The Devilstowers

People have been building the St Baafs Cathedral for many years.When the spire of the tower was completed afer several days of hard work,they finally managed to put the heavy cross on top of it .The satisfaction was great.The people were happy and proud of their work,and that night they were sleeping contented and peacefully.No one could suspect that Satan would call his witches to the Sabbath at midnight.

At the twelfth stroke of the Belfry tower nearby witches were razing through the sky in such a hellish flight that their brooms caught fire.The sparks were flashing around the new spire that started flaming up and was soon burning as a torch.The passing witches were making such a draught that the beautiful cross was ripped off and fell down .That’s why the main church of Ghent doesn’t have a spire and because of that the street where the cross fell down was called the ‘Cross-street’

Satan was sneering and chuckling about his victory,also because he had already commited a murder related to the same tower.

The murder history was like this.Whit several tricks the devil had succeeded in making a mess of the building of the church.In the swamp areas the bricklayers couldn’t get a foothold.

The ox-skins that were supposed to consolidate the ground , sank on their turn.One of the bricklayers’ mates came with the idea to do it the same way as they did the St-James tower. They had had the skins blessed by a priest and sprinkled them with holy water .But this had to be done secretely because if anyone found out about the consecration or was mocking the power , the blessing would be broken.

Now The bricklayer’s son gave away the secret.When his father heard about it , he got so angry that he beat up his son.His son felldown to the floor dead.Therefore Satan was crowing victory as well.

Other buildings came into the master demon’s favour , as it was the case with the master tower of the famous Geraard The Devil’s Castle , wich Satan had helped to build up himself. The owner of that castle was a cruel man.About that man , a lot of stories can be told , but that’s for another time…