Switzerland used to be one of the flattest countries in the world.
Although the whole country was full of chairlifts and skilifts, the routes they followed were all absolutely on a level. The upper stations were no higher than the lower stations, and when the people got out they did not quite know what to do.
'You can't see very far from here anyway', they said, and, rather at a loss, returned home. They stored away their skis and sledges at the very back of their cellars.
'What we need here', they said to each other, 'are mountains'.
One day a clever Swiss travelled to Holland. His name was Matter, Benedict Matter.
He was astonished by what he saw there. The whole country was full of mountains, but there were no skis or sledges and certainly no chairlifts or skilifts. In winter the Dutch people climbed up the snow-clad peaks on foot and slid down again on their wooden clogs. But after one attempt they had had enough. The clogs quickly filled up with snow and they got their feet wet. 'It's such an effort', said the Dutch to each other. 'What we need here is flat land'.
Benedict Matter listened carefully. 'But what would you do with the flat land?' he asked the Dutch.
'Plant tulips!' they cried at once. 'That's not too hard a job!'
'That's handy', said Benedict Matter. 'In Switzerland there's practically nothing but tulips. We scarcely know what to do with them all'. And so the Dutch decided to exchange their mountains for the Swiss tulips. Now, the Swiss began to pack all their tulip bulbs into crates and send them to Holland.
The mountains were a little harder.
Then Benedict Matter remembered the old saying, 'Faith can move mountains'. 'All we have to do is believe it', he said, 'and then it will actually happen'.
So all the Swiss and Dutch went to church for a whole day and believed with all their might that the mountains would move from Holland to Switzerland. And lo and behold, in Holland there was a great crunching and creaking, one mountain after another tore itself from the ground, then flew to Switzerland and landed there.
At last the Swiss mountain railways and ski lifts travelled upwards, at the top the Swiss had wonderful views of other mountains and could ski down, and now people came from far and wide to spend holidays there. Meanwhile the Dutch no longer needed to struggle up and down the mountains because all their land had become flat, and they planted tulips everywhere and sold them all over the world. So the Dutch and the Swiss were both content, and because the man who had thought of all this was called Benedict Matter, they honoured him by naming after him the most beautiful mountain in Switzerland: the MATTERHORN.