Giant Knilles

In the middle of Valburg, close to the church, is Knilles. It is a statue of a man who has taken off a wooden shoe and is emptying it. This little man is supposed to represent a giant, who, according to legend, dug the Waal together with his two brothers and threw the sand in a heap, creating the Wageningen mountain.

On the site of the black pit near Loenen, the post mill "Nieuw Leven" in Valburg as it used to look close. The reformed church in Valburg at night near the dike and the river, must have been the strong castle of Egbert van Loenen in the past. A raw and bleak gentleman, who loved nothing more than to celebrate furiously with his dissolute friends. His wife was just the opposite, affable and pious. She helped the sick and the weak. One day she had given the church a new tower bell, which was to be rung and consecrated for the first time at Christmas. Lord Egbert, however, laughed at all this. One evening, when he was partying with his friends again, he suddenly shouted in a wild drunken fit for the tower bell to be rung immediately. Ordained or unordained, he didn't care. Because they did not dare to obey his order, the new bell was rung. But at the sound of the first notes, a violent wind suddenly began to blow, which soon became a storm and hurricane.

The water of the river rose alarmingly, so that it burst its banks, and trees were uprooted. At one point, the hurricane ripped the new bell out of the church tower and it landed violently on the castle. A huge tidal wave then completely disappeared the castle with partygoers into an immeasurable depth. Nothing more has ever been found of it than a deep gully, which is now called the Black Pit by the local residents. But sometimes a lonely angler thinks he sees in the reflection of the clear water of the Black Pit the ruins of the sunken castle of lord Egbert van Loenen. So much for the legend.

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