The Bacon Flitch on the Red Tower.

Country of Origin: Austria
Original Language: German
Published in: Sagen aus Österreich
Published by: Ueberreuter

The Bacon Flitch on the Red Tower. At the gates of the Red Tower in Vienna all the roads from the fertile North met to go into the capital. Every day hundreds of wagons and pedestrians passed through and it often involved some pushing and shoving to get inside or outside the city. The rather simple-minded country bumpkins who came by smiled each time they passed the gates for there was a bacon flitch carved out of wood that hung down from the tower which almost looked like a real one so that your mouth would start watering at its sight. Below that flitch of bacon, however, there was an inscription that didn’t contribute much to the honour of the people of Vienna. The verse read:
If there is only a single man,
Who with no guilty conscience can,
Call good and happy his married life,
And who doth not fear his wife -,
He may take this flitch and thrive.
For decades the bacon flitch remained on the tower, got dusty and gray with age and not a single man in Vienna felt up to taking the challenge and claiming it – it really seemed that all people of Vienna feared their wives. One day, however, one man turned up at the city council and proclaimed that he was the single and unchallenged master of his household, that he therefore had the right to claim the bacon flitch and that it was about time that this disgrace to all men be removed for good!
The councillors had no objections and so the necessary preparations for the removal of the bacon flitch were taken. The word spread quickly and by the announced time for the removal a big crowd had gathered at the Red Tower.
Soon a ladder was put up and proudly and confidently, the unchallenged master of his household began climbing the rungs in order to remove this disgrace to all men. However, as he reached the middle of the ladder he started examining the trophy, shook his head and quickly climbed down again. There he stood in front of the people and exclaimed: “That flitch is completely dusty and dirty! Dear fellows, I’m wearing my best clothes and I really can’t get them all dirty. My wife would be furious! Come on, let someone else climb the ladder first to clean that flitch!”
After those words it was dead silent for a moment, then the crowd burst out laughing and the heroic “master of his household” ashamedly backed down and disappeared through the gates.
The flitch of bacon remained at the gates for many more years. The legends know of nobody else who would have claimed it and only as the Red Tower was destroyed, the bacon flitch and the inscription, to the great joy of all husbands in Vienna, disappeared with it.