The Buckriders of Limburg

Petrus was walking toward his home. It was almost midnight, and he was well aware of the stories going around these days. He paced up. He had to reach before it was 12 am. His wife might be anxious by now. He was carrying a good amount of money; he wished he had not stayed behind for drinks with the other merchants. It was the first day of the fair, and they made a handsome amount of profit. The other merchants had accompanied him till the end of the town, where most of their houses were. But sadly, Petrus resided along the farmlands, just beside the dreaded woods, and the outskirts of the main town area. He had just joined the merchants and was slowly rising in status from a farmer. His wife wanted a townhouse, and they were both saving money for it. It was getting colder, and a sudden flutter of a huge bird, just above his head, alarmed him. Petrus started running. A huge shadow, as if flying in the wind, amongst the clouds, followed him. It appeared as if a giant buck was flying and following him. This was what he was dreading about. The rumours proved true. The witches of the night were back and after him now. Petrus paced up. It was difficult to save himself, but he tried until the monster of the sky caught him. An iron fist caught his collar and took the bag full of coins from his pockets, flinging him in the air. A shaking Petrus only caught hold of a huge shadow covered in black, riding a gigantic buck, before he passed out.

Petrus was not the first one to be robbed by the Buckriding witches. There were a couple of more incidents in the past month. The news spread across the entire town. The Townhead and the Father of the church met and decided to purify the Farmlands- the favourite spot of the Buckriders. The people of the town and all nearby villages of Limburg were warned to be back home before midnight without fail. Despite these warnings, people still treaded those areas at midnight and got robbed by the Buckriders. The entire town was terrified. No one now dared to go out at night alone. Unless it was an emergency, most travelled in groups. But despite this, one or two people from the travelling groups started to go missing and were found the next day, unconscious. All they could recall was a buck-riding witch, covered in black. The Father of the town church called the townspeople to regular purification and performed various rituals to rid the town of evil spirits and witches. He was pretty sure they were the messengers of the Devil, plotting against the will of God.

Meanwhile, although the Townhead agreed to the Father’s religious solutions, he was thinking otherwise. He was somewhat identifying a pattern in all the robberies. All of the incidents had happened with affluent people. The poor farmers or workers, even if they carried money, were never bothered by the Buckriders. A learned man, he had heard about the Legend of Robinhood, who terrorised the rich people of England, a couple of centuries back. Dreaded by the rich and worshipped by the poor, his stories have made their place in books all over the world. These incidents almost sound the same, only the flying gigantic buck gave them a supernatural angle. Could it be a play of shadow and light? Could it be the extreme fear of the terrorised victims that made them hallucinate?

 

He was not a person to be consumed only by his thoughts and take no action, and his learning had enabled him to think rationally, beyond common superstitions. He disguised a few of his team members as vagabonds and let them roam around the whole Limburg area, as beggars. He intended to find out about anybody whose activities seemed unnatural and suspicious. They found out certain people like that, all very common labourers or farmers. A few of them were arrested. Upon brutal torture in prison, some of them confessed to committing such organised crimes. But the church continued to believe in its earlier theory of witchcraft.

 

Nevertheless, the main objective was to eradicate these robberies, so for the next 50 long years, massive manhunts were conducted around the whole of Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Germany- the areas around Limburg. Call it a criminal hunt or a witch hunt, nearly 1200 people were identified as Buckriders in a span from 1743 to 1796, out of which nearly 500 were executed. In 1773, Mathijs Beeths confessed to flying on bucks at night with 42 more people while committing those crimes.

 

To date, some historians, pioneered by General Gaspard de Limpens, from 1774,  believe that those executed were mostly innocent and were forced to confess by torture. But legends say these were Satan worshippers who rode on bucks at night. No matter what the truth was, in Limburg the Legend of the Buckriders have become a symbol of their cultural heritage.

 

Dr Deshpande took a sip of her Cappuccino.

Sunaina, who had been recording her grandmother’s narrations, stopped now and looked at her for questions.

“ But were there any written documents or books from that period that spoke about the legend, or was it just a part of folklore?” She sat with her notebook now.

“ In 1779, a pastor,  A. Daniels, wrote a book where he spoke about the Buckriders, and even claimed to know a few of them personally. According to his book, those people had made a pact with the Devil, and flew on their bucks at night. They used a spell: Across houses, across gardens, across fences, even to Cologne, into the wine cellar.”

“ Wow, Dadi, I am already getting goosebumps! What a fascinating legend!”

“Yes, my love, tomorrow we will talk about some other Legend, from some other land.” Dr Deshpande blew a flying kiss to her granddaughter.

To be continued

Part 1: Dr Deshpande's Dainty Tales

Part 3: Puteri Gunung Ledang

Part 4: King Vijaya of Simhala

This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon.

This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Ratna Prabha.