Tradition: Czech Mythology
Alternative Names: The Frischhof Giant Legend
Category: Giant
The Myth
The legend of The Black Book is set at the Frischhof farm in the Bohemian Forest, where giants once roamed the countryside. One holiday, the farmer’s wife went to church with the farmhands, leaving the farmer alone at home. While he was praying, a group of giants arrived at the farmyard, tore down his fence, and demanded his money.
When the farmer, Frisch, refused to surrender his wealth, some of the giants seized him while the others ransacked his rooms and chests. After gathering their loot, the giants attempted to flee. Frisch then opened a mysterious book of curses kept in his house and read a spell from its pages. The magic immediately immobilized the robbers, freezing them in place so that they could neither escape nor move again.
According to the legend, the frozen giants eventually became the great mountains surrounding Frischwinkel. Their transformation explained the origin of the mountainous landscape around the farm and preserved the memory of the giants who had once terrorized its inhabitants.
The magical book itself eventually met an undignified end. Because its black, sooty appearance made it resemble a piece of bacon, a kitchen girl mistook it for food and threw it into a pot of boiling soup. The book cooked away completely, destroying the source of the farmer’s extraordinary power. Thus, the same legend that explains the origin of the surrounding mountains also recounts the accidental destruction of the book that had enabled Frisch to defeat the giants.
Sources
“Das Schwarzbuch.” SAGEN.at – Böhmerwald-Sagen. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/tschechien/watzlik/schwarzbuch.html