The Blue Barn of Sint-Truiden

Near Sint-Truiden lived a farmer who had a problem: his barn was too small to store all the grain from his harvest. In frustration he cried out: ‘I need another barn, even if it comes from the devil!’

Not long afterwards, an elegantly dressed gentleman passed by and addressed the farmer: ‘I shall build you a barn. If you wish, it will stand ready before the rooster crows at dawn. In return, I want your soul.’

The farmer, blinded by the prospect of a new barn, agreed to the proposal and went home.

That evening the farmer lay in bed but could not sleep. The realisation of what he had done weighed heavily on his conscience. Finally he confessed the whole story to his wife.

The woman listened carefully and then asked a crucial question: ‘Must the barn be finished before the rooster has crowed?’ The farmer nodded.

Outside they could hear the sound of hammers and saws. The devil and his helpers were already at work. The walls rose at an impossible pace in the moonlight.

The clever farmer’s wife leapt from bed, opened the window and began clapping her hands loudly. The noise startled the rooster in the henhouse, and the bird began to crow long before dawn.

The moment the rooster crowed, the barn was not yet complete. The devil struck the wall of the unfinished building in fury. A great hole remained in the wall.

That hole could never be bricked up. Every time the stones were laid, they fell out again. The Blue Barn still stands there, its inexplicable hole an eternal proof of the devil’s pact that was thwarted by a farmer’s wife’s cleverness.