To a mass of quartz at Jerbourg, Guernsey Island, local fancy has attached a wild legend, which finds expression in the strange designation of the stone as “The Devil’s Claw.” The old Chronique de Normandie, which, although written much earlier, was first printed in 1576 at Rouen, recounts under date of 797 A.D. that Duke Richard, when on his way from one of his strongholds to a manor where dwelt a damsel of surpassing beauty, was assailed by the Evil One; but, like a second St. Michael, Duke Richard overcame his dangerous antagonist. Seeing that he could not prevail by force, the Devil had recourse to one of his most perilous wiles, and changed himself into a beautiful, richly attired maiden. In this disguise he lured Duke Richard to the seashore and induced him to enter a boat and put out to sea. He thus spirited the duke away to the lonely isle of Guernsey, and at the landing spot, where the Devil finally seized his too-confiding prey, stands this mass of quartz, a deep black splash running right across, indicating in popular fancy the mark left by the devil’s claws.[67] A solitary boulder standing on a heath in North Germany is the subject of a curious legend illustrating the superstitious reverence inspired by the thunder. Once upon a time a bridal procession was traversing the heath when a violent thunder-storm broke out. Taking no heed of this, the musicians who accompanied the procession continued to 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 26¼ feet in circumference, the height from the bed of the stream being 8¼ 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.[69]