At Vyšehrad, three broken pieces of a stone column still stand in the middle of the grass to this day. They are the remains of the so-called Devil’s Column. No one knows exactly how old it is. According to a famous legend, however, its origin has to do directly with the devil himself.

The local priest in the Vyšehrad church one day bet the devil for his own soul. They agreed on a simple wager. If the devil brought a large marble column from a church in Rome before the priest finished his morning mass, he would gain his soul forever. The priest was sure the devil would never make it in time. Rome is, after all, incredibly far away.

But the devil immediately set off on his journey. In Rome, he really grabbed a huge and incredibly heavy column from an ancient temple. He threw it on his back and flew through the air back to Prague. Along the way, however, Saint Peter knocked him down three times directly into the sea. Each time, the devil shook himself off in anger and pulled the column back up. But he was losing precious time.

Meanwhile, the priest in the church cunningly slowed down his mass. He read prayers as usual but deliberately added extra sentences. He stretched the sermon and dawdled over every little thing. He wanted to steal as much time from the devil as possible. His cunning plan worked perfectly.

The devil finally made it above Prague, but the mass had just ended. The bell of the final prayer sounded from the church. The devil understood that he had lost. He roared with rage so loudly that the entire rock shook. In furious anger, he hurled the heavy column straight down at the Vyšehrad church. The column pierced the roof, fell a bit to the side, and on impact broke into three pieces. The devil disappeared in a cloud of sulfur. The three broken pieces of the column lie at Vyšehrad to this day.