The soldier and the sheep of Membruggen

It was a relief for the farm in Membruggen when the Austrian soldiers arrived. Though they wore uniforms and carried weapons, they proved to be neither rude nor cruel. The farmers welcomed them into their stables and homes, and soon a kind of friendship formed between the farmers and soldiers.

Yet there was one soldier who stood remarkably apart. His name has been lost to time, but the story of his power remained. This soldier possessed a gift no other seemed to have: he could command animals as if they understood a human tongue. It could not pass unnoticed.

One day the soldier approached the sheep house door, knocked upon it, and shouted: ’Everyone out and onto the roof!’ The sheep stormed out like a wild army, leaping over one another and following each other up onto the roof of the farmhouse. There they stood, panting and wild, until the soldier went outside again and called to them that they could come down. Then they rushed back inside, seeking shelter.

The farmer was startled at first by this spectacle, but soon grasped the soldier’s trick: it was theater, entertainment, a way of demonstrating his power. And the soldier used this ability in a very deliberate manner. Every time he made the sheep climb onto the roof, he received from the farmer a large pot of beer as a reward. It became a ritual: the soldier called out, the sheep obeyed, and the farmer paid.

But not everyone found this performance acceptable. In the barracks where the soldiers were housed, jealousy began to grow. Another soldier, filled with ambition and greed, watched as the magical soldier received ever more beer and attention. He too wanted wealth, power, and recognition. And so he decided to imitate what his comrade did — without knowing the secret of his power.

On a cold morning, the jealous soldier decided to seize his chance. He crept to the sheep house door, just as his comrade did, knocked, and shouted with all his might: ’Let them go up on the roof now!’ Not a single sheep moved. Silence filled the air. No sound of hooves, no bleating of frightened animals. Nothing.

In desperation he tried again. And again. Each time he shouted, using the same words, with the same intensity — yet not a single sheep obeyed. It was as if the animals could not hear him, or worse, as if they would not obey him. And as those watching this scene understood, the jealous soldier grasped that it was not about words. His comrade’s power was not something one could steal or imitate by simply saying the same thing.

Rather than admit defeat, the jealous soldier locked the sheep house door and drank the pot of beer himself. But the beer did not taste of victory, and no one in the area of Membruggen ever saw him return to that stable door — nor did anyone ever hear of him as one who possessed power over animals.