Peststeig

Why Peststeig? During the Thirty Years' War in 1934, Kalkstein was also ravaged by the plague, killing 31 people from Kalkstein. That was about half of the population. Tradition has it that the plague was brought in by two local pilgrims who had insisted on making a pilgrimage to Altötting in Bavaria. According to popular legend, only one person survived. On Corpus Christi Day, this person, homesick for human company and communal worship, came along the mountain slope to the Schöneggerhof, from where the entire main valley can be seen, to watch the parish procession. The people of Außervillgraten know differently: the only survivors were an old woman and a goat. After the plague had died down, this woman came to the Schöneggerhof with the goat on a rope and called down into the valley, “I and the goat are alive!”