Soleure, on the Aare, in the canton of the same name, is said to be, after Trèves, the oldest city north of the Alps. Most of the old landmarks and fortifications of this city have had to make way for modern improvements; so the most interesting legends of the region are connected with the pretty drives just outside the city.
In olden times, the picturesque Verenathal, or Verena valley, is said to have been the retreat of a woman so very good and pious that she was known as St. Verena long before her death. This worthy creature, wishing to devote all her time to the worship of God, had betaken herself to this lonely spot, where she built a small hermitage and erected a cross, at the foot of which she spent many hours in fervent prayer. Such was her charity, that she constantly interceded for the wicked, pleading particularly for those who were most likely to succumb to temptation and thus fall into the devil’s clutches.
These prayers and intercessions were not without avail; and the Evil One, perceiving that he could not bag as many souls as usual in that vicinity, finally set out to discover what was the matter. Walking past the hermitage, the sound of passionate and persistent prayer fell upon his ear; so he noiselessly drew near to ascertain the exact nature of the petition.
Listening attentively, he soon distinguished the words, and gnashed his teeth with rage when he overheard her interceding with special fervour in behalf of the very souls he hoped soon to have in his power. This, then, was the reason for the alarming and otherwise unaccountable decrease in the number of his victims! He therefore resolved that the prayers of the holy woman should immediately be stopped, and with that end in view tore a huge mass of stone from a neighbouring cliff. Then stealing near the saint, he held it for a moment suspended directly above her head, carefully measuring the distance, so that he could kill her with one blow.
But just as he was about to let the mass fall upon Verena and crush her to death, she suddenly looked up, and met his baleful glance with such a look of mingled purity, compassion, and reproach, that Satan, starting back involuntarily, let the rock slip from his nerveless hand. The boulder, falling on his foot, crushed it so badly that he immediately vanished with a wrathful howl of pain and disappointment.
The rock thus dropped by the Evil One can now be seen on the very spot where it fell, and it still bears the distinct imprint of the Devil’s claws, which seem burnt in the stone.
“Wilt thou not believe my legend,
Go to St. Verena’s glen;
In the rocky clump thou’lt see there
Print of Satan’s fingers ten.”[7]