The High Peak (Plague Mountain)

The legend says how the residents of Volcano have seized hold of the grassland from the Plague Mountain.

When the Hungarian King, Sigismund, the future German Emperor, once returned in Transylvania, he organized a hunt nearby the Stone of Lovelace. Unfortunately, the wine finished and he could serve but water to his guests, the judges and the clerks of Tara Barsei. Then, he told everyone how wonderful would it be if he had a barrel of forty buckets of wine. The clerk of Vulcan secretly ran home, to get the wine. Back in those times, the citizens of Vulcan still had vineyards, but they were running out of wine. Only the priest’s daughter had three barrels of wine. When the clerk asked the girl for some whine, she didn’t ask for any money, she only wanted honour for her community.

With the whine from the barrels, forty buckets were filled. The barrel was dismantled, the inhabitants of Vulcan mounted on horses, took the buckets of wine and the dismantled barrel and rode carefully up till the mountain. Arrived near a spring source, they assembled the barrel, filled it with wine and embellished it with flowers.

King Solomon was very happy to see this; he could treat royally his guests and boasted the people’s help. As a reward, he offered this mountain to the donor of the wine. She endowed it to the community and the mountain is today among Vulcan’s possession, although the inhabitants of Zarnesti kept claiming it for several years. Since then, the place where King Sigismund partied with his guest is also called „At the tables” (Zu Tischen) and the inhabitants of Vulcan tell the story of King Sigismund and their ancestors every year, while pasturing their cattle on the high peak.