|
42 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
play
their gay and festive music, and as a punishment for this lack of
respect the God of Thunder changed the whole party into an immense rock.68
An
erratic boulder lying in midstream in the River Ferse, in West Prussia,
at a bend it makes between Peplin and Eichwald, is known in legend as
the Teuffelsstein (Devil's Stone). It can only be reached by swimming
to it, the part above the surface of the water measuring 26-1/4 feet in
circumference, the height from the bed of the stream being 8-1/4 feet.
A thick growth of alders on the banks of the Ferse at this point casts
strange and sharp shadows over the gleaming surface of the block which
is a biotitic gneiss. Legend tells that the Devil once tried to wreck
the tower of the church at Peplin by hurling this mass of rock at it,
but just as he had it poised in the air and was about to cast it forth
the church bells began to ring the call for early mass, and he was
forced to let the boulder drop. Another version is that he really threw
it, but that it fell short of its mark.68
Near
Hasselager in Denmark there is an immense boulder about 150 feet in
circumference and 32 feet in height. Of this stone legend tells that a
witch became so enraged at the fact that the steeple of the church at
Svinninge was used by sailors as a landmark, that she picked up the
stone and hurled it at the church, but missed her aim-As the boulder is
estimated to weigh 1000 tons, this "witch" must have been regarded as a
superhuman personality. The legend seems to indicate that she profited
by the shipwrecks which were only too frequent on this rocky coast, and
grudged the poor sailors the good service rendered them by the
prominent steeple.
"Kuhn, "Norddeutsche Sagen," Leipzig, 1848, p. 69.
*
Hermann, " Die erratischen Blöcke im Regierungsbezirck Danzig," Berlin,
1911, p. 41; in vol. ii, Ft. I, "Beiträge zur Naturdenkmalpflege, ed.
by H. Covrente.
|
||
|
|
||