Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: ‘s wild’ Bauerng’fahr, The Wild Peasant Procession
Category: Ghost
The Myth
The Wild Farmers’ Ride is a supernatural procession said to haunt the road between Nauders and the ruins of Ramis Castle in the Engadine region of Switzerland. Its origins lie in the oppression of local farmers by a fierce and miserly lord who ruled from castles at Nauders and Ramis. He held farmers from Nauders and other parts of Tyrol in subjugation, treating them worse than cattle. The peasants longed to escape his tyranny and secretly plotted to regain their freedom. The legend explains the ghostly procession as the restless return of the cruel lord, his oxen, and the evil spirits of his servants.
The uprising began with a dispute over a pair of oxen. A farmer had borrowed the animals from the lord in exchange for a sack of grain, intending to keep them until his fieldwork was finished. The lord, however, demanded their return before the work was complete. When one of his squires came to reclaim the oxen, the farmer persuaded him to leave the animals for a few more days by promising another sack of grain. Two days later, the lord himself arrived to collect both the oxen and the promised grain. The farmer led him into the barn and showed him the rye. As the lord bent down to inspect it, the farmer struck him over the head, killing him. His blood flowed over the pile of grain.
Immediately afterward, the farmer raised a flag, rallying his neighbours to revolt. The peasants stormed the lord’s castle, broke through its defenses, defeated the garrison, and won their freedom. Yet the memory of the violent struggle survives in a disturbing supernatural manifestation. During storms, a ghostly procession sometimes travels between Nauders and Ramis, accompanied most prominently by the bellowing of oxen. The apparition is believed to consist of the dead tyrant, his oxen, and the evil spirits of his servants, condemned to ride through the region as a dark reminder of the lord’s cruelty and the bloody rebellion that ended his rule.
Sources
“Die Bauerngfahr.” SAGEN.at – Tiroler Sagen. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/oesterreich/tirol/alpenburg/bauerngfahr.html