Tradition / Region: Luxembourg Mythology
Alternate Names: Ghost Horses of Rosport
Category: Horse
The Myth
Near the Rosport ferry on the Sauer River, people told of ghostly black horses that sometimes appeared at night.
A young shoemaker returning late from Ralingen once came to the ferry and waited for the boatman. As he stood there, he saw two magnificent black horses trotting along the towpath. Thinking they had escaped from a nearby farm, he tried to seize them. But when he reached for their bridles, the horses opened their mouths, blazing with fire. Terrified, he released them, and the creatures plunged into the Sauer River, spewing flames as the water hissed and roared around them. The shock of the encounter was said to have turned the young man’s hair white by morning.
Another time, two smugglers lying in wait near Eselsborne close to the river heard a terrible roaring from the water as midnight approached. One of them looked down and saw the same black horses leaping and swimming in the weir, their fiery mouths open amid the splashing, foaming waves. Yet his companion saw and heard nothing at all.
Thus the people believed that fiery phantom horses sometimes rose from the Sauer at night, appearing only to certain witnesses before vanishing again into the water.
Gallery
Sources
sagen.at contributors. (n.d.). Die gespensterhaften Rappen bei Rosport. In sagen.at, from https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/luxemburg/Rappen_Rosport.html
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive