The Rock of Colas

Beneath the steep rocks of Les Hayons lived a man named Colas, a capricious hermit whom no one could quite place. Was he an old monk who had fled the monastery, or a madman raised in the wild? The truth was less clear. Colas lived in a cave between the stones, fed himself on game and berries, and filled his days with riddles and pranks.

Wanderers who passed by found themselves bombarded with riddles by Colas. "What has three feet, two handles, and yet no face?" he would ask a passerby. Those who answered correctly received gifts; those who answered wrong endured Colas's mischievous tricks.

Years passed, and Colas became increasingly famous. Travelers made detours to meet the hermit, hoping to solve his riddles and win his favor. But Colas was cunning. He continually played with his visitors, setting them impossible tests, then rewarding them anyway. "Life itself is a riddle," he said, laughing, "and no one can fully understand it."

One day two priests came to him with an ultimatum: "What is the deepest riddle, Colas? Tell us, and we will save your soul."

Colas laughed long and hard. "That is the secret I will take with me to the grave."

When Colas died—no one knows exactly how or when—he surrendered his cave to the rocks. But his legend only grew. The enormous stone that lay outside his cave came to be called "La Roche a Colas," in honor of the trickster-hermit who had posed so many riddles.

To this day, travelers say that if you pass by the Rock of Colas at the right light and the right moment, you can still hear Colas's laughter, dancing on the wind between the stones. His pranks echo through the centuries, and the rock stands as a monument to his strange life.