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Not so long ago in a time when there was still magic in the world, there lived a fierce and powerful witch named Lomberda who plagued the people in the valleys around the Rosengarten.

Lomberda was a weather witch and liked to cause mayhem and mischief. Once, she stirred up the waters of Lake Antermoia behind the Kesselkogel with her broom. The waters churned, black storm clouds gathered, lightning flashed and a powerful summer storm threatened to break over the local pastures, scaring the animals and damaging crops. But the inhabitants in the villages around the Rosengarten knew how to defend themselves against Lomberda. Seeing the storm brewing, the priest in Sèn Jan di Fassa started to ring the bell in his church to ward off Lomberda's magic. Soon all the church bells in the valley began to ring and in no time the storm clouds parted and the weather cleared.


On another occasion, Lomberda broke off a giant boulder on the Tschagerjoch, hurling it in the direction of Welschnofen in the valley below but the "Welschnofener Knödlhafen", the powerful church bell of the village rang out in time and the giant boulder fell short and smashed to pieces at Kölblegg, where the debris can still be seen today .

Another time Lomberda wanted to bring the entire Rosengarten crashing down onto the town of Tiers.  She used her magic to turn the rock into soft, slippery dough (which you can still see in the basin surrounding the Gartl Hütte) but just as she was about to hurl the first rocks into the valley she was spotted by the villagers of St Cyprian. In an instant the mighty church bells of the village rang out, freezing the stone in Lomberda's hands and simultaneously robbing her of her magical powers. With the bells still ringing, a group of villagers climbed up the mountain and surrounded Lomberda. They dragged the weakened witch down the valley to the village, threw her into a copper cauldron and tied her with copper chains to ward off her magic and then put her on a cart to take her to the judge at Karneid Castle.
 
On the way to Karneid, the cunning Lomberda almost got away. The men who were transporting her had stopped at an inn and were sitting in the parlour drinking, feeling very pleased with themselves, leaving Lomberda tied up in the cart outside unguarded. Some curious local children quickly began to gather around the cart to stare at the strange old lady in the copper cauldron.  All Lomberda needed in order to regain her magical powers and break her copper bonds was to make contact with the earth and her captors knew this but the children did not. The witch began pulling faces and hurling insults at the children and they did the same in return. Next she began to growl and spit at the children to try and provoke them and sure enough one of the children, a young boy, picked up a handful of earth and stones and was about to throw it at Lomberda when the innkeeper came out just in time to stop him.

From then on, the farmers never let the witch out of their sight until she came before the judge in Karneid to meet her fate.

 

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