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.
A rock in Ardmore Bay, Ireland, is known as the St. Declan Stone, after
the first bishop of Ardmore, who came to Ireland even before the arrival
of the great St. Patrick. This rock is believed by the peasants to be
endowed with great and occult powers, and the legend tells that it was
carried through the air from Rome to its present resting place in the
bay, at the time St. Declan was erecting his church at Ardmore. The fact
that the stone rests upon a number of smaller ones renders it possible
for people to squeeze their way under it at low tide, and those who pass
beneath it three times are believed to have earned the special favor of
St. Declan.[70]
A mass of calcareous stone in a village called Piada de Roland, situated
in the commune of Toufailles (dept. Tarn et Garonne), France, shares
with some other similar stones in this region the curious name of
Roland’s Foot (Piada de Roland). The one preserved in Toufailles
measures 70 cm. × 47 cm. × 50 cm., and bears a natural imprint having
the form of a foot. Legend accounts for this by the tale that the hero
Roland once jumped from this stone to another at Sept Albres and in
taking this tremendous leap thrust his foot down so strongly upon its
support as to leave an imprint on the solid rock. For a time the “Piada
de Roland” was kept in a cow-house—not a remarkably honorable place of
deposit—but after the death of one of the cows a sorcerer advised the
stone should be broken and removed, as a precautionary measure; this is
said to have happened but thirty years ago, showing how deeply rooted
such superstitious ideas are among the peasantry in out-of-the-way parts
of France.[71]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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