Englisch

The mountain ghost (Legend from Siegen)

Mining has flourished here since time immemorial. Everywhere in the mountains, the hard-working miners found large quantities of pure ore. Sometimes, when the ore miners were hard at work loading their small carts full of the glittering rock, they heard a mysterious knocking on the walls here and there. The miners knew this very well. A little ghost, the mountain troll, was there and showed them new ore deposits. And if the miners then dug away the rock at this spot, rich treasures were revealed to them.
There was one thing the benevolent ghost could not tolerate, namely whistling. The miners knew this and so they carried out their work quietly and silently. Once, the miner had shown a man he was particularly fond of an almost immeasurable wealth of ore. In order to retrieve the marvellous treasure, the miner had to build a bridge over a deep hole before he could reach it. The little boy promised to help him. The work progressed swiftly under the expert hands of both of them. Soon the bridge was finished and the miner stood in amazement in front of the rich silver deposit.
Overjoyed, the lucky man forgot himself, clapped his hands and whistled and whistled. Then the mountain troll bumped into him in horror and anger and suddenly disappeared into the rock. A violent thundering and crashing began, which became more and more violent and came closer and closer. Then the miner realised what he had caused. The footbridge he was standing on was already swaying. A loud rumble sounded behind him. He couldn’t stay any longer if he didn’t want to lose his life. So he rushed towards the exit and had barely seen daylight when the whole pit shook violently and collapsed with a loud crash.
The careless man stood there, brightly lit by the evening sun, and stared at the entrance to the shaft.

Then he slowly walked home, glad that he could still save his bare life.