Transhelvetica
A Swiss Fable in pictures



This is the fable of how they drew the border between two Swiss cantons, Canton Glarus and Canton Uri (told in my words).
The leaders of two cantons wanted to work out how to decide the border so a challenge was announced. The strongest man from each of the canton’s main towns was chosen and it was agreed that at the rooster’s morning call each man would set out and walk toward the other, where they would meet would be declared the border. The man from canton Uri thought it better to starve his rooster so that it would wake early from hunger. The man from canton Glarus thought the opposite and fed his rooster well so that it had a good sleep. That night the old lady who lived in the house of the well fed chicken woke and disturbed everyone including the rooster and so in the morning the rooster overslept. The desperate Glarner sat watching the sunrise whilst waiting for his rooster to awaken and when it did he ran all the way up the mountains toward his adversary, When finally meeting him he begged him for more land. The Urner, having gained so much land agreed and so they made a new pact that however far he could carry him on his back, in the direction where he had come, he could regain that land. Already exhausted, he carried him far but eventually he weakened and needed water, he knelt at the river’s edge to drink but with the Urner still on his back, he could no longer get up and so he perished.
The river where he died now marks the border between the two cantons and the river remains a place of honour dedicated to the man who fought so hard for his canton.