The Face of Onuphrius in the Rock

An almost forgotten Rigi Mountain Legend
recorded by Josef Doppmann

If you walk from Heiligkreuz, you reach Stöckalp and then over the Sachslerbrücke, the restaurant Felsentor. Here an impressive and unique view opens up to the astonished observer. Like a natural gate, the rock formations, joined together by gigantic forces, grants the hiker passage. In the so-called Hochstein, the highest of the giant blocks wedged into each other, the petrified face of brother Onuphrius can be seen to this day, who more than 400 years ago – if you believe the legend – got the little chapel bell from Heiligkreuz. Pensive, with his hood pulled into his forehead and his flowing beard falling far below his chest, he bows his head to the hiker, who walks on in amazement.

The last recluse on the Rigiweg
One hundred years ago it was reported that Onuphrius Dahinden, who lived in the hermitage near Heiligkreuz around 1800, took up his rare name, which was not very common in the area around the Lake Lucerne. While he was the last hermit in the mid-16th century and devoted to the chapel service on the Rigi path, Brother Onuphrius is said to have been more of a wise advisor to people and animals rather than a servant of the church and thus attracted the attention and admiration of the Weggis population. When fog covered the quiet village on the lake and a mild autumn sun flooded the Nagelfluh towers at Hochstein with its golden light, the little chapel bell at Heiligkreuz often remained silent.

He communicated with wildlife
Brother Onuphrius roamed through the sunlit paths of the Rigi and collected medicinal herbs and berries. While he was drying them on warmed-up rocks, according to the recounts of the alpine farmers, he had quiet conversations with the animals. On cold and snowy winter days, he brought hay into the caves formed by the gigantic boulders at Felsentor. Often during his long life, he had listened to the sounds of the wild animals and learned to understand their language. Brother Onuphrius warned deer and fox against the hunter’s shotgun, and the badger and hare followed his advice and found safe shelter. To this day, the Weggis hunters are said to need special skill and the finest intuition to track down or even slay an animal in the area of Felsentor and its surrounding. So, it is not surprising that the little bell at Heiligkreuz was often only able to fulfil its ringing duty sporadically. Brother Onuphrius was not angered by this, neither by the farmers of Klausenberg, Sentiberg and Katzenschwanz, nor by the parish priest of Weggis. The rural comunity were spared many a moral dilemma if they did not lay down their tools three times a day for salute and prayer, and the village priest appreciated the wise fraternal advice which he was allowed to seek at any time in the hermitage at Heiligkreuz or on the sun terrace around the Hochstein. Farmers from previous centuries liked to tell about the time when people lived a long and happy life high above Lake Lucerne without pills or injections. Whenever the people felt unwell or worried, Brother Onuphrius knew what to do, and his herbs relieved all pain. According to the legend, Brother Onuphrius lived for well over a hundred years and performed his chapel service on Heiligkreuz for eighty years.

Mysterious Death
On a golden October day, high above the fog at his beloved Nagelfluh tower, he was seen by the alpine farmer from nearby Romiti, for the last time. At midnight of that autumn day a light flickered in the Heiligkreuz Chapel, and as if drawn by an invisible ghostly hand, the little bell sent its bright sounds wailing over the sleeping mountain farms. The following morning, the village priest knocked in vain at the Capuchin’s hermitage, searching for the elderly brother in the warm autumn sun by Felsentor. Such silence lay over the Rigi forest that even the gentle falling of a leaf could be heard. The rustle of the waterfall at the wooden footbridge below the Felsentor fell silent, the birds remained silent. Now it was known on the Rigi heights that Onuphrius was dead. His tall, upright figure passed away like the warm light of the setting sun. Now the fog began to rise and swallowed up the chapel and the hermitage. Ghostly, the grey vapor clouds drifted and covered the narrow Rigisteig path that became the downfall of many a hiker who had not been familiar with the way. The fog devoured the bright colors of the berries and the pale gold of the beech leaves and swelling around the boulders at the Hochstein. And the mist enveloped them, which bound them in mute mourning to say goodbye to Brother Onuphrius. Pearls of dew detached themselves from the damp haze and melted with their tears.

Grey fog and a lamenting chapel bell
For seven consecutive days, there was now a fog between the upper Sentiberg and the Wichmatt as it had never been seen since. The cold, impenetrable grey weighed heavily on the people, who now remained helpless in their scanty dwellings and prayed. The game ducked in the overhanging bushes and starved. And again, the sound of the midnight chapel bell from Heiligkreuz penetrated eerily into the night. Night after night, until after seven oppressive days and long sorrowful nights the liberating morning dawned. A lavish morning sun flooded the Rigi heights and the small dreamy village by the lake with its infinite light and breathed new life into the frozen souls.

The face appears in the Felsentor
The awakening in the deep blue of this autumn morning was like climbing a peak after hiking through the night. And now it was there, the face of Onuphrius fossilized in the sunlit Rock near the Felsentor. The hood pulled into his forehead, with his flowing beard he bowed his old head to those humble men whose satisfaction he had shared for countless years. Reverently astonished, his eyes hung on the stone portrait of this beloved brother, who had so miraculously left with the setting sun. The little bell at Heiligkreuz remained silent until another brother did the chapel service and rang the bell three times a day to greet. No doctor could attest the death of this strange Capuchin brother, no priest could bury his bones. So it happens that his name is not to be found in any registry of the dead or in any yearbook of the Weggis parish. To this day, however, Onuphrius' petrified face greets the attentive Rigi hiker from the Boulder at Felsentor, and nothing can liberate the depressed soul to this day more than the infinite light of a sunrise on our Rigi.

–
From the Weggiser reading book “Cheschtene und Fiige”, Kur- und Verkehrsverein 1993.