Devil's Bridge

views updated

Devil's Bridge

A bridge across the Afon Mynach, near Aberystwyth, Wales. The story goes that an old woman who had lost her cow saw it on the opposite side of the chasm but did not know how to reach it. The Evil One appeared to her in the shape of a monk and promised to throw a bridge across if she would give him the first living thing that passed over it.

The old lady agreed. The bridge was completed and the crafty fiend begged her to try it but the old woman had observed his cloven hoof and his knee bent backward. She took a crust from her pocket and flung it across the ravine, bidding her little dog go fetch it. The devil was outwitted, as he generally is in such tales.