In the Frauengraben

IN THE FRAUENGRABEN

In the Zur Wies inn, where we often get together with the woodsmen when we want to be enlightened about their problems and also to be better entertained than anywhere else, a man turned up just before Christmas 1953 who immediately attracted our attention by his taciturnity. It was immediately clear to us that the man, whom we had never seen before, must be of peasant stock, because he did not take his hat off when he sat down in the bar. It was not clear what the man, who was about thirty, was after; he was not visiting relatives in the area, he seemed too poorly dressed for that; his clothes were worn and even ragged in places. Once our curiosity was aroused, we asked him to come and sit at our table and to join in our conversation, and he came and sat with us and we ordered him a beer. It was already quite late when the man said he was looking for a wife and asked us whether we knew of one that would suit him and where he could find her. Relaxed as we were, we played a joke on him, sending him, close to midnight, into the so-called Frauengraben, a gorge with a small but sometimes torrential stream running through it, a place never reached by the sunshine. A woman of about fifty lived in the Frauengraben; her arms and legs and, indeed, her whole body were deformed, but she was highly thought of for her total love of animals and her goodness of heart. The man did not come out of the Frauengraben again for ten years, and when he did come out after those ten years it was for the sole purpose of marrying the deformed woman in the little church in Reindlmühle. After their wedding, the couple disappeared into the Frauengraben for another ten years. They are said to be happy.

The Panthers

THE PANTHERS