The Gluggs
The story that I am going to tell you about, begins in Rekawinkel, a small village in the countryside near to Vienna. At that time Vienna was a very small city with strong walls defending it and was surrounded by many small villages and towns. The only way to get from one place to the next was on horseback or by horsedrawn coaches. I was travelling from Vienna to Salzburg as our coach lost one of wheels and needed to be repaired. The roads were in a very bad condition and you can imagine how strong the wagon wheels had to be. It was getting late by the time we had managed to change the wheel and the horses were tired. The next village was Rekawinkel and we decided to stay there overnight before travelling on. We were all very tired and were happy to find the small �Gasthof� in the village. The �Gasthof� was a typical Austrian guesthouse and as all at that time had all that was needed for not only us but also for the horses and the repairs that we needed. We had a meal and then the landlord showed us our rooms and we just fell into bed and slept like logs. At breakfast the landlord told us about the things he had heard and the stories he had been told. As he heard that we were on our way to Salzburg he became very excited and we could see the way his face was glowing with joy as he started to talk. He told us about his visit to a small village in the Alps called �Werfenweng�, a little village in the middle of the mountains, he spoke about the valleys in the midst of mighty peaks. He spoke about a hidden village that was two days walk away from Werfenweng and said that the village couldn�t be reached in the winter months and not many could find it during the short summertime, not only because it was hard to find but also because the people that lived there didn�t want anyone to find them and kept themselves to themselves. Those that found the village usually decided to stay there because the villagers were so kind and loving and made them loose their feeling for leaving or going back to Werfenweng. I asked the landlord about the name of the village and how to get there, but he just warned us not to go there because nobody could find it, nobody. I was very interested and wanted to know more about the village but he just laughed and said that the problem wasn�t the villagers, the problem is the �Gluggs�. He said the village is hidden in one of the unknown valleys near to Werfenweng a valley surrounded by mountains but the �Gluggs� are a very unpleasant people that live near to the village and survive by plundering and robbing the people of the village and those going through the mountains. The Gluggs attack the village quite often but the villagers manage to defend themselves as good as they can, but lose a lot of their stored foods that they have for the winter months due to the plundering. The Gluggs nearly always attacked at the end of summer because of the vast amount of food that they could steal and are a big problem for the village. I couldn�t stop thinking about what he had said and decided to go to Werfenweng. The journey to Salzburg was very tiring and took several weeks. We had to stop many time in order to recover from the journey. The coaches were very uncomfortable and had no springs which meant that the bad roads were a major problem for us. The road over the �Riederberg� and then later over the �Strengberg� was very steep and hard for all of us. The woods were full of wild animals which we could se as we drove by. Wolves and bears and wild boars. We had to cross over the small rivers at fords because only the bigger rivers were bridged. You can think how happy I was as we finally got to Werfenweng. I was very tired and stopped at a small farmers house near to Wetrfenweng and asked for a bed for the night. The farmer was very pleasant and gave me a small room where he said I could stay until I feel fit enough to continue my journey. The farmer was very old but as fit as a fiddle. He had also heard about the secret village in the mountains and about the Gluggs and was able to tell me a little more. He hadn�t been to the village and knew of nobody that had been there he only knew which direction it was and that it was far away from Werfenweng and hard to find. Three days later I decided to move on and try to find the village. The weather was good and at this time of the year there was nothing to fear of because there was very little snow and no avalanches. I could only imagine a village being lower that 2000 Metres. At the end of Werfenweng a small path led through a valley between the mountains and I decided to use the most used pathways so that I could rest in one of the �Alpenh�tten� (a mountain guesthouse) on the way. As I got to the first of these small houses in the mountains I tried to get more information about the village that I was looking for. It seemed to take ages, day for day I wandered through the mountains without making any progress whatsoever. After the tenth day I decided to go back again and was very disappointed, there were no more small guesthouses to rest in and I wasn�t equipped for mountaineering. On my way back I rested underneath one of the mighty ferns and fell fast asleep. As I awoke I was astonished to find myself in a small room of a logged house. Where am I !? Am I dreaming !? � I looked out of the window and saw that I was in a small village, the village that I was looking for. I walked outside and was stopped by an old man with a very long grey beard. He was very kind and said that I was in the village of �Ringelberg� and that I had been brought to his home by the foresters that were hunting in the woods and had found me. They had thought that I was ill because they couldn�t wake me up and thought I had probably eaten something that had put me to sleep. There were many things in the woods that would do that and I had probably eaten something without knowing what it was, they said you can be grateful that it wasn�t poisonous. The old man took me through the village. It was true, the people were really friendly and forefilled every wish that I had. Most of the men were very well dressed and had long beards, they wore leather trousers and Austrian clothing very similar to the people in Salzburg but old fashioned. The women wore long Austrian dresses (Dirndl) that went right down to the ground and carried their hair high and rolled into a bun at the back of their heads, they crowned their heads with a golden hood and seemed to be very proud. The cobbled streets of the village led through very small gaps between the houses which were so close to each other that the people living in them could reach over from their balconies and shake hands with their neighbours. The houses were built in the typical style of the Alps and thousand of flowers decorated their balconies, it was a beautiful sight to see. The roofs had large boulders on the top of them to stop the snow slipping onto the streets of the village during the winter. In one of the largest houses with very small windows I could see that they were making bottles, thousands of bottles in all sorts of forms colours and sizes. It seemed as though they used the bottles for everything, all of the things in the shops and homes were stored in them. Even the beer that they were making was being filled into huge bottles and then rolled over to the two small guesthouses in the main square at the centre of the village. One of them was called the �Enzian� and the second one was the �Berghof� � both of them were good and served excellent food and drinks. A carpenter was working in his workshop making weapons, windows, doors and chairs and everything the villagers needed. The Townhall on the main square was very small and resembled a fortress more than anything else. The village itself was surrounded by a very high stone wall and an wooden scaffold with a balustrade on the inside of it enabled you to walk all the way around the village and see everything from the top. As I looked out toward the mountains I could see that all of the trees near to the village had been cut down to allow them to see as far as 50 metres away from the walls. Lots of men were working on the wall all the time, you could see them building and repairing all of the different parts and modernising it all the time, it seemed as though the main thing of life in the village was the wall. The villagers well armed and had nearly all of their weapons made out of wood, large catapults stood at a distance of about 20 metres from each other all the way around the inside of the wall pointing toward the outside. It looked formidable and one could see that they were really able to defend themselves. I asked about the tremendous efforts they were making to defend the village and they immediately told me about - the Gluggs! They described the Gluggs as I later was able to verify as being very small annoying little people that had nothing better to do than steal. They wore green long hooded capes were dirty and unshaven, they shouted and used language that you would not like to hear, they stole everything that was not nailed down and were very viscous. Later I was able to witness the way they attacked the village. They were very aggressive and fought as hard as they could and it was hard for the villagers to defend the village. It was always the same reason for the attacks, the Gluggs wanted to steal as much food as they could before the winter came. Most of the attacks could be thrown back although the gluggs were far stronger and had better weapons. They never gave up, they just kept coming back, one attack after the other and toward the end of summer they increased their attempts to get food even more. Every time the Gluggs withdrew, the villagers started to repair the walls and weapons, you could see that their lives were dedicated to the defence of the village. The walls were getting higher and higher and they spent lots of time inventing new weapons and ways of getting rid of the Gluggs. Lots of the inventions turned out to be useless but they never stopped trying and sometimes they managed to surprise the Gluggs completely with one of the new weapons. One of the inventions was on trial when I was there but they couldn�t use it because they just couldn�t get it to work. The idea was simple, large bags were being filled with a special dust that they had invented. The bags could be fired from the catapults and would burst over the heads of the Gluggs. The dust itself was the secret, as soon as the Gluggs were covered with dust it should start to work and should shrink the enemy and make them so small that they would no longer be able to fight. The experiments had shown that it works and they had managed to make mice and other animals shrink, in fact lots of the objects just disappeared. It was hard to produce enough dust for what they needed to do and even then the wind would carry the dust away. The dust was far too light and settled too slowly, the Gluggs were always dressed in their capes and the dust just couldn�t get to their bodies and had no effect. Everybody was working on the new idea, they tried to mix it with chalk and other substances to make it heavier and sticky. The solution was as simple as anything and the smallest neighbours of the village proved to be allies � the bees and their HONEY! The new invention was ready for use and the Ringelberger worked day and night to produce enough honey-dust for the defence of the village during the next attack. The bags of dust had to be kept very dry because the damp would have made it into a thick sticky glue. They still couldn�t use it against the Gluggs due to the long hooded capes that they wore. The Ringelberger had to find a way to make the Gluggs take their capes off, but how ? They started to put water hoses onto the top of the walls, the idea being to drench the Gluggs with water as soon as they came. The water pressure was increased, as much as they could do it, so that the water would throw the Gluggs over making them think that the water was the newest weapon being used. The Gluggs came and found the water to be hilarious and an exciting game, they seemed to enjoy it and kept coming back for more especially on the hottest days. Suddenly they started to come without their capes and tolled around in the water enjoying every minute of it. Instead of being frightened you could see them laughing and thanking the villagers for the new game. The Ringelberger had put thousands of bottles behind the wall, the bags of dust had been loaded into the catapults and they waited for the next attack. The final attack came and thousands of Gluggs came in to all sides of the village to take part in the game. They rolled in the water and were screaming for joy and had no idea of what was to come. The villagers waited as long as they could to make sure that every one of the Gluggs had taken off his cape and was completely wet. Even when the water was turned off and the catapults had thrown the bags into the air and the dust started to come down and stick to the Gluggs they thought it was funny. They just couldn�t imagine what this sticky white yellowish dust would do. Then suddenly they started to scream, their fingers, hands and legs began to shrink, their bodies and heads, they started to get smaller and smaller and smaller. All of the villagers ran to the wall and fetched as many bottles as they could carry and started to put the Gluggs into the bottles. Even after they had been put into the bottles they shrank further and further until they finally disappeared. Since that day nobody has ever seen the Gluggs again. BUT BE CAREFUL .......... WHEN YOU EMPTY A BOTTLE YOU CAN HEAR THEM ............. LISTEN!.........
Copyright © 2000 Robert M Tidmarsh |