ere was a
miraculous picture of the Virgin placed in a mural niche, before which
the pious herdsmen and devout inhabitants of the valley worshipped under
the vault of heaven. {13} A miraculous (or miracle-working) picture was
always more or less rare and important; the present site, therefore,
seems to have been long one of peculiar sanctity. Possibly the name Fee
may point to still earlier Pagan mysteries on the same site.

As regards the fifteen small chapels, the writer says they illustrate the
fifteen mysteries of the Psalter, and were built in 1709, each
householder of the Saas-Fee contributing one chapel. He adds that
Heinrich Andenmatten, afterwards a brother of the Society of Jesus, was
an especial benefactor or promoter of the undertaking. One of the
chapels, the Ascension (No. 12 of the series), has the date 1709 painted
on it; but there is no date on any other chapel, and there seems no
reason why this should be taken as governing the whole series.

Over and above this, there exists in Saas a tradition, as I was told
immediately on my arrival, by an English visitor, that the chapels were
built in consequence of a flood, but I have vainly endeavoured to trace
this story to an indigenous source.

The internal evidence of the wooden figures themselves--nothing analogous
to which, it should be remembered, can be found in the chapel of
1687--points to a much earlier date. I have met with no school of
sculpture belonging to the early part of the eighteenth century to which
they can be plausibly assigned; and the supposition that they are the
work of some unknown local genius who was not led up to and left no
successors may be dismissed, for the work is too scholarly to have come
from any one but a trained sculptor. I refer of course to those figures
which the artist must be supposed to have executed with his own hand, as,
for example, the central figure of the Crucifixion group and those of the
Magdalene and St. John. The greater number of the figures were probably,
as was suggested to me by Mr. Ranshaw, of Lowth, executed by a local
woodcarver from models in clay and wax furnished by the artist himself.
Those who examine the play of line in the hair, mantle, and sleeve of the
Magdalene in the Crucifixion group, and contrast it with the greater part
of the remaining draperies, will find little hesitation in concluding
that this was the case, and will ere long readily distinguish the two
hands from which th