, in some way, this void, this absence, choosing among the fairy tales and legends we have here in Switzerland the ones that I considered the most beautiful, and then translating them into Italian, French and English.

The result was this collection of twenty-seven stories, coming from all swiss cantons, where the forces of Nature are the masters and where the alp can be a mother, but also transform into a stepmother.

Swiss fairy tales and legends also speak of men and women who are punished for breaking the laws of Nature or who, on the contrary, thanks to their courage and cunning, manage to remedy their mistakes and restore the balance, as in the case of The Born's werewolf.

Women then, even if in the background, play an important role in these fairy tales: for example, in The pact of the Rütli,  a woman pushes her husband to talk to his friends and rebel against the abuses of the bailiff, giving life to the first Switzerland.

Women, in addition to helping men or revealing to them how to free themselves from a curse that is haunting their village, are also present in the form of witches, clairvoyants, lucky ladies and other figures who, in one way or another , they become the needle of the balance around which history revolves and, often, also the cause of the downfall of an evil and violent man.

In addition to women, always in these fairy tales and in these legends, there are also historical characters, such as the emperor Charlemagne, and figures of saints, indissolubly linked to the origins and coat of arms of a canton, such as Saint Fridolin, patron saint and protector of the Canton of Glarus.

There are also them, the gods of Norse mythology, such as Wotan (or Wodan), one of the many names by which the god Odin is known, who before the advent of Christianity also had their home here in Switzerland.

There are also ghost stories and, speaking of spirits, I could not fail to include a short story, freely inspired by a well-known legend in the Muggio Valley (where I live), in which a courageous priest, in difficult times and where politics was done with rifles rather than with words, managed to free, with the help of the bishop, a farmhouse from a group of evil presences.

These, and many others, are some of the fairy tales and legends that you can find in this collection.

A wealth, which not even I suspected existed, which I hope you will like and that you will also enjoy reading.

Francesca Orelli

The Devil's Bridge

Canton of Uri

If today we want to go on vacation, or to study or work, in Central Switzerland, we just need to take the Gotthard tunnel, or the Gotthard Pass in the summer months, to find ourselves immediately on the other side (columns of cars permitting).  In the past, however, this was not the case and, in particular the rugged Schöllenen gorge, in the Canton of Uri, was an extremely difficult and dangerous obstacle to overcome, so much so that many people lost their lives.  Already in the 13th century the inhabitants of Uri had tried several times to create a mule track through this narrow gorge and to build a bridge over the wild River Reuss, but too often the travelers, together with their mules and their goods, fell into its depths along the rocky vertical walls.  This annoyed and upset the people of Canton Uri, who from time to time would have liked to come down from those inaccessible places to enjoy the beauties of Italy, its sweet wine and all the other beautiful things that were there.  The inhabitants of Uri wanted a stable bridge, which could be crossed by both horses and heavy chariots without danger, but all their efforts and sweat were in vain: the rushing mountain river continued to tear bridges and swallow passersby and goods, indifferently.

***

One day, after yet another failed attempt, the local community gathered again to discuss the need