On the boundary between Hartenfels, Herschbach and Rückeroth there is a solitary group of columns of basalt, which has sunk to one side over the centuries.
The group of columns now rises diagonally from the ground. Here and there some heavy boulders were thrown off, which now lie to the side of the basalt columns. In addition, on the borderline between Herschbach and Rückeroth there is a solitary rock block, a basalt prism, about 1.50m high. Various legends and poetry have woven around this rock massif. According to the legend, it was a fallen harvest wagon of a farmer who wanted to bring in his grain in the dark during an approaching thunderstorm without giving his landlord, the Archbishop of Trier, his tithe. In the light of the lightning the tithe-raiser from the nearby castle Hartenfels, the "Schanddeppen", honoured him and rode after the fleeing farmer. On the bumpy road the highly loaded harvest wagon turned over. Angry about his misfortune, the farmer cried out a curse at the tithing jack: "If only you would turn to stone!" But the curse hit the curser himself. No sooner was the last word from his tongue than the silence fell. The tithe-raiser found only a heap of petrified sheaves and next to it the petrified farmer with his team of oxen and the dog, half-sunk into the earth, motionless. Basalt stones
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