If you’ve never heard of it, you might raise an eyebrow at the name ‘Duvelskut’. Don’t worry, it’s not an obscenity, but the name for a dolmen that can be found in documents and maps early in history.
The name Duvelskut (also Duvels kutte, Duvels Kolse or Daemonis Cunnus) is first encountered in a text from 1547. The Belgian Antoon van Schoonhove writes about the hunebed: ‘For the individual stones, which form a great pile, are so great that no wagon or ship could have brought them. Nor are there any quarries there because the land is swampy, so that it is suspected that they were led by demons (…) at whose altars the inhabitants sacrificed living men, especially strangers, whom before slaughtering them they forced through the narrow passage to go under the altar stones. And when they crawled through, they were smeared with turds and seized. People still do that there, especially if they are natives of Brabant, which often leads to murders. Because of its insult, the corridor itself is called ‘s Duvels kut (…).’
The name Duvelskut thus refers to the devil and the demons, who would be worshiped on the ‘altar’. But the devil is always referred to as a male being, how can he suddenly have a female genitals? Rather, as the quote above indicates, the word should be read as cavern. A narrow entrance to the world of the devil and demons, the representatives of evil. An entrance to hell, then.