NEUOFFENBARUNGAbout magical mountains
1. The fact that in earlier times people with clairvoyance certainly lived on the mountains and had contact with the spirits is still evidenced today, if not much else, by the peculiar names of the mountains.
2. In your country there are a lot of such mountains, which still contain in their name what happened in former times. In Carinthia, in Tyrol, in Switzerland, in Savoy, on the mountains of Germany and everywhere where there are mountains, there are a lot of them from whose names it can be easily gathered what once happened on them. Thus your Schöckel is already such a mountain, which has it's name from there; because according to an old national language, the word 'Schögeln' meant: weather making; But it was also said of a man who performed some of the arts of nature, something like today's pickpockets, that he was a Schögler; people who danced on the rope and otherwise made tremendous leaps were also called Schögler. This word Schögeln is an ancient Asian word, after which the magicians there are also called jugglers, jogles.
3. In the German language, there is still a word in use today, but admittedly somewhat obsolete, which is derived from this word, namely the word Schock, e.g. a Schock of people, or a Schock of sheaves. A certain group of people was called a Schock because one usually believed that there was a person among them who knew a little more than the others, who was therefore certainly a Schögler, and the crowd therefore took the name Schock from him; Also, the people on the mountains were usually seen together in groups, which is quite natural on the mountains, since it would not be advisable for single people here and there to undertake work for which firstly a single man's strength would not be sufficient, and secondly, even if it were still sufficient, something could happen to the worker, where he would then have no one to help him. In this earlier time, however, the inhabitants of the valley immediately thought, when they saw such a small group of people on a mountain and, by chance, some small cloud above the mountain, that these people were already engaged in sorcery and would definitely begin to make weather. On this Schöckel of yours, this was the case in former times, as still now, except for weather making.
4. This mountain was inhabited far earlier than the valley areas, and it's first name was 'Freitauer'; But when in later times the valleys were inhabited by more effeminate people, the valley dwellers soon began to suspect these mountaineers of being sorcerers, and the name Freitauer soon changed to Schöckel or Zauberberg, and there have been times, hardly a hundred years ago, when this mountain was still so notorious, that no honest Christian dared to climb it's highest peak, because everyone who had some Catholic-Christian sense was warned against the Schöckel witch in the most urgent way. For this reason, it's highest peak was deforested in order to take away the hiding places of the Schöckel witch, so that she could not hide when she was shot at from all sides by means of consecrated powder. The fact that no weather ever came from this, and even less that a witch has ever inhabited the Schöckel, hardly needs to be shown to you in more detail; But that in earlier times this mountain was inhabited, as it still is, by many so-called mountain spirits, with whom the old inhabitants of this mountain not infrequently had quite natural contact and were therefore much wiser than the valley dwellers, you can assume without doubt, just as you can assume that this mountain was once a volcano, and that it's weather holes are nothing but craters that have remained open.
5. But like the Schöckel, a lot of mountains of Styria have their mysterious names, which the space of this communication would not allow to discuss. So the Raxalpe is of similar origin; for the word Rax is in a way apostrophized from Racker, which is in a way half-devil. The 'dead woman' has already in it's name the most efficient characteristic of what this mountain once was, namely a ground full of witches,
by which once a woman, who was intercepted by them, but did not want to submit to their will, was turned into a stone. With this transformation, of course, she was also dead.
6. In later times, a hermitage was established lower down, in which a woman was once found dead, and several other such legends are attached to this mountain, which of course have as much truth in them as the lie itself; but the reason of the suspicion and the bad naming of such mountains is the same as it is already given in the whole course of these enclosed memorable histories.
7. Thus, the high Schwab is also extremely famous as a magic mountain; it's name comes from a descendant or emigrant of Swabia, who existed as one of the most famous magicians in this region, and did his mischief there, until the nearby pilgrimage site (Maria Zell, ed.), which you know well, put an end to him. Thus also a devil's stone exists; to explain this further is unnecessary. The preacher's chair is of the same origin; for there, Satan incarnate is said to have once preached the rules of conduct to the wizards.
8. So the Grimming is also of the same suspicious reputation; but especially suspicious was the rather far and wide stretched Tragelgebirge, which forms the border between Salzburg, Upper Austria and Styria. This Tragelgebirge was in a way the college for all sorcerers and wizards of all of Styria, Austria and Salzburg; – The name is still very suspicious today, and no inhabitant of Altaussee or Ramsau, for example, can be easily persuaded, especially if he belongs to the so-called lower class of people, to go to this bare mountain range, except for hunters who, of course, wisely no longer think anything of witches, but all the more of the fat chamois that are so very much at home on this vast mountain range.
9. We would bring together at least a few hundred such mountains in Styria, but we want to be content with the ones mentioned so far, and next we want to look at a few more mountains of Carinthia, Tyrol, and also one from Switzerland in the above historical respect, which mountains still played a very extraordinarily mystical role about a hundred and twenty years ago.