animiert magazin nummer14 sommer

(Photo: Karl Meuser)

dressed in the white of a young bride. The silver- white bull walked behind her, led on a silken rope. Just as the maiden reached the Surenen- ecke, an almighty storm ripped across the sky. The wind howled and angry thunder clouds turned the day into night, with wild streaks of lightning subsequently wrenching the night back into day. The Greiss bellowed, the silver-white bull hurled itself at the dreadful creature, and the noise of the two beasts colliding seemed almost to tear the heavens asunder. The battle raged on until silence descended once more. When the people of wellspring gushed from beneath the bull, and this became known as Stierenbach (Bull’s Brook). This was a fine day indeed, but before the celebrations could begin, one of the group asked about the girl. They scoured every inch of the pasture, but she had disappeared, never to be found again. A great sense of unease settled over the people of Uri, for they realised that recovering the pasture had cost them dearly. Desperate to right this wrong, they agreed to use the head of the triumphant bull as their coat of arms and to give the maiden of Attinghausen an eternal place in their hearts.” These days, hikers who visit the Surenen- alp in the summer will find themselves on fer tile pastureland and can visit the remains of an ancient Celtic hut. This is the oldest hut in the Alps, which makes it all the easier to believe it may have been the very place where the legend of the bull began. Indeed, the magical location has fired the imagination of many hikers and inspired them to expand the Uri finally dared to climb the mountain, they found that the Greiss had been battered to death by the bull, whose own lifeless body was lying close by in a pool of blood. A rich new

rich my thology of these Alpine meadows. However, we do know that the legend recounted above is actually a lot younger than the Surenenalp hut. The story was first recorded around 1700, and was probably an at- tempt to explain Uri ’s ownership of the pas- ture, which actually lies within the territory of Engelberg. The legend also accounts for the coat of arms and why the upper section of the brook (fur ther down it’s called the Engelberger Aa) is named af ter a bull. Heavy rainfall can swell the stream and cause it to spit and rage

like the my thical animal that saved the mountain. What is more, as well as being a great story, the legend tells us a lot about the realities of the time. Back then, Uri followed a strict,

A hike over the Surenenpass is a trek into another world.

God-fearing order, and anyone who broke the rules would face terrible consequences – al- though it’s unlikely that these always involved bloodthirsty monsters taking control of moun- tain pastures. It also shows us that scholars travelling between nor th and south would bring valuable information from distant places to the towns and villages they passed through – and it wasn’ t unusual for these intellectu- als to use their superior knowledge to take advantage of uneducated rural communities. Hiking route over the Surenenpass to Atting- hausen (Uri) Distance: 25 km (20 km) Duration: 6.5 hours (5 hours on the shor ter route) Dif f icu lty: Strenuous, with spec tacu- lar v iews of the A lps and Lake Lucerne The 32nd Surenenpass hike takes

place on 16 August 2014. For more infor- mation visit www.attinghausen.ch.

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