Legend
The sunken city of Pae and the Devil's footprints
In the forest of Pae village in Raplamaa the ground is pitted with karst sinkholes and cracked limestone, and local people had their own explanation for it. The hollows and dolines, they said, were the footprints of the Devil, and the cracks in the rock were the marks of his fingernails. A darker tale says that a city with iron gates once stood here and sank into the ground, and that long afterwards church bells could still be heard ringing beneath the spot. Karst landscapes, where water vanishes underground and the earth can suddenly give way, have inspired similar stories across Estonia. Today the Pae karst area is one of the stops on the Top 5 in Juuru Region route of ancient sacred sites.
Open it on the map See the spot on the old maps and as it is today
Eesti keeles
Raplamaal Pae küla metsas on maapind täis karstilehtreid ja lõhenenud paekivi ning kohalikel oli selle kohta oma seletus. Lohud ja kurisud olevat Kuradi jalajäljed ja kaljulõhed tema küünte jäljed. Süngem lugu räägib, et siin seisis kord raudväravatega linn, mis vajus maa alla, ning veel kaua pärast seda olevat sealt maa alt kuulda olnud kirikukellade helinat. Karstimaastikud, kus vesi kaob maa alla ja maapind võib äkki sisse vajuda, on sarnaseid lugusid sünnitanud üle Eesti. Tänapäeval on Pae karstiala üks peatusi muistsete pühapaikade marsruudil „Juuru piirkonna TOP 5“.
Source: Cult Identity project (senvietas.lv / ancientsites.lv) ↗