Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
Many years passed and the two cowherds not only grew to man's estate
but became old and infirm, needing the assistance of others to look
after their flocks. One of the two was aided by the deaf and dumb son
of a neighbour, and one day, as the old man and boy were passing the
spring, the former knelt down and prayed and drank of the water. The
boy seeing him do this did likewise, and lo and behold he found his
tongue miraculously loosened, and afterwards spoke as clearly as any
other.
The fame of the miracle spread abroad, and was readily believed by the
people of the valley. Then the two old men told their own experience,
and soon a chapel was built on the spot to which through the centuries
many devout pilgrims as well as many curious visitors have journeyed.
Amid the woods by which Igls is surrounded, and along the fertile
valley in which the village stands, are many charming walks, and
yearly the place is becoming more resorted to by those who appreciate
the lovely and bracing mountain air, and a very pleasant form of what
has become known as the "simple life."
To the south-west of Igls and south of Innsbruck across the Sill is
the lovely Stubai Valley, the beauty of which almost challenges that
of the Oetzthal. Like the latter this valley is also verily the gate
to the land of snow-fields and glaciers, of which there are upwards of
eighty within its confines and hard by. The Stubai Thal is a
combination of scenery of widely different character. Within a radius
of a few miles, towering above its green and peaceful pastures, at
least two score of magnificent peaks rear their heads skyward, none of
which fall far short of (whilst many exceed) 10,000 feet in altitude.
The lower portion of the valley is reminiscent of the far-famed,
music-loving Zillerthal, with its dark-green pine forests, fertile
meadows, and villages perched here and there on the slopes of the
mountains, or nestling in the valley itself around the white-walled
churches. This kind of scenery extends some little way beyond the
village of Neustift, which is the last in the valley having a church,
and then one seems to at once pass into a mysterious, wonderful, and
fascinating region, where the legendary gnomes and ice-maidens of
Tyrolean folk-tales and lore must surely dwell in caverns and
habitations of perpetual ice and snow.
Though there is a good mountain road winding up the hillside above
Wilten, which in former times served the picturesque villages Natters,
Mutters, Kreith, and Telfes, most travellers nowadays use the electric
railway (the first made in Tyrol) for the journey to Fulpmes, which
lies about half-way to Neustift and is rapidly becoming a favourite
excursion resort for Innsbruck people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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