Johannes Nepomuk, knight von Alpenburg, in his collection of traditions and legends, published in Zurich in 1857, mentions a very interesting "circle" discovered in Tyrol in early 1800. In Amras, near Innsbruck, in ancient times in In the peasant garden, an apple tree grew, which "amazed the whole neighborhood, since an inexplicable phenomenon called the" witch's circle "was observed near it
Too many have seen it, so it is impossible to declare this circle a fiction. On Thursday evening nothing was visible yet, but every Friday a circle appeared around the aforementioned tree - even, as if drawn by a compass. It happened that some curious people stayed on the night from Thursday to Friday to watch what happened. They did not leave their place even a step, but in a strange way the circle in two places did not appear, although inside its outline, on the opposite - western and eastern - sides, the grass was not crushed and stood straight. This circle looked as follows: on the sides ab and cd the grass stood straight, on the side ef a “ring” appeared, then, describing a semicircle, another “ring” was observed on the side gh. And the tree itself served as the center of the steep, marked i."
These dancing witches and their "rings", which always appear in the same places, are a very bizarre phenomenon, but it is impossible to give another explanation for the appearance of this circle, which forms only at night. (I wanted to know what our current theories about the origin of these rings will look like in a hundred years!)
Meanwhile, this circle appeared more than once or twice. The same Johann von Alpenburg further reports: "Kabatchitsa and her children, as well as their neighbors, came to the same apple tree almost every Friday and saw the same thing every time." In 1821 the garden was sold to a certain Josef Schneider, but the remarkable phenomenon of the appearance of the circle continued as before. “In 1824, his 19-year-old daughter saw a fire burning under the same tree. She immediately told her father about this, who hurried there to see this miracle with his own eyes, but found nothing, not even ash or coals. " The mysterious phenomena of the glow of the rings are still observed today.
In 1932 the garden was sold again. The new owner, Andreas Schaffenrath, decided to cut the tree down to put an end to the "witch dancing": "Today a young cherry grows on this place, but nothing unusual was noticed there, and the witch circle disappeared without a trace."
Who or what caused the appearance of this mysterious circle? We do not know this. Such a circle is far from an isolated phenomenon. In other places in Tyrol, in fields or gardens at night, strange circles or rings also appear, "which can be seen the next day, and over the origin of which many are puzzled," assures Johann von Alpenburg and continues: "These witch rings are a special phenomenon. kind. In the northern countries they are called the circles of the elves."
As for the people of Tyrol, they are also familiar with the "witch's playground", which no longer grows grass after they appeared there one night. And when another burnt place appears somewhere, people already know: “Albert was sitting” here. The fact is that, in addition to the "flying witches", the inhabitants of Tyrol believe in the existence of two more "unidentified flying objects", which in the past were called "Albert" and "Orco". In my opinion, it is very interesting to try to find out what these mysterious flying objects are.
Fear of "Albert"
In the Oberinnthal Valley, the following story is told about "Albert": a chest or various spherical objects. Where Albert sits down, the grass burns clean and every tree dries up …"
In the town of Algund, which is not far from Meran, people were intimidated by" Albert, shining by stealing cherries. " They still remember how in the old days two young men climbed into the garden one night to pick cherries. Suddenly they saw Albert flying right in front of them, illuminating everything around. Before the guys had time to really notice that in the strange glow you can see every leaf on the tree, "Albert disappeared in the distance."
“Albert” is even credited with kidnapping, which is common today. The story of "the tailor in Albert's chest" is widely known throughout Tyrol. Here's what it says. One night the tailor was returning home from Stanz in Green. Suddenly the following happened: “Behind him, from the direction of Stanz, something strange flashed through the air with lightning speed, similar to Albert, like one egg to another. It was a blazing broom, but so huge that if she only wanted to, she could easily sweep an entire village … it rushed over his head with noise and crash and headed towards Greens. Soon after, “another Albert rushed from the direction of Schrofenstein with the same incredible speed. It was all glowing and looked like a huge bucket with a long handle and a round ladle … when this fire bucket flew by,he looked very much like a huge chest
The tailor threw himself into the oats and shouted, “What are you doing? Your buddy just flew by!"
The tailor wandered on, but the road was difficult for him, and now “something appeared right on the road, and this something turned out to be a dwarf [little man]! This dwarf took a step towards the tailor, showing that he did not intend to let him pass. Then an innate courage awoke in the tailor; he got angry and swore: “Oh, the devil take you!
You don't want to let me pass. I'll stuff you into Albert's chest! There will be no way that some dwarf will leave me in a fool! " Before he had time to utter the last word, the dwarf disappeared, but out of nowhere appeared "Albert's chest." He stood right on the road and was all glowing. His door flew open, the devil jumped out of it. He ran to the tailor, dragged him into the "chest" and instantly slammed his door. The chest immediately rose into the air and rushed, but not in the Green, but further, far beyond the Green, high above the steeple of the church in Greens …”
Unfortunately, Johann the Knight von Alpenburg is silent about how the events of this fascinating story developed further.
It was only natural for beliefs and superstitious fears of that time to attribute unexplained phenomena to witches or devils. In addition to the "evil enemy", the legends also mention "Orko", another strange object or phenomenon that appears in the sky over Tyrol. They say about him that he is able to take on a variety of forms, including turning into a ball. "Orko" is capable not only of flying, but also - as is often the case with modern UFOs - suddenly appear out of nowhere and just as unexpectedly disappear, "just in an incomprehensible way; for he did not sit on the ground and did not fly away, but simply disappeared, like a bursting soap bubble”.
A very interesting meeting with "Orko" happened to be intertwined by a peasant from Ennenburg. One day, walking along the Placewald, a peasant heard something that resembled two deafening exclamations of joy. And the peasant, thinking that these were the lumberjacks who had played around, called out to them in a loud
voice. “But then fear fell upon him, for it could very well be Orko. So it turned out, and after a moment he heard him very close … The guy wanted to run away, but his legs suddenly became like cotton, his eyes darkened, and he collapsed to the ground without feeling …
The next day, he woke up in the Wellshellen thicket, which is high in the mountains, and it immediately became clear to him that Orko had brought him here, since the Wellshellen forests were on the other side of a wide and deep abyss, into which Orko would surely have thrown him if the peasant was a fool who forgot God. Nevertheless, there are many bumps and scratches on his face; apparently, Orko did a great job so that he would remember this day for the rest of his life. The distance Orko took him takes a good two hours. " It is a great pity that the Ennenburg peasants were never again led to experience such a hypnotic "return", is it?
True, one Tyrolean peasant was still carried away by the "witches" to their "dance floor". At the same time, he experienced something like a state that we today describe as a "phenomenon of a lapse in time", "… far away, at a considerable distance from the village, bells rang, calling for morning prayer, and the peasant, waking up, saw that he was lying on the threshold the doors of his own house”, not understanding what actually happened to him. “He was carried over by the witchcraft power of witches,” notes Johann von Alpenburg in this regard.
Much like the modern kidnapping phenomenon
In the photo: UFOs photographed over the mountains of Switzerland in 1975-1976.
If you believe the legends, in the Tyrolean Alps, for example in Obervalchen, sometimes one could see "little gray men". These creatures were called "spirits of mountain pastures." “Once, a dwarf appeared in front of a house from head to toe, all gray, as if sheathed in bark” - Residents rushed into the house headlong and bolted the door. At night they were awakened by a strange, inexplicable noise: it seemed to them that “some utensils and things were running around the room.” Despite this, people could not move their arms or legs; seasoned Alps literally froze in place. The most amazing thing in all this is that the next morning one of the men, who did not leave the room, was all beaten, tortured and barely alive.
People believed that the "spirits of the mountain pastures" somehow "spoiled" him at night. Curiously, no one was surprised that "spirits" could enter the house through a locked door, for it was as easy for the "little gray creatures" as it was to "numb" the inhabitants, so that they could no longer move. It was even more difficult to grasp these creatures, for "little gray", "badass" or "evil gnomes", as they have been called from ancient times in Tyrol, are elusive. "If someone managed to catch them, his hands first felt something soft, and then everything disappeared." As soon as someone touched the gnomes, they escaped. At a meeting with one knight, such a tiny dwarf "suddenly disappeared, as if it had sunk through the earth."
It should be emphasized once again that all these details can be found in printed sources that were published more than a hundred years ago. And in conclusion, we present an excerpt from an old Tyrolean chronicle: in 939, Konrad E., bishop of Trient, “saw that three luminous points appeared on the chapel in Castlefelder, which then flew from there towards the bell tower in Tramin; what action, according to common rumor, is taking place there to this day ….
So let's summarize the above. In the world of Tyrolean legends appear:
1. Mysterious circles on the grass.
2. Scorched plots of land, which local residents call the places where "Albert sat".
3- Strange flying objects and glowing points;
4- The phenomenon of "time lapse".
5. Little gray men who suddenly appear in the room, paralyze those present and subject some of them to such torment that they are barely alive the next morning.
We see similar cases today. This is the phenomenon of human abduction by UFOs, noted all over the world. This example shows that there is an absolutely undeniable relationship between them and that the search for evidence of them in ancient texts can be more than fruitful.
