Wallfahrtskapelle Maria Elend, Chapel in Lend, Austria

The Wallfahrtskapelle Maria Elend is a small church building located in the mountains near Lend at approximately 1125 meters elevation. The chapel accommodates about 20 people and houses a stone statue of Mary dating from 1768.

According to the gravestone set into its west wall, the chapel was founded by Ursula Penninger zu Penningberg (d. 1552), widow of the Salzburg chamberlain Ulrich Penninger. Her 12-year-old blind and simple-minded daughter vanished and was found after three days, seeing and lucid, near a herdsman's chapel on the Elendberg; Ursula then had a larger chapel built above it. Sources date the foundation between 1530 and 1575.

The name Maria Elend refers to Mary's sorrows during the flight to Egypt, and the venerated image is a copy of a 1744 Pietà. Pilgrims came for the healing spring, especially for eye ailments; wax toads, discarded crutches and hair offerings were left as votives. The first entry in the surviving miracle book dates from 1628, and about 60 votive pictures remained in 1958.

Access to the chapel is through a small walking path from the Embach main road. The site is open during the day for visitors seeking a quiet place for prayer and contemplation in the mountains.

The Augenbründl next to the 1755 Ursprungskapelle was long credited with healing power, and pilgrims washed their eyes in it; after the spring nearly dried up, its water has flowed again since 2012. Wax models of toads, discarded crutches and hair offerings were left as votives.