The Quille du Diable

This enormous tower-shaped rock served as target, goal or pin in the various games of skill or strength played by the assembled demons.

Also, when stones came crashing down from the top of this gigantic dungeon due to blocks thrown with too much ardour by these infernal players on the vast icy esplanade, they bounced from rock to rock as far as the pastures of Anzeindaz or the banks of the small lake of Derborence. The shepherds watched this spectacle with fear, thinking of the threats of these cursed beings.

They feared for themselves and their herds and prayed to God for help: "May the good Lord help us and protect our heifers".

During the night, it was rumoured that these satanic spirits, equipped with small lights or lanterns, wandered alone or in groups in the woods, on the pastures, in the scree slopes or in the high mountain corridors. Many even told of the vision of these poor damned or suicidal people descending to the vicinity of Ardon.

Their awful moans resounded and their bodies, terrible to see, were so weary from their wanderings and crawling for so many years on these arid rocks where they expiated their crimes, that several had their arms worn down to the elbows and others to the shoulders.

These groans and fires were particularly sinister before and during the two dramatic landslides of 1714 and 1740, which covered thousands of acres of pasture and caused the death of many people and animals.