NORMAN HUMOUR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 17, 23 April 1892, Page 437

NORMAN HUMOUR.

Superstitions about rocks, which were once popular among the peasant classes of Europe, are dying out. The familiar legend is of a rock which, moved at a certain time by some strange witch craft, revolves or rolls aside, and discloses treasure hidden beneath, the time usually being specially inconvenient for witnesses, as for instance, ‘on the stroke of twelve on Christmas Eve.’ A peculiar story of this kind is still told in Normandy. M. Julien Tiersot writes of it in the Ueeue des Traditions Populaires: In the neighbourhood of Uaudbec-en-Caux there isa stone which, the country people say, revolves while the bells ring the Angelus at noon on Good Friday. A walk in the country in the spring at the hour of noon is an agreeable diversion, and the sceptical stranger readily consents to go and see the alleged magical stone. The stranger and his escort reach the stone and wait. Time passes. It is afternoon. ‘ But the stone has not moved !’ he says. ‘ Wait, you have not heard the Angelus rung yet,’ is the smiling reply, and one might wait for ever, for on Good Friday the Angelus is never rung.