Lauterbrunnen
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Below you find the historical tales of Lauterbrunnen — from old legends to famous local events. Create a free account, pick one as your starting point, your child takes a role inside it.
Historical tales from Lauterbrunnen
Real stories from the past of Lauterbrunnen — pick one and your child takes a role
The spirits over the waters
On a misty October evening in 1779, a child in the Lauterbrunnen vicarage watches Goethe scribble furiously by candlelight after seeing Staubbach Falls. Outside the window, the waterfall's spray forms ghostly shapes that whisper the poem's words before the poet writes them -- as if the spirits of the water have been waiting centuries for someone to give them a voice.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited Staubbach Falls on 9-10 October 1779 during his second Swiss journey, accompanying Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Deeply moved, he composed the poem 'Gesang der Geister uber den Wassern' (Song of the Spirits over the Waters), comparing the human soul to the cycle of water. Franz Schubert set the poem to music multiple times between 1816 and 1821. Staubbach Falls plunges 297 metres in free fall -- the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland. The name Staubbach means 'dust stream,' as the water disperses into fine mist before reaching the ground.
The valley Tolkien dreamed
A child hiking the Lauterbrunnenthal in the footsteps of young Tolkien in 1911 discovers that when the 72 waterfalls catch the light just so, the valley transforms into Rivendell -- and a company of Elves appears, lost on their way home through the Misty Mountains. The child must guide them before dawn, when the spell breaks and the valley returns to its mortal beauty.
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In the summer of 1911, J.R.R. Tolkien, then 19, joined friends on a walking tour through the Bernese Oberland, hiking from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and up to Murren. In Letter 306 (written to his son Michael in 1968), Tolkien made the connection explicit: 'The hobbit's (Bilbo's) journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods, is based on my adventures in 1911.' The sheer-walled valley with cascading waterfalls is widely considered the primary inspiration for Rivendell, the hidden Elven valley in The Lord of the Rings.
Inside the mountain
A child on a school trip to Truemmelbach Falls gets separated from the group and follows the ten waterfalls deeper into the mountain. In the darkness, the meltwater from Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau begins to speak, remembering the glaciers that carved these passages over 20,000 years. Each waterfall tells a different chapter of the mountain's story, and the child must listen to all ten to find the way back out.
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Truemmelbach Falls are a series of ten waterfalls inside the mountain -- the only glacier-fed underground waterfalls in Europe accessible to visitors. Fed by meltwater from the glaciers on the flanks of the Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau, they carry up to 20,000 litres of water per second and transport 20,000 tonnes of rock debris per year. The falls have been thundering through the rock for an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 years. A tunnel lift constructed in 1913 provides access to the upper falls; visitors follow approximately 600 metres of tunnels and galleries carved into the mountain.
The spy on the Schilthorn
During the filming of James Bond at the Schilthorn in 1968, a Muerren child sneaks onto the set and discovers that the revolving restaurant is not just a film prop -- it really does spin to reveal a different Alpine secret in every direction. With 200 peaks visible from the summit, each turn brings a new mystery, and one of them leads to a real adventure that even Bond would envy.
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The Schilthorn rises to 2,970 metres above Muerren. Ernst Feuz of Muerren led the construction of the cable car, which opened in stages from 1965 to June 1967. Feuz conceived the first revolving restaurant in the Alps at the summit, designed by architect Konrad Wolf. While construction was stalled for lack of funds, the James Bond film producers discovered the location for 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (1969) and financed the completion of the revolving platform in exchange for filming rights. George Lazenby starred as Bond. The restaurant kept the name Piz Gloria and today houses a Bond World 007 exhibition.
The railway through the clouds
On the first day the Wengernalp Railway opens in June 1893, a child boards the steam train in Lauterbrunnen and rides up through the clouds to Kleine Scheidegg. Above the cloud line, the Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau stand like guardians, and the Jungfrau herself has a message for the brave: that the highest station in Europe is only the beginning, and the real journey is always the one that goes higher than you thought possible.
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In 1890, Leo Heer-Betrix received an 80-year concession to build a rack railway from Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald via Wengen and Kleine Scheidegg. Construction began on 20 April 1891. The full Wengernalp Railway opened on 20 June 1893 as the world's longest continuous rack-and-pinion railway at 19.11 kilometres. From Kleine Scheidegg, the Jungfrau Railway continues through a 7-kilometre tunnel to the Jungfraujoch at 3,454 metres -- the highest railway station in Europe, opening on 1 August 1912 after 16 years of construction.
Seventy-two voices
Each of Lauterbrunnen's 72 waterfalls has a different voice and a different story to tell. A child who discovers she can hear them must listen to all 72 before sunset to learn the valley's true name -- the one the glaciers whispered 25,000 years ago when they carved these walls of stone and left nothing but clear springs tumbling from the sky.
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The Lauterbrunnen Valley contains 72 waterfalls that cascade over the cliff edges, fed by hanging valleys perched above the main glacial trough. The valley was carved by glaciers over 1,000 metres thick roughly 25,000 years ago, grinding the original V-shaped valley into a flat-floored trough with sheer vertical cliff walls rising 300+ metres. The name Lauterbrunnen was first documented in 1240 in Latin as 'in claro fonte' (by the clear spring). The folk etymology translates 'lauter' as 'nothing but,' yielding 'nothing but springs' -- a fitting description.
The Walser girl of Murren
In 1300, a young Walser girl arrives on the cliff-edge terrace of Muerren with her family from the Loetschental, homesick for the valley they left behind. But the mountain goats show her a secret path along the precipice, and the eagles teach her to read the wind. She discovers that home is not the valley you came from, but the one where you can see the stars reflected in the snow of the Jungfrau.
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Around 1300, the Lord of Turn began settling Walser-speaking people -- migrants from the Loetschental in the Valais -- in the highlands of the Lauterbrunnen Valley. The Walser were experienced Alpine settlers accustomed to farming at high altitudes. By 1346, the villages of Lauterbrunnen, Gimmelwald, Muerren, Sichellauenen, and Trachsellauenen had established village governments. Muerren perches on a narrow terrace at 1,650 metres above sea level, on the cliff edge high above the valley, with views across to the Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau. It remains car-free to this day.
Byron's pale horse
Lord Byron sees a ghost in the Staubbach spray -- the pale horse of the Apocalypse, streaming its white tail in the wind. A child standing at the base of the falls must convince the brooding poet that the shape in the mist is not a sign of doom but a gift from the mountain -- a horse made of water and light that carries not death, but the promise of a poem that will outlive them both.
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Lord Byron visited Lauterbrunnen in September 1816 with companion John Cam Hobhouse and described Staubbach Falls as resembling 'the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind, such as might be conceived would be that of the pale horse on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse.' His Alpine experiences inspired the dramatic poem 'Manfred' (1817). The Staubbach's water disperses into a fine mist long before reaching the ground, swaying in the wind like a veil. At 297 metres, it is the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland.
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