Waar Ruwe Rotse

Waar Ruwe Rotse ("where ragged rocks") is the title of an Afrikaans poem by C.M. van den Heever ()[], about a father who is forced to shoot his own son when they cannot free him from a crevice he has fallen into.

The tale appears to have been based on a well-known legend in various mountainous areas of South Africa. The basic theme of the poem has been dramatised and used in novels and stories a number of times.

There have been at least two dramatised versions:

Waar Ruwe Rotse by Valerea Jonker (circa 2000)

A stage version of the tale, set in a courtroom where Ben Stander, is being tried for the murder of his son. The play was written as a playwriting exercise in the drama course of the Stellenbosch Drama Department. A copy of the text was found in the departmental archives in 2022.

Kolskoot Visagie by Christopher Joynt (2018)

A fictional radio drama, broadcast by RSG 14 Junie 2018, it tells the tragic story of Barend Visagie and his son Willie set in the Swinburne region in 1948.