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| My Bunk! |
This morning we went over to the Museum Quarter. But we decided there wasn’t anything we wanted to see so we navigated our way back to the Cathedral on Stephensplatz to begin the walking tour in the Vienna Book of Legends. We made a huge tour of the first district, picking up gelato and a light lunch. I had a cinnamon bun, which isn’t really lunch. It was ok but it had raisins in it, which isn’t very cool. We also did some shopping and I bought a dress with some sort of cutouts, which Maryn will love. Some people called out to ask us if we spoke German, I said “Ein bision”, and kept on walking. We didn’t want to talk to them. After 19:00, we boarded our overnight train to Verona. I kicked Dominique’s butt at speed twice! I like the train, it’s peaceful. Our sleep cabin is tiny, but kind of cool. There’s all these cupboards on one wall and the beds bunk-bed style on the other. There is also a full-length mirror above the bottom bunk. My first train ride ever and Dominique lost her ticket. I found it, and so obviously, I saved the day.
Viennese Legends
-Iron-Stump-Square
It’s about a Locksmith’s apprentice’s pact with the devil. Eventually he met with a terrible fate and it became custom that every locksmith journeyman would put a nail in that same tree that the boy had locked for the Devil. They do this to ward off the same or a similar fate.
-Pagan’s Shot at Heidenschuss
It so happens that the Turks tried to invade Vienna several times. In 1529, they surrounded the city and bombarded the walls for weeks. Failing flushing the people out, they attempted to dig under the walls. But the Viennese were ready; they placed barrels with calf-skin covers in their basements, and dice on top. A baker found that his dice were moving slightly, and he could hear quiet voices. So the soldiers flooded the baker’s basement and the invading Turkish soldiers drowned. At this failure they left their siege of the city.
-Pushed to Heaven
A very vain lady scoffs at the statue of the Virgin Mary, saying how much prettier she is than Mary. Then a beggar showed up peddling the most beautiful dress. She said the lady could wear it for 3 days and 3 nights, but after that deadline the beggar wanted the dress returned with whatever was left inside. When the lady tried to take it off 3 days later, it wouldn’t budge, so the beggar wanted to collect the lady as well. With the beggar cackling away, the dress spontaneously caught fire. The lady pulled more frantically at the dress, revealing her cross and picture of the Virgin Mary. At which point the beggar gasped and the dress burst open, saving the lady’s life. Then she felt bad for her extreme vanity and atoned by becoming a nun. Then something about even minor belief pushing you towards Heaven.
-A Baker’s Punishment
Standard loaves were round shaped. If the people thought it wasn’t big enough, they could go out to St. Stephen’s Cathedral and measure it against the round shape beside the Giant’s Doorway. If it was smaller they could lodge a complaint at the Baker’s Guild. Then, once proved, the baker was locked in a cage over the river and then dunked repeatedly for some time. It wasn’t meant to kill, but many bakers drowned.
-Dear Augustin
Augustin was a ballad singer. He entertained people all over Vienna who were wanting to forget the plague that was killing so many. They loved Augustin and called him ‘Lieber Augustin’ (Dear Augustin). With a rise in the disease, less people came out to hear him, so he drowned his sorrows in wine. Then, unable to walk home he fell in the gutter and went to sleep. At this time, undertakers collected the bodies of the dead plague victims from the streets at night, to take them to mass graves outside the city walls. Augustin was quite shocked when he awoke amongst so many dead. The walls of the pit being too high for him to climb, he played bagpipes until an undertaker heard him and came to his rescue. Despite his closeness to so much plague, he never fell ill. He became very popular after that, because he incorporated his night in the pit into his songs.
-The Basilisk at the Bakery
The bakery on Shonlaterngasse was famous for its bread. The young housemaid was fetching water when she noticed an awful smell coming out of the well. She became sick and fainted. The baker and his apprentices rushed to help her. Only one was brave enough to catch a glimpse. The creature had the head of a cock, with a golden crown on it, the body of a toad and the tail of a snake. Only the Emperor’s doctor (who was quite well read on Greek mythology) had any ideas what to do. So Georg (who was secretly in love with the maid and wished to gain the baker’s approval for marriage) was dressed up with a blindfold, wax in his ears and covered his nose, so that he could not see, hear or smell the creature. They gave him a mirror and stuck him in the well. The creature was so afraid and repulsed by his own reflection that he promptly died. They sealed the well so no one would drink from the contaminated water again.
-The Red Tower
The Red Tower gatehouse was the busiest in the city. Affixed above the gate was a very curious piece of wood. It resembled a piece of bacon and had written on it:
“If there is a man who can truly claim that he isn’t under his wife’s thumb, he shall be able to take the bacon off the tower.” All the men disliked it, but no one dared try to remove it. One brave (or stupid) man decided to try. Word got round and everyone came to watch. He got halfway up the ladder before descending again and saying that someone must go up first and clean it, lest he get his suit dirty, for his wife would surely scold him. Everyone laughed, and he, realizing his mistake, left quite hurriedly. Eventually the tower was demolished and the bacon with it. All the Viennese men were very pleased to see the back of that offending bacon.
-Kolschitzky’s Coffee Beans
Kolschitzky was the key to the driving out of the Turks when they seized the city the second time. He had learned Turkish in his travels and offered to ride out through the Turks, pretending to be one of them, and call for help. It worked, and the town offered him whatever he wanted in return for his heroic deed. He asked only for the barrels of mysterious beans left behind by the Turks. For he knew what to do with them, and he knew he would be quite rich. So he opened a coffee shop. And that is how coffee came to Vienna.
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