I found some interesting legends about South Africa worth sharing.
Van Hunks and the Devil
In the early 18th century there was a Dutch pirate named Jan van Hunks. He decided to retire from his exciting life at sea and live on the slopes of Devils Peak in South Africa.
Van Hunks sometimes walked up the mountain where he smoked his pipe in peace, away from his nagging wife. One day as he was smoking, a mysterious man approached him and asked Van Hunks if he could borrow some tobacco. After a bit of bragging, a smoking contest developed, the winner’s prize would be a ship full of gold. After several days the retired pirate defeated the stranger, who turned out to be the devil. Thunder started rolling, the clouds closed in and Jan van Hunks disappeared leaving only a scorched patch.
It is told that the cloud of tobacco smoke turned into a tablecloth. The tablecloth” is known as the white cloud that can be seen over Table Mountain when the south- eastern wind blows in summer. Whenever this happen it is said that Van Hunks and the devil are at it again.
The Witch of the Hex River Valley
The once was a young woman named Eliza Meiring. She was the daughter of a farmer whose homestead was not far from the foothills where Matroosberg rises from the vineyards. She had many suitors because she was very beautiful. Unfortunately she was also a bit spoiled and self-centered. She felt in love with a young man named Frans. Because of her pride, she demanded that Frans must go and pick a red disa for her in the kloofs of the Matroosberg. The disa only grew in highly inaccessible places. To pick a disa was almost an impossible task.
Frans loved Eliza with all of his heart and he promised to bring her a red disa. He went to the Groothoek Kloof alone, and when he tried to reach a red disa against a wet and mossy cliff, he slipped and fell to his death. She scratched her name in the wooden windowsill: “Eliza. 1868.
When Eliza heard the news that her lover had fallen to his death with a disa in is hand she was so overcome with grief and remorse that she caused her lover’s death she became mentally ill and her parents locked her in her room.
But Eliza escaped on a moonlight night. She went up the trail Frans had taken wearing only her long white nightgown. She sat down on a rocky outcrop and cried her heart out, but the outcrop tumbled and she also fell to her death.
Now, whenever the moon is full, Eliza still wanders the crags in the Matroosberg wearing her long white nightgown, crying.
The Ghost of Union Dale
On the evening of 12th April 1968 a recently engaged couple were traveling from Graaf Reinet to Riversdal. Their names: Maria Roux and G.M. Pretorius. They never reached their destination because Pretorius lost control of the vehicle just outside Uniondale they had a horrible accident. Pretorius was injured. A nearby farmer found the wreck the next morning and Maria was dead.
A year after the accident Pretorius got married and this is when Maria got restless because Pretorius found love in the arms of another women. Motorists started seeing her standing next to the road. Some of the motorists even picked her up, a few minutes later they would hear a shrill laugh, the sound of a door closing and an icy chill would be felt inside the car and Maria would be gone.
Pretorius died in a car accident in 1984 and Maria stopped appearing.
