While we’re talking about Devil’s Bridges, Hamburg has one, too: It was built to make crossing the devil’s ford easier, so called because there were so many accidents there people couldn’t explain it otherwise. A carpenter was contracted, who is said to have made a pact with the devil, that the bridge may stay, at the price of the soul of the first living thing to cross the bridge. On inauguration day, then, the local reverend blessed the bridge and set off to cross it, when out of the bushes a rabbit appeared and sprinted across the bridge. A statute memorialises the occasion:
…the less exciting explanation is that back when Holstein was still under Danish rule there were two bridges close together, and the double bridge then turned into the devil’s one. dövelt -> Düvel in Low Saxon makes a lot of sense but is boring.
Duh, the Devil helpedz it’s in the name.
You may joke, but that’s actually part of the legend of the bridge!
The legend goes that a woman saw her cow grazing on the opposite side of the river.
To get it back, the devil offered to build a bridge in exchange for a living soul.
The woman threw a piece of bread across the new bridge and her dog went to eat it. The devil got the dog’s soul 👍
Poor dog
While we’re talking about Devil’s Bridges, Hamburg has one, too: It was built to make crossing the devil’s ford easier, so called because there were so many accidents there people couldn’t explain it otherwise. A carpenter was contracted, who is said to have made a pact with the devil, that the bridge may stay, at the price of the soul of the first living thing to cross the bridge. On inauguration day, then, the local reverend blessed the bridge and set off to cross it, when out of the bushes a rabbit appeared and sprinted across the bridge. A statute memorialises the occasion:
…the less exciting explanation is that back when Holstein was still under Danish rule there were two bridges close together, and the double bridge then turned into the devil’s one. dövelt -> Düvel in Low Saxon makes a lot of sense but is boring.