Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: The Strong Farmhand, The Strong Servant of Erlach
Category: Giant
The Myth
The Strong Servant is the central figure of a Swiss legend set in Erlach, a town on Lake Biel near Mount Jolimont. During the time when a fortified castle stood in the town, its lord was notorious for his cruelty. He forced his servants to perform exhausting labour, beat those who failed to satisfy him, and set his vicious dogs upon the weakest workers. Some servants died under his brutal treatment, and the tyrant had their bodies thrown into the castle moat.
One evening, an unusually tall and powerful stranger arrived at the castle and offered his services. The lord tested his strength by challenging him to lift a boulder weighing more than three hundred pounds. The stranger instead hurled the enormous stone high into the air, where it buried itself deeply in the ground when it fell. Impressed, the lord hired him, initially treating him well before returning to his usual cruelty.
The lord next ordered the servant to fetch a cartload of wood from the nearby Voweren Forest using four strong white horses. The servant overloaded the cart, but the two front horses refused to pull it. He unharnessed them, tied them behind the cart, and pulled the entire load himself. When the remaining horses also refused to move on Erlach’s uneven cobblestones, he unharnessed them as well and dragged the heavily laden cart all the way to the castle courtyard. The lord watched in astonishment and grew afraid that the stranger’s extraordinary strength might one day threaten his authority.
Determined to destroy the servant, the lord ordered his workers to dig a deep well, making them labour day and night. When the well was sufficiently deep, the strong servant persuaded the others to climb out, claiming he would finish the work alone. Once they were safely above ground, the lord had a massive stone block rolled over the opening and dropped into the well, hoping to crush the servant at the bottom. Instead, the block immediately sprang back out, and the servant called up mockingly that the lord would not trick him so easily.
Terrified, the lord fled into the castle. The strong servant climbed out of the well and pursued him inside. A pitiful cry was heard, and afterward neither the tyrant nor the servant was ever seen again. The legend leaves their ultimate fate unexplained, ending with the mysterious disappearance of both men and the downfall of the cruel lord who had tormented the people of Erlach.
Sources
“Der starke Knecht.” SAGEN.at – Schweizer Sagen. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/allgemein/knecht.html