THE SUNKEN CASTLE IN THE BIBURG-SEE.
About two miles above the village of Oetz in the Oetzthal, in the middle mountains which cross over the valley like a wall, stands the peak called “Biburgspitz,” at the foot of which lies the little lake of “Biburg-See.” On the spot where now the See lies, used to stand the magnificent castle of Biburg, which covered an immense expanse of ground, and it was in former times the scene of the greatest festivities, for a very beautiful and rich lady used to be its mistress; yet it is sad to relate that she was a very wicked woman and guilty of all sorts of crimes.
She had but one child, whom, like Frau Hütt, she spoiled in every point; she cleaned it, too, with new bread and cake crumbs, because they were softer than sponges. One day a venerable hermit who had been sent to warn the proprietress, arrived in the castle and paternally exhorted her to give up her evil ways; but in spite of him she carried on her wicked practices more than ever, so that the hermit went away in despair. He had scarcely left the castle when it sank, together with its mistress and her son, into the earth, and a calm See filled up its place.
But a short time afterwards the lake began to bubble and boil, and the guilty mistress of the castle rose out of it in the form of a fearful dragon, or “Lindwurm,” which in its fury bit and tore at the banks of the See for the purpose of making an outlet for the water. This outlet forms the little river which runs through the fields belonging to the parishes of Oetz and Sauters; and the Tyrolians still say of little rivers that come out of the mountains: “Here a Lindwurm has bored its way through.”