Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: The Stone Knight of Waldenburg
Category: Object
The Myth
Hans von Waldenburg was an evil knight who lived in a powerful castle overlooking the small town of Waldenburg in the Basel region of Switzerland. He exploited the surrounding countryside, forcing his subjects to toil for him while he feasted day and night with his cruel companions. The people feared him so greatly that they avoided passing his castle, taking long detours to escape his attention. At the edge of town lived a poor day labourer with his wife and children. Although the father worked tirelessly, nearly everything he earned went to the knight’s enforcers, leaving his family so hungry that they had little more than watery soup to eat.
One day, a messenger arrived and ordered the labourer to go to the castle to carry stones. Having worked for the knight throughout the year, the man could endure no more. He held up his empty soup bowl and demanded that the knight provide enough food for his starving children before expecting any further labour. The messenger returned with castle servants, who dragged the man away despite his family’s desperate cries. He was thrown into the deepest dungeon, where toads and bats inhabited the darkness. As time passed and her husband failed to return, his wife watched her children grow weaker from hunger. Finally, she gathered them and struggled through the deep winter snow towards Waldenburg Castle to plead for their father’s release.
As the knight rode out with his hunting party, the woman approached him and begged him to free her husband, explaining that her children would starve without him. The knight responded with contempt, declaring that he would ride over anyone who obstructed his path as though they were filth beneath his horse. The woman then lifted her children towards him and asked him to give them even the scraps his hunting dogs refused to eat. Enraged by her appeal, the knight pointed to the fieldstones protruding from the snow and ordered her to take them as bread, promising to release the prisoner only when she had finished eating them. In despair and fury, the woman seized his horse’s bridle and cursed him: may he himself turn to stone.
The curse immediately took effect. The knight’s feet grew heavy, his whip-bearing hand sank, and his horse vanished beneath him. His body turned grey and rigid, his eyes became glassy, and a terrible groan emerged from his petrified chest. He stood transformed into a stone statue before his own castle. His terrified servants and huntsmen fled, leaving the fortress abandoned. The oppressed people of Waldenburg seized their opportunity, freed the prisoners from the dungeons, and shared the treasure they found in the castle, including with the poor labourer who was reunited with his family.
According to the legend, the stone knight still stands near the entrance to Waldenburg Castle, although centuries of wind and weather have worn away his features. On wild winter nights, when storms rage around the ruins, people are said to hear a sound emerging from the enchanted stone—a lingering reminder of the cruelty that brought about the knight’s downfall.
Sources
“Versteinerte Ritter” (Petrified Knights). SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/allgemein/versteinerte_ritter.html