Saint Barbara

Crawling around in the Hallstatt area we find a shrine of a certain Barbara.

Barbara might have looked a bit different.

The location of the shrine is close to the prehistoric saltmines. So to speak of a time be4 todays datamines. ;)   Nevertheless we still need salt and it is won here until today.

A look in direction to the saltmines.

Well our (search) dog (Moogle) is in no way heavenly minded. What he is searching for is usually on the ground or something underneath so he has to digg for it.

There MUST be something underneath. Or would he do that just 4 nothing?

Besides searching for maybe imaginary objects, Moogle won't miss a chance to behave somehow ridiculous. Nevertheless as usual, he get's us completely sidetracked. So .....

... and the tongue hanging out. No selfcontrol. Omg.

... we found this shrine. And the connection of this shrine to the salt mines is that this person or saint: 'Barbara' is/was the patron of the (salt) miners.

So what's the background story? Hm, or is it the front story?

Saint Barbara is the patron saint of miners. The legend says that her father locked her in a tower for three years because she converted to Christianity and that she was baptised there against his will.

Because of this her father cut her head off with his own hands and immediately afterwords he was struck down by lightening and killed.

Saint Barbara lived to be 29 years old. This is commemorated in the traditional miners' uniform with its 29 buttons, three of which must always be kept open.

And according to another source:

At heathen times Mr. Dioskorus wanted his daughter to marry an elegant man. He held her like a precious gemstone. When he was traveling, he put her in a tower with two windows. 

One day when he returned, he found yet a third window in the tower. It was in the wall of the tower room with a marble cross as a sign. 

Barbara confessed that she had installed the cross and the windows to always have a sign of salvation and the mystery of the Holy Trinity to remember. 

The father wanted to kill her on the spot but she escaped  and her cause came before the judges. She was tortured a lot. God healed her wounds. She appeared for a second time in front of the judge's chair, where the father got so wild that she got tortured again and killed by his own hands.

So .... that's what can happen, you walk harmlessly around in nature, your dog diggs a hole and then ... what comes up?

 Things that can make your hair stand up.

The official day for Catholics to remember Barbara is December 4th.