The washerwoman of the Olkerbach

The figure was a tall, stately maiden in dazzling white garments. The people called her the washerwoman of the Olkerbach. Sometimes she washed snow-white linen in the pool below the fall, sometimes she walked up and down along the edge of the brook or among the hazel thickets, which then stood very close together.

Anyone who knows the spot understands why it should be there. A gorge with a waterfall makes noises that could be anything, the water moves white in the dark, and the bushes stand thick enough to hide someone who is not there.

A woman from Olk once went into the Olkerbach on the feast of the Assumption, during vespers, to gather hazelnuts. When she reached the pool of the Scheeß, a maiden in snow-white clothing suddenly appeared on the right bank of the brook, wearing a chain of gold and silver coral about her neck.

She reproached the woman gravely and bitterly for profaning the high feast. Seized with fear and remorse, the woman ran home on the spot, into vespers.

Worse befell a young man from Kordel at the same place, who had set up at Rosport as a master tailor. On the feast of the Nativity of Mary he had gone with friends into the Rechenberg wood to gather nuts. While gathering he became separated from his companions and strayed into the hazels on the slopes above the Olkerbach.

There he suddenly saw a tall maiden in snow-white clothing, of wonderful beauty, walking up and down on a meadow below the pool on the right bank. She wore a golden crown on her head. Her garments glittered with gold and silver, and a wonderful, indescribable radiance shone from her. The young man asked her whether she had perhaps lost her way.

Both encounters fall on a feast of Our Lady, and both concern people who spent such a day gathering nuts rather than sitting in church. That is no accident. The maiden at the waterfall guards not the water but the calendar.