This is the tale, the three saints of Zurich. Zurich, Switzerland has three patron saints because every town has a patron saint, and the ones in Zurich are particularly interesting because basically, I think it was 500, or 600, when they wanted to convert the city to Christianity, and basically there was this really evil king or whatever who wanted to execute them for trying to convert the city because he thought it was dangerous, so he like, I forget all the tortures he did, but I know he like boiled them in oil, in like bubbling oil and the burned, or whatever and eventually he did some other tortures, but he eventually just cut off their heads, all three of them and the legend goes that he buried them, but their head were decapitated, and the legend goes that at night or whatever that they rose from their graves, holding their heads they walked up the hill to the top of the mountain that was overlooking Zurich, and they carried their heads with them to the top of the mountain and buried themselves on top of the mountain.
Jack thought that this legend was proof of the areas religious leanings and that this was the miracle that the saints performed in order to be considered saints. The idea he said was that God had to give them a special ability and that in this case it was rising from the dead and walking up the hill and reburying themselves. Jack also thought that this might be a popular legend among religious people because the saints end up closer to Heaven and God because they reburied themselves at the top of a mountain.
I think this legend is again popular with people of the town. It can be used to give the town an identity that separates if from other towns in the surrounding area. I believe that the legend is spread when you visit Zurich. Jack knows about the legend because of relatives that have visited Zurich, and come back and told him about the legend.
Another important thing is that the legend has three saints rather than any other number, I think this may have to do with three being a special number in Western religions. I also think the reburial of the saints at the top of a mountain is also suppose to show that if you were to follow in these saints beliefs that when you die, you will end up being closer to Heaven and God.
Annotation:
Hoffmann, Edith. Nineteenth-Century Pictures from Vienna, at Zurich. Vol. 108, No. 757 London: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 1966