A new definitive stamp joined the Austria definitive series: Tales and Legends of Austria on April 28. The 22ATS stamp features the legends: The Witch's Ride.

Built in the early 18th century on a 469 meter promontory, the mighty Church of Mariatrost rises up above the northern edge of the Styrian provincial capital of Graz. Next to Mariazell it is Styria's most famous shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Above the stairs leading to the chancel built around 1770 appears a portrayal of the Witches' Ride. The painting depicts a witch seated atop a large cat which is flying through the air. The witch is throwing a kerchief at a praying man who is holding his metal-soled shoes upward towards a small shrine containing a statuette of the Virgin Mary. This votive painting is based on a legend, according to which a soldier undertook the distant journey from Hungary in order to ask the Mother of God to free him of an evil curse: there once was a gypsy who asked the soldier to dance with her, yet he declined, using the excuse that he was ashamed of his shoes. Full of rage, the woman threatened that in the future he would never again have shoes. At the same time she stole his kerchief to make the spell take effect. Indeed, from that time forward no shoe lasted him for more than two days. In his desperation, the soldier undertook a pilgrimage to Mariatrost to pray there. The gypsy appeared in the form of a witch riding on a cat and returned the kerchief to him and from then on he was freed from the spell of the constantly worn-out shoes.