Geschichten aus Steiermark

"Geschichten aus Steiermark" by Peter Rosegger is a collection of regional short stories written in the late 19th century. Set in the Styrian Alps and forests, the tales portray peasant life, faith, superstition, and the raw force of nature through villagers, woodcutters, herders, and at times local gentry. They blend vivid nature writing, folklore, and quiet moral reflection. The opening of the collection presents three contrasting pieces. In Das Felsenbildnis, a family living beneath a cliff that resembles the Madonna and Child faces a spring avalanche: the father survives with his baby when the hut is blasted intact across a stream, the mother dies, and the devoted, simple brother who tried to fortify the slope is later found buried—an austere picture of mountain fate and resilience. In Föhn, the boy Lenzerl endures a raging thaw-wind and floods after his first Communion; he is stranded asleep in a tree above a torrent and is rescued by a woodcutter and his anxious mother, a tender story of childlike faith amid danger. In Franzosenrummel, an aristocratic family flees invading French troops to a high farm, where comic and touching clashes of class and custom unfold as the refined daughter bonds with the farmer’s lively girl and news of the enemy’s approach draws nearer.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.