The builder of the Sachenhäuser bridge at Frankfurt had engaged to get it completed by a certain day; but when two days off from that stipulated he found a couple of arches were still short of being finished, and in his despair called on the devil to assist him. The Evil One undertook to accomplish the work if given the first to traverse the bridge. He was disappointed by the builder driving a cock over. In his fury the devil broke two holes in the bridge that have never since been filled up. In commemoration of the incident, a gilt cock on an iron rod stands on the spot, upon the bridge.
The Devil’s Bridge, near Aberystwyth, is over the Afon Mynach. The bridge has been thrown across a chasm 114 feet above the first fall, and 324 feet above the bottom of the cataract. Tradition tells—
Old Megan Llandunach of Pont-y-Mynach
Had lost her only cow;
Across the ravine the cow was seen,
But to get it she could not tell how.
In this dilemma the Evil One appeared to her cowled as a monk, and offered to cast a bridge across the chasm if she would promise him the first living being that should pass over it when completed. To this she gladly consented.
