Many years ago, on the alp, where the colossal Morteratsch- glacier now lies behind Pontresina, a young herd named Aratsch summered the village cows. He loved the daughter Annetta of the richest farmer in Pontresina, but this one? a greedy man? cut it off and gave it 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 death shrine, surrounded by flowers. He looked silently at the pale face, then he stormed away, mounted his horse, sprang to the alp where he had once tended, and on to the glacier that lay beyond, and spurred his faithful animal to leap terribly into a crevasse . Nobody saw him again.

Old Barba Gian used to do dairy farming on this alp. Since then, often on quiet nights, he would hear strange fussing in his hut, it was as if someone was going from one jar to the other to get the milk, and in between a pitiful, female voice sounded: "Mort Aratsch, Mort Aratsch!" (Aratsch is dead, Aratsch is dead!) ? This was Annetta's spirit, still attached to her lover's after her death. Gian let the spirit do as he pleases and when he gave up being a dairyman in old age, he recommended his successor to do the same, because since the spirit had been there the alp had gotten better and the cows gave more milk than before, and accidents rarely happened more a piece of cattle.

But the young herdsman was rough and hard-hearted, and when the ghost came back and looked into the milk peas to see if everything was all right, went away from everyone and complained: "Mort Aratsch, Mort Aratsch!" he did one terrible curse and banished the poor soul from the hut forever. The Mort Aratsch-maiden escaped weeping in pain. But the herdsman heard her angry voice from above: »Schmaladia saja quaist alp e sia paschura!« (Curse this alp!)

From that hour on, the glacier advanced visibly from its gorge and quickly covered the alp, the hut and the entire side valley, up to where the Alp Nova now nourishes its little grass. Only the Boval-H hut, high up on the glacier, and the Isla persa (lost island) in the middle of ice and snow still remind of the old alp. On quiet nights, however, you can sometimes still hear the ringing of the herd bells and the lamentation for Aratsch far below. The glacier still bears the name Morteratschgletscher to commemorate Aratsch's death. Others say that the people of Pontresina, following the complaint of the young herdsman, wanted to have the spirit banned by a Capuchin monk. Although he freed the hut from the spirit, it immediately crumbled to ashes, and at the same time the glacier began to advance.