© Flickr / Simone RamellaThe Durandal sword appears to have been taken by a thief from it’s stone in the tiny medieval town of Rocamadour, where it was one of the town’s main attractions
The Durandal sword appears to have been taken by a thief from its stone in the tiny medieval town of Rocamadour, where it was one of the town's main attractions, The Telegraph reported.
For centuries it's been believed the sword once belonged to Roland, a semi-legendary knight who bravely fought for Charlemagne in the eighth century.
Officials in Rocamadour have launched an investigation into the disappearance of the sword, which was yanked from its spot in a cliff wall some 100 feet off the ground.
Durandal was an indestructible sword and the sharpest in the world, able to cut through stone with a single blow, according to the legend.
The sword's magical qualities were described in the 11th-century epic poem "The Song of Roland."
The poem, written in old French, is the oldest surviving major work of French literature, with the sole surviving copy stashed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, according to the Telegraph.
Charlemagne received Durandal from an angel before he gifted it to his best soldier, according to the legend.
Roland, before his valiant death at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, tried to break the sword on the rocks to prevent his enemies from taking it — but even he could not destroy the sword.
The knight threw the sword into the air, which then traveled hundreds of miles before landing in the cliff in Rocamadour, legend says.
The disappearance has devastated the locals.
"We're going to miss Durandal. It's been part of Rocamadour for centuries, and there's not a guide who doesn't point it out when he visits," mayor Dominique Lenfant told La Dépêche, a French newspaper.
"Rocamadour feels it's been robbed of a part of itself, but even if it's a legend, the destinies of our village and this sword are entwined," she added.
Police are trying to determine how someone could have scaled 100 feet of the sheer rock face to snatch the sword.
Reader Comments
There is nothing is worse than a thief.
He needs to be punished like they did a couple thousand years ago when they made the sword.
Disgusting little coward.
Drone & robotics technology & developments are saturation-bombing the news.
Search for "flying suit" on the interwebs. ...but it's a mystery.
We had/have the ruins of a robber knight castle near the village I originate from. And in our youth we visited it once in a while. Accarding to legend (a.k.a. recorded history), the castle was raized after the robber knight got involved in an scheme of obducting a local prince.
Only later I found out, those ruins were not actually ruins, but "remodeled" about 90 years ago during a "Kraft Durch Freude" action.
And - low and behold - after the Eastern Bloc collapsed and unemployment rose to similiar levels, the bureaucrats acted the same way as back then. Waste copious amounts of tax money to keep the populace busy and fed. And my mother herself was assigned to a "construction battalion" that again remodeled said ruins.
To come to the point - most public "historical artifacts" turn out to be fake, if you look closer.
Have you ever seen an old car, tractor, or engine seen rusting away in the open ? Do they expect me to believe such a high-carbon steel item (the opposite of "stainless") survives for almost a millenium in the open ?
You are very right about the high carbon steel it would have disintegrated in all that time. I do love high carbon steel bladed knives an can make them razor sharp, a little rust is good for you anyway.
And the wackos at pedia are sure it was stolen : ... with "[7]" is a reference to a NYT article. A so-called circle jerk...