Salige Frau


A salige Frau or salige Fräulein, also called Salkweib, Salaweib or Weiße Frauen, is a mythical figure mainly from the German-speaking Alpine region. The legends are particularly plentiful in the Inntal, Ötztal mostly in Austria or Vinschgau, South Tyrol.

Nomenclature

The name in standard German corresponds to or modern standard meaning "blissful". This word is cognate with English "", and "seelie court" is etymologically related as well.
In South Tyrolean tradition, there are the Salige Fräulein also simply called the Salige. The Salige and the Fängge are considered closely related or identical to the wilde Frau of Tirol. The beings referred to as wilde Fräulein in folklore or legend are also equated with the salige Fräulein. Other variants to the name are Salgfräulein or Selige Fräulein.
In the Wälschtirol, she may be known as als Enguane or Belle Vivane.
The equivalent names žalk žané, žalk žene, or žalik žene are used by the Slovene population in Carinthia, where the first part is equivalent to the German salige for "blissful"; while is pan-slavic for "woman".

Description

The blessed women are described as shy, but helpful and wise. They used to live in deep rock caves. They were reclusive creatures, yet they offered advice and assistance to unexpected visitors. They helped poor farmers and those who were incapacitated. However, at night, when the moon shone brightly against the starry sky, one should not encounter the blessed women, unless one was loud and made a racket, as they abhorred noise.

In folktales and legends

Ötztal

There was a landmark in the Ötztal valley in Tyrol called the Frauenstein where the wilde Fräulein liked to appear, combing their blond hair and singing songs beautifully. But they would retreat into their cave as soon as they notice human presence. The cave they dug was nine steps deep, and located at a place between Kropfbühl and Unterastlen, called Stinker. A dwelling of the supernatural women also is said to be at Längenfeld,.

Drava river

The Salkweiber were said to live in caves on the banks of the Drava River, in, a valley near Rosegg in Carinthia, and subsist on fish. They had misshapen feet. The singing Salige Frauen would also do laundry on the Drava.

Plant lore

Another legend says a farmer heard voices near the Drava in the dead of winter, advising him to sow beans in the snow, which sprouted, then upon another advice, released the pigs on them, which fed on the seedlings, and yet the plant matured and provided a bounty of harvestable beans afterwards. The Salkweiber are known to capture young men and kiss him or have their way with him, but if one kept cracking the whip or sang, the noises they abhorred kept them at bay.
A legend from the Vinschgau Valley in South Tyrol claims she introduced the buckwheat, a heretofore unknown crop in the region, during a year struck with severe drought. The Salige Fräulein are especially connected with flax culture, and Frau Hulda who is held to be their queen is said to have taught humans the lore of growing, spinning, and weaving flax fibers.
Near a Salkhöhlen, a Salk who sneaked in to sleep in the bed of peasant's wife but treated kindly bestowed upon the wife a filament of her hair to serve as an inexhaustible supply of thread on the spinning wheel. The wife spun the finest linen cloth and made rich, so it was already fine time to quit when the wife spoke out her impatience one day, against the spirit's warning, causing the thread to run out.

Guardians of the chamois

Austrian legend has it that Salige Frauen are protectors of game and especially the chamois. In Tyrol, the Seliges supposedly kept their dwelling the "Dehlgrubenthal" and near it was a landmark under the ice named "Gamshimmel ". This is reminiscent of the legend of "Paradiese der Thiere " said to be high up.
According to one legend, a young man named Schütz from Längenfeld, Ötztal suffered a fall in the mountains and by chance gained entry to den of the Salige Fräulein in a crystal grotto, with its palace and gardens. He was allowed permission to revisit, as long as he kept the promise not to reveal the secret, and not to slay any mountain beast. He lost his privilege one night when his curious mother followed him and raised her voice as he was about to enter. He loses motivation in life, but encouraged by his friends decided of all things to join them in hunting, and shot at a chamois. Three angry Salige appeared to protect it, and a shudder came over the youth that made him fall from the precipice, dashing him to pieces.
It is also claimed that these Salige Fräulein normally only appear to humans in the guise of bearded vultures as they guard their chamois up in the mountains.

Wild hunt

The Salige Frauen are considered the prey of the wild man. The people of Tiers held that the selige inhabited a cave in Tschamintal that burrowed deep in the Schlern mountain, until driven away by the wild hunt.
In one story from the village of near Klagenfurt, the golden-haired Salige Frauen would take trips laundering linen in the Drava, and sing while shepherding their livestock from cave to river. However there was a giant who would hunt them, and the Frauen asked the local men to leave a sign of the cross on the stump of trees they harvested, because those spots would then serve as safe haven from the giant. As a parallel, the sign of the cross on the tree stump also provides safety to the Buschweibel of the mountain forests of Silesia, also called the Rüttelweib in the Giant Mountains.

Miscellaneous

The legendary Salige dwelling in the cave named Dolmetzenloch above the lake Weissensee in Carinthia is also known, and became the basis of the Brandner novel.

In fiction

  • Bartsch, Rudolf Hans. Die Salige. Leipzig: Staackmann
  • Lendorff, Gertrud. Die salige Frau. Frauenfeld und Leipzig: Huber & Co.
  • Prem, Brigitte. Der Bergbauer und das Salkweib. Historisierender Roman mit Anleihen aus den Volksmythen. Münster: AT Edition,.
  • Brandner, Regine. SO HAM - Das Geheimnis der Saligen vom Weissensee. Wien: Eigenverlag. .