Pärase Ghost Rock

Pärase Ghost Rock

The Ghost Rock is a place of negative power that warned our ancestors of bad intentions.

Several visions have been seen here:

When Vassili Hobustkoppel (1896-1978) led the cows back home during sunset as a boy, he saw with his own eyes how a small, swarthy man in a black suit scraped grass there with his fingers and sparks flew from the grass over the rock. One man from the village of Vahtraste saw during one midnight how a horse started dragging an empty wagon from the rock at full speed. Soon the horse was covered in white foam. When the man looked back, he saw a black shape at the back of the wagon and this shape rolled himself off before the Lõetsa Creek, because evil spirits cannot cross water. Then the horse continued on with a light step.
Ghost rocks can be associated with Christian influences in the folk tradition. In the ancient local culture, good and evil are inextricably related to each other and can only form a whole together, revealing the nature of a phenomenon. In Christianity, God and the Devil are in opposition. When good (God) and evil (the Devil) were separated from each other, the locals needed personification to understand the haunting (the Devil). In the folk tales, the peasant outwits the Old Devil by recommending that he warm his hands by placing his fingers in a half-split log and then removes the wedge keeping the split open.
However, in the later Estonian folk tradition, the Devil is very much humane: „The Devil is no man too tart, he has a kind and gentle heart“.

Drunken villagers have run into trouble by the Ghost Rock if they do not have enough ale and vodka for an offering.

One cannot come here with a black conscience; otherwise one might lose the peace of mind. Before coming here one has to find clarity within one’s mind and mistakes.