Solse Gat

The legend of the Solse Gat:

There once stood a mighty monastery with many towers. It was surrounded by a moat and a wide, stately avenue led to the gate.

But it was an angry monastery; the ruler and all the monks had sold their souls to the devil. They lived a life of excess and luxury. In the middle of the night the black mass was read in which all the witches and ghosts from the area participated. People drank wine from buckets and lavish meals were served all night long. The devil made sure that the supply never ran out and he mixed the wine himself. There was dancing, singing and cursing until the early morning. Many had heard strange and terrifying noises within the monastery at night, and everyone knew that the windows of all the halls were brightly lit all night long.

That lasted until a stormy Christmas night, centuries ago now. The villagers stayed in their houses in fear during that storm and suddenly heard one loud clap of thunder in the middle of the night. The next morning a little boy came running into the village and said that the monastery in the forest had completely disappeared and that a chillingly deep pit had been created in that place. The trees around it lay uprooted on the ground. All residents wanted to see the miracle. One found another cobbled street and the wide, stately avenue; that was all that remained of the monastery. The earth had opened and closed again.

Since then, a strange sound has come from the depths of the Solse hole at midnight. The bells of the sunken monastery begin to ring irregularly and hoarsely, as if they were all cracked; soft at first, but increasingly louder and more anxious. Then from the darkness of the wide avenue come the spirits of the monks. While complaining, they walk in a long gloomy row: slowly and hunched, they walk around the hole, from which a blue glow rises. Then they all float restlessly apart, to slowly emerge from the shadow of the avenue in a long line. This continues until daylight, when they suddenly flee, wailing, into the deepest darkness of the gloomy pit.

As soon as the sun shines, it is as if nothing has happened. Everything is quiet and one would almost doubt that just before the shadows disappeared into the water in the middle of the pit of the Solse gat.

See also: beleven.org/story/de_legende_van_het_solse_gat

Forest pond - nice for a picnic.

Beautiful lake in the middle of the beautiful (hilly) forest. Accessible via beautiful and surprising paved forest paths.