When the local population first converted to Christianity, the old stories in which a giant lives up on the mountain and throws stones when he is angered seemed to fade away. Then, with the advent of the Enlightenment, the stories that claimed that landslides that swallowed whole villages were God’s punishment for a sinful life met a similar fate. Instead, scientific explanations holding that avalanches, falling rock, and landslides have geological, meteorological, or agricultural causes gained ground in the Alps, as in other areas. But each step forward also meant that a piece of longstanding traditional knowledge was lost – knowledge that by now, as the world is faced with climate change, could be very useful again. How and why that happened, and how helpful, but buried knowledge can be dug up and made useful again, are the subjects of study for scholars taking part in the project “Alpine Natural Disasters in Climate Change,” a large portion of which is located at Freie Universität.