The Column of the Devil Zardan

In Vyšehrad Park, before the side entrance to the cemetery, lies a column broken into three pieces, perhaps the best-known “corpus delicti” of the Devil, mentioned even in French dictionaries of demonology. According to an old legend, St Peter once ordered the Devil to carry stones for the new church at Vyšehrad. The Devil bet a Vyšehrad priest that he could bring a column from St Peter’s Basilica in Rome before the priest finished Mass. As the demon flew with the column, St Peter hurled him into the sea near Venice three times to delay him — supposedly the reason the column broke into three pieces. He rested with his burden in South Bohemia, where his footprints can be seen. (See Novosedly nad Nežárkou.) Back in Prague he realised he was too late. “I would have won if that fisherman hadn’t knocked me into the puddle!” he said, and furiously hurled the column onto the Vyšehrad cliff. During an exorcism in 1665, the Devil confessed through the possessed person’s mouth that his name was Zardan. Since then the column has also been called Zardan’s Column. In this connection, it is interesting that the French historian of magic É. Grillot de Givry, in his 1929 book Le musée des sorciers, mages et alchimistes, mentions the former Vyšehrad priest Václav Králíček (Wazlaga Kralizzec) as a renowned exorcist of demons. Hradčany.