Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: The Venetian
Category: Dwarf
The Myth
The Little Man of Venice was a small, dark-haired man who regularly traveled from Venice to the high Alpine pastures of Glarus. He was an excellent gold seeker, spending his summers among the shepherds while searching the mountain rocks and streams for glittering stones. The shepherds found him strange but entertaining, and he would share their milk, cheese, whey, and hayloft while they tended their cattle. The little Venetian was remarkably successful at his work. He would climb among the rocks and search through the mountain streams, gathering stones that caught his eye, and within only eight days he could fill seven sacks with them. Once the sacks were full, he would mysteriously disappear, only to return again and begin collecting more stones. The shepherds eventually decided to play a trick on him. They secretly hid one of his sacks and waited to see what he would do. When the little man returned, he immediately knew that one of his sacks was missing and calmly asked whether the shepherds would retrieve it or whether he should do so himself. The shepherds laughed and challenged him to find it. Without hesitation, the little Venetian climbed a steep slope straight to the hiding place and returned with the missing sack, astonishing the shepherds with his uncanny knowledge.
When the summer ended and the first cold winds began sweeping over the mountains, the little man prepared to return to Venice. Before leaving, he told the shepherds that if any of them ever came to Venice, he would reward him with a sack filled with pure silver. Most of the shepherds soon forgot the promise, but one poor shepherd remembered it. He had a sickly wife and many children and knew exactly what he could do with a sack of silver. After the herds came down from the Alps, he set off on the long journey toward Venice. When he finally reached the city, he had no idea where the little Venetian lived and did not even know his name. As he wandered sadly through the narrow streets, however, someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder. A small, elegantly dressed gentleman greeted him warmly and immediately began asking about Glarus and the shepherds he had known there. The shepherd recognized him as the little man from the Alpine pasture. The Venetian welcomed him into his magnificent home, a marble palace whose walls were so polished that they gleamed like mirrors. A dark stream flowed outside, white doves flew above it, and the shepherd was given everything he could desire, including a rich red wine that seemed to fill him with strength. Yet despite all this luxury, the shepherd could not stop thinking about his wife and children. He became increasingly homesick and longed to see his distant home again.
The Venetian understood his sadness and led him into a room the shepherd had never seen before. On its wall hung a magnificent mirror, and when the little man told him to look into it, the shepherd saw Glarus as clearly as though it were standing on the other side of the wall. He could even see his own house, where his wife was washing their child with tears in her eyes because she missed him. The Venetian then offered to send him home with either gold or silver. The shepherd remembered the promise made on the Alpine pasture and asked only for the sack of silver he had been promised. The Venetian allowed him to enter his treasury, where the shepherd filled a sack with silver. Before he left, the little man warned him to guard the sack carefully and, if he had to sleep at an inn, to place it beneath his head. The shepherd began his journey home, but one evening, still far from Switzerland, he stopped at a small Italian inn. Exhausted from the journey, he placed the heavy sack beneath his head and fell asleep.
When he awoke, he was no longer in Italy. He was lying in his own bed in Glarus, hearing the familiar clock in his house and his goats outside. For a moment he thought the entire journey to Venice had been a dream, but then he felt something hard beneath his head and discovered that the sack of silver was still there. His wife and children rushed to him, and the poor shepherd’s fortune was transformed. He became a wealthy man, and his descendants remained respected in Glarus. They became known as the Venetian people, in memory of the mysterious little man who had brought their ancestor his fortune.
Sources
“Das Venedigermännlein.” SAGEN.at – Traditionelle Sagen aus der Schweiz. Reproduced by SAGEN.at.
https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/allgemein/venediger_maennlein.html