Near Ettelbrück there is said to appear at night a strange water-being known as the Baachjöfferchen. It emerges from the mill pond called Millewo, dressed in white.
From there it wanders along the stream beside Feulener Straße, babbling softly as it moves. After following the water for a time, it turns to the right across a gentle slope and makes a wide arc through the land.
At last it returns to the very place where it first appeared and slips back into the water, its murmuring voice fading as it disappears beneath the surface.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Wild Woman of the Hedge Category: Forest dweller
The Myth
Between Böwingen and Useldingen there once lay a place known as the Wild Woman’s Hedge, where the road now runs.
People said that a wild woman lived there. Parents warned their children not to linger in that place, telling them it was not a good spot, for the wild woman dwelt there.
Thus the hedge was remembered as the haunt of a hidden female spirit who lingered in the landscape.
In the Beringer Forest stands a high rock known as Wölfraleh, the Rock of the Wild Woman. It is hollowed out into a roughly square chamber with one side open, and a narrow stairway leads up from below.
According to the old stories, a wild woman once lived there, alone in the stone chamber. Others say that it was not a spirit but a lonely, childless couple who once made their dwelling in the rock, cut off from the rest of the world.
A similar tale is told of another hollow rock near Mersch, where a woman once lived entirely by herself. She did nothing but spin and lived in such isolation that people called her Wölfra, the solitary one.
Thus the rocks of the region were remembered as the homes of a lone woman who lived apart from all others, spinning in her stone dwelling.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Wild Woman of the Val de la Sauvage Femme Category: Cave dweller
The Myth
Before the ironworks of La Sauvage were built in the early seventeenth century, the valley was uninhabited and known as the Valley of the Wild Woman. The name came from a fearsome being said to live in a cave in the rock of La Cronnière.
She was said to feed on raw meat. Thick hair covered her entire body and hung down to her feet, serving as her only clothing. Her eyes, red-rimmed and buried deep beneath her hair, glowed like coals. From her wide mouth protruded double rows of teeth, and her voice sounded like the hooting of an owl. Her fingers ended in sharp claws with which she tore apart the game she hunted or the sheep she seized from the fields.
When the wild woman died, the tale says she was refused entry to Hell because she was mistaken for the female of a wild animal. Forced back to the earth, she returned as a dreadful ghost and wandered the valley by night, spreading terror throughout the surrounding region.
At last a pious hermit from the Selomon Forest drove her spirit away across the sea. He did so by invoking Saint Donatus and Our Lady of Luxembourg, and in remembrance of this deliverance, their holy images were placed upon the rock of La Cronnière.
In the valley of the Wôbâch, a small stream that flows into the Eisch between Simmern and Heckenhof, there once lived a wild woman in a cave. Because of her, the place came to be called Wölfragrond.
She was said to be completely covered in hair from head to foot. By day she hid in her cave, but as soon as night fell she came out and walked along the banks of the Eisch. There she attacked and strangled whatever she could seize, whether human or animal. Because of this, no one dared to pass through the place at night.
At last a knight from Simmer Castle set out to rid the region of the creature. Whether he ambushed her or met her by chance, he took the silver cross from his rosary, hammered it into a ball, and loaded it into his rifle. With this bullet he shot and killed the wild woman, and the valley was freed from her terror.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: Rock Fairy of the Felser Cliffs Category: Fairy
The Myth
Two hundred years ago, a strange woman was said to live in the high cliffs that rise above the vineyards between Machtum and Grevenmacher. She was known as Felsefrächen, the Rock Fairy. Some said she lived alone, others that there were three of them.
She was rarely seen by day and then only at mealtimes, when she would silently approach the workers and vintners. At night she roamed the mountains, and around the witching hour her loud singing and cries could be heard. In the Felser cliffs there are two nearby crevices, one large enough for a person to walk through upright, and it was said she always entered through one and left through the other, passing into her hidden underground dwelling.
Her chief work was said to be spinning, and she was known to prepare helpful potions for sick livestock. For this reason she was more loved than feared by the people of the surrounding villages.
One day a woman sent her son to the rock spirit to fetch a drink for a sick cow. The creature took a liking to the boy and lured him into her dwelling beneath the rock, refusing to let him leave. The boy disliked the place and tried twice to escape while she was away, but failed. On the third attempt the rock woman became enraged. She attacked the boy, tore him in two, threw one part into the Moselle River, and devoured the other.
When the deed became known, the people captured the rock creature and burned her at the stake.
Yet it was said that she was often seen afterward, especially by women who went to the Moselle early in the morning to wash their clothes.
Tradition / Region:Luxembourg Mythology Alternate Names: The Keyhole Spirit, The English Witch-Bride Category: Spirit
The Myth
A young man once lived alone in his house and was content with his life. One night a very beautiful maiden suddenly appeared to him. He was deeply struck by her beauty and wished she might become his wife. Yet whenever he tried to hold her back, she vanished as suddenly as she had come.
Troubled, he sought advice from a clever neighbor. She told him that the maiden must be entering and leaving through the keyhole of his front door and that if he sealed it once she was inside, she would not be able to escape.
The young man found the keyhole and made a plug that fit it exactly. That night, when the maiden appeared again, he leapt from bed and sealed the hole. The girl could not leave. He kept her with him and asked her to become his wife. She agreed, and they married, and in time they had three children.
Years later, while his wife baked pancakes, the man idly thought it no longer mattered whether the hole remained closed. He removed the plug.
At once the woman cried out loudly before the children, saying that she could hear the bells ringing in England. Then, in an instant, she vanished through the opened hole and was never seen again.
The man remained behind with his three children, and people said that if he had not opened the way, the strange woman — said to be a witch-spirit from England — would have stayed with him.
In the buildings of Echternach Abbey there once haunted a goblin known as the Kiddelsmehnchen. He was said to tease and trouble the inhabitants in many ways.
An old man who worked in an outbuilding, burning potash day and night, was often visited by the little being. While the man sat quietly beside his cauldron, praying with his face buried in his hands, the goblin would sometimes enter and begin hammering loudly on a nearby anvil. Sparks flew, the building shook with the noise, and yet the old man remained calm. After a time, the strange blacksmith would leave as silently as he had come.
The same man was sometimes tasked with guarding a nearby cloth bleaching ground at night. Once he saw someone moving about the canvas in the darkness. He called out, but received no reply, and followed the figure toward the door. Just as he reached out to seize the supposed thief, the figure vanished into thin air. Only then did he realize that the Kiddelsmehnchen had tricked him.
The goblin also frightened others in the abbey. When the porters sat quietly in the evening and the children were already in bed, the creature would cause loud clattering, banging, and cries in the corridors and stairways, as though horses and donkeys were running through the building and terrified children were calling for help. But whenever people rushed out to investigate, everything was silent and no trace could be found.
At other times the goblin would drop from the roof in the form of a barrel, causing a terrible crash. When the people gathered to see what had happened, they found nothing at all.
Thus the Kiddelsmehnchen continued to trouble the abbey with its tricks and noises, appearing and disappearing at will.
In Ehnen, in a very old house that still stands today, a goblin was once said to live. He was known as Engelbertchen, or sometimes as the Angel Horse.
At times he appeared in the form of an old man with a silver-white beard. At other times he was seen riding a small white horse. He would rush up and down the tall stone spiral staircase of the house with great speed, and the loud clattering frightened the people who lived there.
At midnight he could also sometimes be heard dragging tables or moving furniture about the house, though no one saw him doing it.
In later years, however, the disturbances ceased, and nothing more was heard of Engelbertchen.
In Mamer, a gravedigger known for drunkenness and theft was once digging a grave in the churchyard on Christmas Eve. As he worked, a boy passed along the path singing. Angered by the noise, the gravedigger rushed at him and beat him.
Afterward, he reached for his brandy bottle to drink. Then he noticed a little man dressed in white sitting several graves away with his tongue stuck out. Fear seized him, and he tried to leave, but the strange spirit prevented him from escaping. When he resisted, the little figure struck a metal object with a small hammer, and it rang loudly.
At once, a light appeared in the sacristy, and twelve more goblins emerged. They seized the gravedigger and forced him into an open grave, where they surrounded him. The first goblin complained of being cold, and the others brought him fire in a shovel, which he drank. They then ordered the gravedigger to drink as well. When he refused, they forced the fire into his mouth.
After this, they twisted his legs up over his back and forced his head between them. Finally, they hurled him back into the churchyard, where he lay unconscious.
The next day he fell ill, and the boils covering his body convinced him that what had happened to him in the churchyard had been no dream.
