The legend of the St. Mary's devil
As the people of Lübeck were building St. Mary's, along came the devil and asked what they were building. "A large tavern", they lied so as not to anger him. A tavern? A place of vice and drunkenness?" This pleased the devil and he gave a hand so that the building quickly grew.Only when the church was nearly finished did the devil see that the people of Lübeck had tricked him. Furious, he picked up a huge boulder so as to destroy the building again. Then they said to him that they wanted to really build a large tavern right next door, the Ratskeller. The devil dropped the boulder so that it fell close to the church. And there it lies today with a bronze devil created by the sculptor Rolf Goerler in 1999, sitting on top.