La Minche du Diable
The menhir La Minche du Diable (also called La Meinge du Diable or La Pierre de la Combe ) is located west of Vairé near Les Sables-d'Olonne in the Vendée department in France . La Minche du Diable is the only standing menhir, albeit angled, in Vairé.
description
The slightly inclined menhir consists of chert with quartz veins . It is 3.70 m high and 2.40 m wide at the base. At the end of the 20th century, attempts were made to destroy the stone by fire, which resulted in numerous cracks and flakes at the base of the stone.
The menhir has been registered as a Monument historique since 1969 .
Name legend
La Minche is a game of tossing that was very popular in the Vendée in the 19th century and involves throwing wooden cubes called “palet” at a block of wood on which coins are stacked. If the legend is to be believed, the menhir was used by Satan and an angel in the Minche game. The angel was very skillful and his palet, a large flat stone, lands right next to the menhir. The devil threw the stone "Le Palet du Diable", which landed about 200 m away; this overturned possible menhir disappeared in the 1990s. He had lost and ran away furiously, since then the menhir has been called "Minche du Diable".
literature
- PR Chaigneau: Les dolmens vendeens - Sociéte d'emulation de la Vendee , 1966–7
Web links
- Description and picture (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bertrand Poissonnier: La Vendée préhistorique . Geste, La Crèche 1997, ISBN 2-910919-38-2 , pp. 285 .
- ↑ Menhir dit La Minche du Diable in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 46 ° 36 ′ 6.1 ″ N , 1 ° 46 ′ 7 ″ W.