There’s a face in the cliff of the “house-mountain” of Interlaken (it’s in Unterseen actually), with mustache, pointy ears and large eyes. That is the Hardermannli. But how did the face get there?
One version tells of the Abbot Leonhardus (Harder) from the Monastery, and by all accounts a real prick. He was in love with the daughter of a fisherman and never missed the opportunity to “dominate” the girl. When she ended up pregnant, she took poison, but not before filling in her father.
Times being what they were, her father took a hatchet to the monk’s head, and just as his skull split, the air shimmered, thunder rolled through the valley and stones fell from the mountain. When the shaking ended, Harder’s face looked down as a reminder for the sins of the citizens.
The first version I heard is about a lustful monk that was fixated on a young girl from Unterseen. He kidnapped her -- here it gets a bit vague. In any case, she could only think of one way to escape the shame: jump off the cliff.
As a punishment, God put the Monk’s face on the cliff to look down on the scene of his crime for all eternity.
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