Literature about the Lungau from
Michael Dengg
The Heimathaus through the ages
Brauchtum und Volkskultur aus dem Lungau von
Michael Dengg
Heimathaus Dengg through the ages
The builder of our historic building was Michael Dengg , a well-known author and pioneer of the Lungau folk tales, who was born on March 28, 1879 in Plierscherkeusche.
Michael Dengg wrote books about local customs and collected countless folk tales. His works "Lungauer Volksleben" (1913) and "Lungauer Volkssagen" (1922) are still considered standard literature in folklore.
He studied the masonry trade, his specialty being house stoves, economy stoves and ovens. Michael Dengg also worked at Mauterndorf Castle and Moosham Castle. In 1937 he, instead of the dilapidated Plierscherkeusche, built Heimathaus Dengg.
This house was taken over by his nephew Michael with his wife Nina in 2019 and restored with love. Great importance was attached to preserving the external appearance of 1937 and letting the story of Michael Dengg and his home live on.
It was important to the young couple to offer their guests every comfort of modern times and to equip the apartments with high-quality furniture and equipment in order to take away all worries of everyday life and therfore make life easier. However, time still stands still in a special exhibition space. Follow in the footsteps of Anton Josef Ritter von Kenner, the first summer visitor to Heimathaus Dengg, marvel at the works of art of this famous painter and professor from the Vienna School of Applied Arts and experience the house through the ages.
Lungau folk life - a book about the Lungau and its people
Book about the Lungau and its people - Lungauer Volksleben
In 1914 Michael Dengg published his first work "Lungauer Volksleben", a book in which one gets an overview of the customs in Lungau on the one hand, and on the other hand, in sensitive descriptions, an insight into the work and way of life of the Lungau population. In an appendix he describes the Lungau farmhouse and closes this chapter with a collection of inscriptions and house sayings from the Lungau.
Peter Rosegger also recognized the work and achievements of Michael Dengg. On February 27, 1914 he wrote the following lines to Lungau:
“Dear Mr. Dengg! Thank you for the Lungau folk life, which interests me very much and which will be recommended in the Heimgarten. I believe that you have earned yourself a great deal of merit in this, which is all the greater as you have wrested it from your arduous occupation. Congratulations from your devoted Peter Rosegger. ” * Salzburger Vollkszeitung from 17.3984
Lungau folktales - a book about legends and customs from the Lungau
Book about sagas and customs from the Lungau - Lungau folk tales
Eight years after the publication of "Lungauer Volksleben", Michael Dengg finished his "Lungauer Volkssagen". He himself writes about this work, a collection of as yet unknown and unpublished Alpine sagas:
“This book of legends, which comes from the small but charming Alpine jewel, Lungau, contains an abundance of the most beautiful, as yet unknown and unpublished Alpine sagas, most of which I have drawn directly from the people. I succeeded in this all the more easily as I, myself from Lungau, grew intimately connected with its people. The fact that in earlier years I was visiting the farmers a lot and heard a lot of the strangest stories and legends being told by old people in particular, which I would otherwise never have heard and therefore would not have been recorded, came to me when I was writing this Book very useful. But my dear compatriots, the people of Lungau, also helped bravely with this collecting work and actively supported me in the process. Quite often, when I had only a vague idea of a legend and no longer knew exactly what to think or write about it, I went to the farmhouse, sat down among the farmers, and they always told me again helped out of my misery. They told me the sagas and stories that they had taken over and told from Ahnl and Similarl, and in addition to the old ones that were already known, new ones, as yet unknown to me, were added again and again, so that my collection of sagas gradually increased and grew to a height until it reached the size of this book. ”* Lungauer Volkssagen, 3rd edition, Mauterndorf 1968, p. 5.
Dengg's collection of legends also met with great interest from various folklorists. Prof. Dr. Burgstaller once wrote to the author: “I read your book, Lungauer Volkssagen with great interest. It is far more than a book of legends. It is a history and a cultural history of your landscape. It contains an abundance of extremely important ethnographical, religious and social historical evidence that is of the greatest value for every ethnologist. ”* Lungauer Volksleben, op. Cit., P. 316.