The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1910-03-31
THE IRON STUMP.
A Quaint Legend of Old Vienna.

No one knows the precise age OF the
Austrian city of Vienna, although there
are plenty Of patriotic Viennese who will
tell yoG that the first foundations of
their beloved town on the beaut;
full blue Danube were laid i'm
mediately after the deluge, by one
Abraham. a near descendant of the
patriarch Noah; and few will admit that
It's earliest walls are any younger than
those OF Rome. AT all events, it is I'M
doubleday a very old city treasurlng
many, oid and curious things; and,
though far from the oldest. one of the
quaintest of its antiquities is the mys-
FERROUS "Stock-im-Eisen,' or Iron
Stump about which are told tales
enough to while away many an evening
in a long winter.
Some time about year $50 A. D.. so
runs n legend, the Emperor Louis the
Pious son of Charlemagne, decreed that
a hunting lodge should be built for his
use IN the Wiener Wald-the old forest
of Vienna. Among those employed in
thls work was Friedrich Mux. a restless
young apprentice, who, growing impa-
tlent OF the harshneSs of the master lock-
smith whom he served, ran away one
summer evening to seek his fortune, like
many other young apprentices before and
since. But the luckless 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 a 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 a hasty breakfast, and found. to
hIS horror that hn had f01yon xrri+1 LS~o |
costly and beautifully wrought nail spe-
cially designed by his master to hold the
great lock of the imperial lodge.
Poor Friedrich was now in a guam
dairy. There was no way in which ne
could with safety to himself return his !
unwelcome prize. If he brought it back
he would be punished as a runaway. If
did nor do so he would certainly be
proclaimed a thief. AT last, in despera-
ton, 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 L return!' And he went his way.
Five years later Friedrich came again
to his native city, a skilled master lock-
low-craftsmen brought against him
charges of the theft of the precious nail,
but the old larch tree, faithful to its trust
proved his innocence, the missing nail be-
ing still in its sturdy keeping. So Fried !
rich MuX made his peace with his former
master and lived and died a respected
burgher of Vienna.
After this story became known it
grew a custom of the city that every
locksmith's apprentice as he departed on
his wanderjahr-the year of travel as a
journeyman that must precede his admis-
sion to the gid 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
lOcksmiths drove their memorial
nails, until the 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 extended
far into the Wiener Wald, until at last,
of all the ancient wood, the iron stump
of the old larch tree stood alone, the CEN
ter of a public square.
Now in the year 1873 it came to pass
that the good burghers of Vienna re-
solved 20 protect their famous Stock
with an encircling iron band,
which band, they further resolved,
should be fastened with the finest and
most intricate lock that could be pro-
cured. Every master locksmith in the
imperial city competed for the honor of
furnishing this masterpiece, and many
SO1II1 d1CC nS1G DIOQucGu,
but finally a tall, dark stranger, hail
ing from nowhere in particular, sub
mitted a lock of such surprising inge-
nuity and beauty that it was at once
chosen by unanimous vote of the coun-
ell. But when the stranger was asked
to name the price of the lock, he named
so great a sum that the burgomaster,
old Heinrich Pfalz, simply laughed in
his face. Whereupon the stranger
stamped his foot in a terrible rage,
snapped the lock shut on the staple of
the iron band, tossed the key so high
the air that to this day it has
never come down, and finally while
the open-mouthed citizens were watch
ing the fight of the key, that mysteri-
Gus stranger vanished from Vienna,
never TO be seen again!
A great reward was offered to him
who could devise a new key to open the
lock.
After many trials by the most skilled
workmen in the kingdom, the success
full competitor proved to be a young
apprentice, who, in the end,
like all Industrious apprentices Of the
old stories, is said to have married his
masters daughter Arthur Guiterman
a. 1