The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-02-20
QUAINT LEGEND OF
 OLD VIENNA CITY

Arthus Guiterman in March St. Nicholas. No one knows the precise age of the Austrian city of Vienna, although there are plenty of patriotic Viennese who will tell you that the first foundations of their beloved town on the beautiful blue Dan ube were laid, immediately after the de- luge by one Abraham, a near descend ant of the patriarch Noah: and few will admit that its earliest walls are any younger than those of Rome. At all events it is undoubtedly a very old city, treasuring many old and curious things; and, though far from the oldest, one of the quaintest of it's antiquities" is the mysterious "Stock-im Eisen,'' or Iron Stump" about which are told tales enough to while away many an evening in a long winter.
 Sometime about year $50 A. D., so runs one legend. the Emperor Louis the Pious, son of Charlemangne, decreed that hunting lodge should be built for his use in the Wiener Wald-the old forest of Vienna among those employed in this work was Friedrich Mux, restless young apprentice who, growing impatient of the harshness of the master locksmith whom he served, ran away one summer evening to seek his fortune, like many other young apprentices before and since. But the luclless youth soon lost his way in the thick night of the deep old forest, wandering round and round until at last he fell exhausted at the foot of great larch tree, where he slept till daybreak awoke him. He opened his eyes and found, to his dismay, that he was within a few hundred yards of the very point from which he had started. Then he opened his travellers scrip to make nasty breakfast, and found, to his hor- TOT, that he had taken with him costly and beautifully wrought nail specially designed by his master to hold the great lock of the imperial lodge.
 Poor Friedrich was now in quan- dary. There was no way in which he could with safety to himself return his unwelcome prize. If he brought it back he would be punished as a runaway. 1T he did not do so he would certainly be proclaimed as thief. At last, in des- peration, he drove the unlucky treasure to the head into the trunk of the tree under which he had slept. There he said, "old larch, be thou a witness for me when I return' And he went his way.
 Five years later Friedrich came again to his native city, a skilled master lock smith of great reputation. Envious rel low craftsmen brought against him charges of the theft of the precious nail, but the old larch tree, faithful to its
  nail being still in it's sturdy keeping. So Friedrich Mux made his peace with his former master and lived and died re- spected burgher of Vienna.
 After this story became known it grew a custom of the city that every lock smiths apprentice as he departed on hls Wanderjahr-the year of travel as journeyman that must precede his admis- sion to the gild as a master workman should drive into the tree a nail bearing on it's head his initials or private mark, in imitation and memory of Friedrich Mux Thus year after year new journey men locksmiths drove their memorial nails, until tho stump of the old tree be- came, as 1t remains today, a mass of iron, so filled with nails is every inch of it. And year by year the city extendea far into the Wiener Wald untii at last, of all the old larch tree stood alone, the center of a public square.
 Now in the year 15T3 it came to spass that the good burghers of Vienna re- solved to protect their famous Stock-im- Eisen with an encircling iron band, which hand they further resolved, should be ia stened with the finest and most intrf- cate lock that could be procured. Every master locksmith in the imperial city competed for the honor of furnishing thls masterpiece, and many wondertul con trivances were produced; but finally tall dark stranger, hailing rom nowhere in particular, submitted lock Of such surpa ssing ingenuity and beauty that 1t was at once chosen by unanimous vote of the council. But when the stranger Ads asked to name the price of the lock, he named so great sum that the burgo- master, old Heinrich Pfalz, simply laughed in his face. Whereupon the stranger stamped his foot in a. terrible rage, snapped the lock shut on tbe staple of the iron band, tossed the key so high into the air that to this day it has never come down, and finally. while the open mouthed citizens were watching the flight of the key, that mysterious strang- CT vanished from Vienna, never to be seen again!
 A great reward was offered to him who could devise new key to open the cu- rious lock.
 After many trials by the most skilled workmen in the kingdom, the successful competitor proved to be young lock- smiths apprentice. who, in the end' like all industrious apprentices of the old stories, is said to have married his mas ters daughter"