The Devil's Farmhouse, Mellieħa, Malta

 

The Devil’s Farmhouse is an 18th-century farmhouse in the Ta’ Randa area, at Mellieħa, built during the Knights Hospitallers period. Architecturally it is unique as it is unlike the usual Maltese farmhouse where all the rooms are ranged around a courtyard; this farmhouse however, is built on a long one-sided plan where its rooms are all aligned next to each other. Despite being built during the Knight’s period, there are no coat-of –arms or inscriptions which may explain who owned it, or the farmhouse’s proper use.

The building consists of two extensive separate rooms each having a large staircase and an extensive stable. The managers are unusually large and quite high from the ground, which seem to suggest that these troughs were built for horses rather than cows. Thus, it is believed the building might have been used either as a hunting lodge or as a cavallerizza; a horse-riding school.

Certainly, its most fascinating features are the two staircases which rise one at each end of the upper level, and give the impression of two horns.  And it is from these staircases that spring the ledged, that this farmhouse was built by the devil or demons, who built it in three days or less. Local legend warns not to venture inside the farmhouse for the demons would drag sinners to hell.

There is a traditional carnival jingle that mentions this farmhouse and it alleged origin.

 

Għax illum il-Karnival,

Għax il-festa tax-xitan,

Ix-xitan irid ikanta,

Għandu denbu daqs ta’ Randa

 

For today is Carnival,

For it is the devil’s feast,

The devil wants to sing,

And his tail is the size of ta’ Randa