for children. Companions of Saint Nicholas Schmutzli is one of the Companions of Saint Nicholas. He has a dark or sooty complexion and accompanies St. Nicholas on his gift-giving rounds. He carries switches and a sack in which he puts bad children. In the French-speaking cantons he is known as Père Fouettard ("Father Whipper"). Schnabelgeiss, a tall goat with a beak in the Ubersitz festival. Tatzelwurm (or Stollenwurm) combines the features of a cat and a serpent, allegedly photographed by a Swiss photographer named Balkin in 1934. Türst, the Wild Hunter. Undines, water spirits or elementals from the writings of Paracelsus. They are usually portrayed in Swiss fairy tales as young maidens who love to sit or dance near brooks and rivers or in marshes among the reeds. They have wavy golden hair with a wreath of pond lilies, and are clothed in white mist, for which reason they are also known as mist maidens. They do not like to be seen but may be encountered on moonlit nights. There are also male undines, though less frequent, and in one tale there is even a king of the undines who brings a human princess down to his crystal palace beneath a lake to make her his bride. Both male and female undines are able to disguise themselves as mortals, though their fairy nature may be revealed by their green clothing which will always feel wet. Vogel Gryff ("Griffin Bird") Legends The legends of Switzerland include historic and semi-mythic people and places that shaped the history and culture of the nation. Christianization Saint Gall, an Irish monk who in the early 7th century helped introduce Christianity to eastern Switzerland. The Abbey of St. Gall is believed to have been built on the site of his hermitage. Magnus of Füssen, a missionary saint in southern Germany. He was active in the 7th or 8th century and is considered the founder of St. Mang's Abbey, Füssen. Saint Fridolin, patron of Glarus. He is traditionally believed to be an Irish saint who founded Säckingen Abbey, Baden, in the 6th or 7th century. According to legend, he converted a landowner who left his estates, now the Canton of Glarus, to Fridolin. When the landowner's brother took Fridolin to court over the gift, Fridolin raised the landowner from the dead to confirm its legitimacy. Old Swiss Confederacy Teufelsbrücke is a bridge which was supposedly erected by