Case file · Folklore / legend
Van Hunks and the devil on Devil's Peak
Cape legend says the 'tablecloth' cloud on Table Mountain is the smoke of a pipe-smoking contest between a retired sailor, Jan van Hunks, and a stranger who turned out to be the devil.
1700 CE · -33.95, 18.44 · status: legend
The account
The tale is set around 1700, when Van Hunks, banished from his house by his wife whenever he smoked, climbed the peak and met the stranger. Their contest lasted days and the smoke covered the mountain. The poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti put the story into verse as Jan van Hunks.
The sceptical view
The tablecloth is orographic cloud formed when the south-easter is forced up the mountain and cools.