We wandered back by the path along which we had come, and made our way to the Pierre de la Wivre, a curious, pointed rock rising from the plateau. Its sulphurous yellow colour is due to the lichen with which it is covered. From the green headland, surrounded with holly-bushes, on which it stands, you have magnificent views over rounded, village-dotted hills, whose brown-green upland fields nestle up to the dark forests that crown every summit. Up from the valleys come the shouts of the teamsters urging on the slow, pale oxen. This Pierre de la Wivre shows signs of man's handling, and has probably been the scene of human sacrifices, and of other ancient religious rites. We asked ourselves whether there may not have been some religious significance in the surrounding belt of holly bushes, since there are indications of a similar belt round the chapel of St. Martin. Perhaps the holly tree was sacred to the Gauls. Sitting upon the stone we recalled the legend as told by Hamerton.[8] "The peasants believe that the Wivern dwells near it in a hidden cavern guarding its treasure, but that once a year the cavern opens and the Wivern goes out, leaving the treasure unguarded. As to the time of year when this happens the narrators differ. Some say that it is at midnight on Christmas Eve, others fix it for Easter Day during High Mass; in either case it is during Mass, as there is a midnight service at Christmas. The popular legend in its present form goes on to recount how a certain woman, accompanied by her child, went to the stone of the Wivern, instead of going to Mass, intending to take his treasure. She found the cave open, entered, and took as much gold as she could carry, and came out just in time to escape the Wivern on his return. On looking round for her child, she could not find him anywhere. The cavern being now closed again, she knew not what to do, and went in despair to the priest, who told her to go to the place every day and pour milk and honey on the stone till the expiration of twelve months, and then, when the day came for the opening of the cave, to take her treasure back to it undiminished, and she would find her child. So she went day by day without fail, in heat and cold, in fine weather and foul, and poured milk and honey on the stone. At last the day came when the Wivern left the cave, and the mother found her child within, sitting quite unhurt, and in perfect health, with an apple before him on a stone table. So she restored the treasure gladly, and took away her child." M. Bulliot thinks that the legend was originally one of some Gaulish sacrilege and reparatory oblation, the Gaulish priests requiring a daily offering (perhaps of milk and honey) until certain stolen treasure was restored. The Catholic character of the legend he looks upon as nothing but an aftergrowth; and the apple has, in his opinion, a distinct though undiscoverable significance.