The Enchanted Šumava

Josef Váchal aptly gave this title to his book inspired by Šumava legends. The melancholy character of this chain of peaks, upland plateaux and peat bogs is reflected in the distinctive nature of its local tales and demonology. Unlike the Krkonoše, for example, the Šumava mountains have no supernatural ruler of their own. Their gallery of demons, however, is perhaps more varied than almost anywhere else in this country. Their dark nature and cruelty clearly distinguish them from their relatives in the lowlands. As in all mountain regions, there are mine spirits guarding treasures or veins of gold. The legends swarm with nightmares, water women, deadly birds, little lights and personifications of death. A Šumava rarity is the strangler, or huckauf: a sprite that leaps onto people's backs and chokes them to death (see Rejštejn). The Wild Hunt often races through the region: a fantastic band of wild black horses and male spectres dressed in black, with a pack of dogs, accompanied by cracking whips and hunting horns. At night the horde flies through the air, attacks travellers, carries them aloft and kills them. Another regional peculiarity is the legends of wildkanzle, the vampires of Šumava. Animistic personifications appear as the so-called tree men, beings that live in trees and depend on their continued existence. They prevent trees from being felled, take revenge on woodcutters and inflict serious injuries or death. The Little Grey Man, in turn, summons thick fog and brings misfortune, suffering, fear and even death to travellers. The Forest Mother is a fantastic female apparition that appears unexpectedly and surprises sleeping or resting woodcutters. She leads people deep into the forest, never to return. The Cattle Terror is a strange demon resembling a lizard that showers sparks. It frightens cattle, which scatter and often suffer fatal injuries. Stories of giants are also told in Šumava, as elsewhere, usually in places of ancient settlement. Around Kašperské Hory they inhabited Sedlo hill and Obří hrad near Popelná, now called Valy, where a prehistoric settlement has been found. It is said that the giants left Šumava because humans disturbed them and moved to the Alps. At midnight, the souls of suicides lying on the bottom of Prášilské Lake weep. Devils, or Černoboh, lived on Šumava's highest summits, lit fires there at Třístoličník and Plechý, and also created lakes such as Čertovo Lake. Many tales also concern the magical powers of local people, whether sorcerers such as Žídek of Boubín, poachers or smugglers of Bavarian snuff. They could freeze a person motionless for as long as they wished. Witches usually flew to their gatherings on Třístoličník. Once isolated in mountain valleys and on plateaux, the people lived in fear of the unknown and, in their heightened imagination, also created distinctive customs, taboos and funerary symbols, including death boards. (See Boubín, Horní Planá, Kašperské Hory, Sušice, Železná Ruda and elsewhere.)