Pfarrkirche und Basilika Mariae Empfängnis

About this audio guide

This guide to the Wilten Basilica in Innsbruck follows a Tyrolean legend of two rival giants, Haymon and Thyrsus, whose feud over this stretch of the Inn valley turned into a duel fought with sword against a club of stone-pine wood. It traces what the fight cost the loser, how his blood entered local folklore as a healing oil, and what the winner did afterward that still marks this spot. The carved giants flank the church portal today, cast as equals in stone above the doorway.