Schöllenen Gorge () is a gorge formed by the upper Reuss in the Swiss canton of Uri between the towns of Göschenen to the north and Andermatt to the south. It provides access to the St Gotthard Pass.
Enclosed by sheer granite walls, its road and railway require several spectacular bridges and tunnels, of which the most famous is a stone bridge known as the Teufelsbrücke ("Devil's Bridge").
Geology
The lower Urseren marks the boundary of the Aar massif with the autochthonous sediment of the Gotthard nappe ("Urseren-Zone"). In Altkirch quarry, on the southern end of the gorge, Triassic and Jurassic sediments are exposed. In the Schöllenen Gorge (at the Urnerloch tunnel), the Reuss enters the cristalline Aar massif (Aar granite), the gorge itself being an exemplary late alpine fluvial Water gap.
History
Early history
The name of the gorge is from Rumantsch *scalinae ("stairs, steps"); recorded in German as Schellenden in 1420. It formed the upper limit of Alemannic settlement in the Alps prior to the 12th century, and the border between the bishoprics of Constance and Raetia Curensis.
The gorge appears to have been passable by a difficult footpath by the mid-12th century. This path was forced to avoid the southern part of the gorge, taking a steep ascent from Brüggliwaldboden, climbing above 1,800 m before descending to Hospental via Bäzberg. The eponymous scalinae presumably referred to steps hewn into the rock to facilitate the ascent.
The gorge was first opened up as a bridle path with the construction of a wooden bridge in ca. 1230 (before 1234). This was of great strategic importance because it opened the Gotthard Pass, with historical consequences both regionally and to the Italian politics of the Holy Roman Empire.
The original bridle path across Schöllenen was realised by means of a wooden ledger attached to the rock wall, known as Twärrenbrücke, and a wooden bridge across the gorge, recorded as stiebende Brugge ("spray bridge") in 1306. The Twärrenbrücke (from twer "across, athwart") rested on beams laid across the gorge. A tradition imagining it as supported by hanging chains developed only after its collapse in the 18th century. The technology associated with the construction of the Twärrenbrücke is attributed to the Walser, who are known to have begun settlement in Urseren still in the 12th century. 16th-century historiography attributes the construction of the bridge to one Heini (Heinrich), blacksmith in Göschenen. Robert Schedler published a historical novel surrounding the construction of the Schöllenen bridle path, Der Schmied von Göschenen, in 1919.
Devil's Bridge legend
In Early Modern Switzerland, a legend developed which attributed the construction of the bridge to the Devil. This is a motif attached to numerous old bridges in Europe (see Devil's Bridge for a comparative account). The name Teiffels Brucken ("Devil's Bridge", modern German: Teufelsbrücke) is first recorded in 1587.
The legend is related by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1716). According to Scheuchzer, he was told a local legend according to which the people of Uri recruited the Devil for the difficult task of building the bridge. The Devil requested to receive the first thing to pass the bridge in exchange for his help. To trick the Devil, who expected to receive the soul of the first man to pass the bridge, the people of Uri sent across a dog by throwing a piece of bread, and the dog was promptly torn to pieces by the Devil. Enraged at having been tricked the Devil went to fetch a large rock to smash the bridge, but, carrying the rock back to the bridge, he came across a holy man who "scolded him" (der ihn bescholten) and forced him to drop the rock, which could still be seen on the path below Göschenen. A modern retelling was published by Meinrad Lienert, Schweizer Sagen und Heldengeschichten (1915). According to Lienert's version, a goat was sent across the bridge instead of a dog, and instead of the holy man, the Devil, when he was taking a break exhausted from carrying the rock, came across an old woman who marked the rock with a cross, forcing the Devil to abandon it and flee.
The legend does not appear to have existed before the 16th century, and its origin in local tradition is uncertain. Lauf-Belart (1924) surmised that the name Teufelsbrücke was originally due to an erroneous interpretation by learned travellers, which only in the 17th century gave rise to the local legend involving the Devil.