Tradition: Czech Mythology
Alternative Names: —
Category: River dweller
The Myth
Once, a pitch breaker was resting beside the Devil’s Lake when a small figure suddenly appeared before him. The stranger was hardly taller than a three-year-old child, but had an elderly face and a long, wet, moss-covered beard that hung down to the ground. He complained that his wife had been stolen and begged the pitch breaker to help him find her.
Moved by the little Schratel’s desperate pleas, the kind-hearted man agreed to accompany him. Within a few hours, they reached a strange, wild, expansive lake. The Schratel told the pitch breaker to wait at the shore while he dived into the water, promising that he would retrieve his wife when the water turned red.
The little figure plunged into the lake. Immediately, the water turned bloody, churned and seethed, and a terrible roar arose from its depths. The pitch breaker waited a long time, but the Schratel never returned.
Eventually, the man went to a nearby village and asked where he was. To his astonishment, the villagers told him he was in Tyrol. He then had to make the long journey back to the Bohemian Forest alone, wearing his wooden shoes.
Sources
Sagen.at. (n.d.). The journey to the Tyrol. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/tschechien/watzlik/reiseinstirol.html