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Many years ago, a young dairyman named Aratsch spent the summer on the alpine pasture where the colossal Morteratsch glacier now lies behind Pontresina. He loved the daughter Annetta of the richest farmer in Pontresina, but this greedy man turned her down and gave her to the rich owner of the castle above the village. But Aratsch went abroad and became a soldier. Years later, Aratsch returned as an officer. At night he entered Annetta's parents' house, but found his beloved lying on the coffin, surrounded by flowers. He looked at the pale face in silence, then stormed away, swung himself onto his horse, galloped to the alp where he had once tended the animals, and further to the glacier that lay behind it, and spurred his faithful animal to make a gruesome leap into a crevasse. No one has seen him again.

At that time, old Barba Gian was a dairyman on this alp. Since then, he often heard a strange hustle and bustle in his hut on quiet nights. It was as if someone was going from one haystack to the other, fetching the milk, and in between a pitiful female voice could be heard: "Mort Aratsch, Mort Aratsch!" (Aratsch is dead, Aratsch is dead!) – That was Annetta's ghost, which was still tied to that of her lover after her death.. Gian let the ghost do as he pleased, and when he gave up dairying in old age, he recommended his successor to do the same, because since the ghost had been there, the alp had improved, and the cows gave more milk than before, and cattle rarely had accidents anymore..

But the young dairyman was of a rough and hard-hearted disposition, and when the spirit came again and looked into the milking ewes to see if everything was right and in order, and went away from each one and lamented: "Mort Aratsch, Mort Aratsch!", he uttered a terrible curse and banished the poor soul from the hut forever. The Mort Aratsch-maid fled with painful weeping. But from above the dairyman still heard her angry voice: "Schmaladia saja quaist alp e sia paschüra!" (Cursed be this Alp!)

From that moment on, the glacier advanced noticeably from its gorge and in a short time covered the Alp, the hut and the entire side valley, up to where the Alp Nova now feeds its little grass. Only the Boval-Hutte, high up on the glacier, and the Isla Persa (lost island) in the middle of ice and snow, are still reminders of the old Alp. But on quiet nights, one can sometimes still hear the ringing of the herd bells and the lament for Aratsch. The glacier is still called the Morteratsch glacier today in constant remembrance of Aratsch's death. Others say that the Pontresina people, in response to the young herdsman's complaint, wanted to have the spirit banished by a Capuchin. He did free the hut of the spirit, but it also immediately crumbled into ashes and at the same time the glacier began to advance.