“ Good humour and renewed joy in life”

6 ALPE | Summer

Herbs and flowers: the hay comes from the unfertilised meadows around the Marmotte hut on the Alpe di Siusi.

“ Good humour and renewed joy in life” ... these, as an observant chronicler noted 100 years ago, are the “first appreciable results” of a hay bath. In its origins, this practice of lying in hay was a rustic affair indeed, and bore no resemblance to the modern-day aesthetics of wellness as a gentle, meditative therapy.

Whatever the case, even as far back as 200 years ago, people were resolutely convinced of the usefulness of this unusual spa treatment.

M Many places in the Alpine region claim to have discovered the hay bath; most of these forms of the treatment involve bathing in a decoction of hay blossom or similar variants on the original, extremely natural spa treatment, which consisted of a full “packing” of the patient in freshly cut hay.

Only very few communities, and all of them in the Alpine region, can reliably prove that they have used and offered this treatment for centuries on end. And of these original hay bath places of its inception, only one has remained true to the original: the Hotel Heubad in Fiè allo Sciliar, which also has the distinction of having brought this archaic restorative spectacle to its modern-day form in therapeutic and tourism terms. The procedure has been reworked a number of times here, customised to more stringent hygienic demands and, additionally, offered year-round.

Back to the roots. In far-back 1826, a literary-documentary style travel report mentions the practice of “burying in hay” as one of the peculiarities of the Dolomites. In its early days this thermal

therapy was born of necessity, as during the hay harvest on the high mountain pastures, the farmers had no option but to sleep in the fresh haystacks. The following morning, so the florid tales go, they were magnificently revivified and all tiredness had melted from their work-weary bones as if by magic. Word of this wonders of hay-healing cure began to spread, and before long the first wine and valley farmers in the region began to make their way to the Sciliar mountain for a spot of restorative therapy at harvest time. In the middle of the 19th century, a veritable hay-bath tourist industry began to take shape on the iconic mountain of South Tyrol. Whole families made their way up from Bolzano to enjoy some fresh summer air along with a hay treatment. With the growing popularity of this early health culture, it made sense to bring some order to the practice, not least to spare the truly ill the arduous walk up the footpaths of the Sciliar and to improve the economic return. Thenceforth, the freshly-cut hay from the Sciliar was transported down into the valley, and when the route through »

Text: Sabine Funk Photos: Helmuth Rier

Summer | ALPE 7

The high coumarin content gives the hay its distinctive perfume and healing powers.

The works of painter Hubert Mumelter immortalise the era of the hay bath as a group treatment.

8 ALPE | Summer

the Sciliar gully was devastated in the 1880s, the conveyance took on epic proportions. The hay was packed into sacks, attached to wire ropes and lowered down in two stages - firstly across the gully and then down to Peter Frag. From here, it was carted to Fiè, where the baths were organised in rotation: each year, one sole hotelier received the hay and, along with it, the concession for the season, from the Kreuzwirt to the Rose Wenzer and so on.

The methods of those times seem positively archaic: stone chambers were filled with hay and a hole was dug out in which to “bury” the eager bather up to the neck. After roughly 30-minutes in the hay, he was disentombed and taken to a dormitory style room to sweat and rest. The faces dripping with sweat and peering out from the hay were reminiscent of wretched souls in purgatory, according to one chronicler. Nevertheless, the bath was “enjoyed with copious amounts of wine“, and records tell of the “7 hay baths and 9 wine baths” which were taken by one bathing guest in 1900. While the guests were immersed in the hay, the “bath muller” would dash from one guest to the next to administer the “noble nectar”. And with this winning, sweaty blend “good humour and renewed joy in life” were ensured.

Explanations of the efficacy of this hay-therapy vary according to medical orientation, but all agree that it is a form of heat-pack. Owing to the fungal spores and micro-organisms, the hay ferments when it comes into contact with oxygen, and the temperature rises considerably. This “burning”, a well-known process which is notoriously difficult to control, has been the cause of many a barn fire. Freshly cut, damp hay can reach temperatures of between 40 and even up to 60 degrees relatively quickly and from a medicinal point of view it is this uniform humidity which is primarily responsible for its therapeutic effects. The composition of the hay from high-lying, rough grassland and pastures and the biodiversity of the calcareous terrain of the Dolomites also play their part. Bitter gentian, artemisia, lamb’s lettuce, brunella, edelweiss, alpine yarrow, mountain camomile, aremeria alpina and veronica all form part of the mysterious healing brew of the hay bath. As we are now treading in

the territory of natural healing assertions should be considered with prudence, but it would seem probable that the essential oils, and particularly the high level of coumarin in the exclusive blend of herbs, will provide a further beneficial effect.

Coumarin also accounts for the distinctive smell of hay.

Sebastian Kneipp was also a believer in the healing powers of the hay bath. In South Tyrol, the first doctor who worked with hay on a medicinal level was Dr Josef Clara, widely respected in his own lifetime. Having tried it out on his own ailing brother, he was soon confident that it held great therapeutic promise. He also believed, however, that the hygienic shortcomings had to be dealt with before the treatment could reach its full potential. It takes no great leap of imagination to envisage the unappetising side of the original hay bath, with a succession of sweating, ill people “buried” in the same hay.

At the beginning of the 1920s, Dr Clara persuaded the farmers from Merlhof to build a modern bathing facility with two floors, separate sweating, resting and bathing rooms for women and men, where massages and physiotherapy treatments would also be on offer and where the guests would be covered up to their necks in a clean linen cloth during their hay treatment. The doctor also lent the farmers the money to finance the bathing facilities and guest house. Thus the Hotel Heubad in Fiè came into being - and ever since, it has been the first port of call for hay baths in the Sciliar region.

Much has changed since the pioneering days of the hay bath. Popularity never waned, even during the post-war years, and the infrastructure of the guest house and bathing facilities were modernised and developed constantly over the years. Be that as it may, even the “modern” form of hay-bathing was wanting in terms of hygiene and practicalities, not least because the treatment was only available from June to September. Putting the benefit of her many years of experience and knowledge of the treatment to good use, Maria Kompatscher, the landlady at the time, began to experiment with new ideas. In the 1990s, she formulated an innovative proce- »

Summer | ALPE 9

At the Hotel Heubad, up to 4 kg of hay are used for a full-body treatment.

dure which is used to this day at the Hotel Heubad. For a modern hay bath, three to four kilos of dried Alpine hay are steeped for an hour and then placed in a sheetlined tub, in which the bather then lies.

After the guest’s whole body has been cocooned in hay (except for the head, naturally), he reclines on a warm water bed, which keeps the temperature at a constant 42 degrees. The session lasts for 20 minutes, after which the patient retires for the traditional resting phase.

Today, the hay bath as a group treatment lives on only through the paintings of Hubert Mumelter, on display in the spa area.

The painter was a great fan of the treatment and depicted his visits to the Fiè hay baths in humorous imagery.

One thing that has remained unaltered over time is the almost magical composition of the hay. The hotel no longer receives the precious therapy substance from the Sciliar, but from the Alpine meadows around the Marmotte Hut on the Alpe di Siusi, which lies at a similar elevation to the meadows of the Sciliar.

An uncommon wealth of herbs still grows here on the unfertilised, calcareous rough lands and meadows, which are becoming ever rarer even on the Alpe di Siusi. When it is brought to the hotel, the hay is stored in a barn, from where it is taken directly for the treatments. While the treatment was previously only practicable in the summer months from the end of June to the end of September, the new technique means that hay baths can be offered year-round as the dried hay is only “activated” after it has been steeped in water.

This therapy can be used to treat numerous ailments, and has an excellent effect on joint pains, arthritis and rheumatic pains. Given that the dust and pollen stick to the damp hay, it is also an excellent remedy for hay fever and can be enjoyed without cause for worry. «

10 ALPE | Summer