Atlas Obscura - Latest • Feb. 10, 2026, 9 p.m.
Located along the Elbe River in Hamburg’s affluent Teufelsbrück (“Devil’s Bridge”) district, a sandstone sculpture depicts a horned creature lost in thought, holding a small hare by one ear. The work, called Der Teufel und der Hase (“The Devil and the Hare”), captures a famous local legend.
Folklore holds that a young carpenter, struggling to build a bridge over marshy ground in the neighborhood, made a pact with the devil, trading the soul of the first creature to cross the finished bridge for supernatural help. After the structure was completed and blessed, a hare crossed it first, thwarting the fiend’s expectation of a human soul.
According to the legend, he then vanished into the surrounding marshland, giving the area its name. The sculpture’s real-world history has been almost as turbulent as its legend.