The Salighe

The story

In the mountains of the Tyrol, above the last pasture, where the grass ends and the rock begins, there was a dark cliff that people called the Mohrin.

Beneath that cliff, they said, lived the three Salighe.

Nobody had ever seen them. Or rather: nobody had ever told of seeing them and remained the same as before. It was said that they lived in the heart of the mountain, under rocks and glaciers, in a palace of crystal. By day they were bright as the dawn, and by night their light could be glimpsed for a moment between the cracks of the ice. And for centuries, it was said, they had protected the chamois, the white hares and all the animals that live too high up for a man to catch.

Once, in summer, a poor shepherdess climbed to the high pasture, carrying her small child. Her husband was up there with the sheep, and she had not seen him for months. On the way she stopped to pray in a little stone chapel, set her son down on the grass for a moment, and at that very moment an enormous shadow passed across the sun.

A lammergeier, a great bird of prey of the Alps, swooped down. The mother's cries were lost in the wind. The bird vanished with the child in its talons, high up, higher and higher, until it became a dot.

The shepherd, higher still, saw the bird coming. He never understood how, but the bird landed two steps from him, with the little one clutched in its claws, and for a moment it did not move, as if held still by an invisible hand. The shepherd threw a stone. Then another. The stones flew straight as if someone were guiding them. The lammergeier let go of its prey, and the child fell onto the grass, frightened but whole.

The shepherd thought it chance. It was not. It was the three Salighe, who from their windows of ice had looked down and decided to help him.

The years passed. The child grew, strong and quick. He became a hunter, the best in the valley, one of those who climb where the others turn back. And the higher he climbed, the more the Mohrin called to him. For it was said that beyond that slab of rock covered in ice there lived so many chamois and ibex that no hunter had ever counted them, because nobody ever got there.

He tried. He climbed, and climbed again, and at some point his foot found no more rock. He fell into a chasm. The last thing he felt was the wind, then darkness.

When he opened his eyes he was lying on a bed of mountain flowers, speik and edelweiss, in a light he had never seen. Three women in white were looking at him. It was a place of crystal and running water, with gardens, and free animals that were afraid of nothing.

For three days the Salighe cared for him. They showed him the palace, the gardens and the animals he might have hunted and never felt any temptation to touch. When he was healed, they led him to the door of a cleft that runs through the whole mountain.

"We saved you as a child and we have saved you today," they said. "Before you go, you must promise."

He had to promise four things. Not to tell anyone that he had seen them and had seen their kingdom. Not to hunt or kill the animals of the mountain: neither chamois, nor mountain hares, nor white ptarmigan. Not to show any mortal the way to the palace. And to keep affection and respect for the fairies.

The boy promised. He said it with all his heart, because at that moment he wanted nothing else.

They let him out through a hidden passage among the rhododendrons, at the source of the stream. And they told him he could come back to see them at every full moon, and stay three days, calling them with an agreed sign.

He went home like someone who has been dreaming. In the village they called him "the Dreamer". He no longer went to the feasts. He no longer went hunting. His rifle stayed hanging on its nail. But at every full moon he vanished into the mountain for three days, and came back thinner and paler, with faraway eyes.

His parents grew worried. One night they followed him, in secret, among the stones. They saw him climbing. They saw him reach the rock. And his mother, frightened, lost her head and called him by name.

The mountain answered with a roar. The rock opened for a moment, then collapsed. Stones, earth, dust. When everything was still, the entrance was gone. The boy searched for it for days, beating on the stone with his hands, but never found it again. His rifle, too, had ended up under the landslide.

The summer passed, and it was a summer of silence. Then winter came, and some old friends invited him to a hunting party on the Platte, near the Mohrin. He did not want to go. Then he said yes. He borrowed a rifle, and climbed with them.

But the place, that place, was calling him. At some point he broke away from the group. He saw a chamois and followed it, from rock to rock, to the edge of a ravine. From there he heard a cry, like the voice of a girl.

He raised the rifle, and fired.

A flash. The animal stood unharmed, and in front of the boy the three women appeared, in white robes, with stern eyes.

The boy took a step back, just one step.

Under his feet there was no more ground.