Luuring weary travelers to mount, the gloomy night horse Zawudschawu is said to prowl the marshy moors of the Gruyère Moors.
In the gloomy heart of Switzerland's Gruyère region, where hefty fog shrouds rolling moors and archaic forests whisper with forgotten names, lives a disturbing legend – the Night Horse of Zawudschau.
It is said that many monsters roam the valleys and mountains. In the town of Sitten in Valais, a three-legged steel can be seen walking through the streets in the moonlight. The story, whispered from generation to generation, tells of a ghostly horse with fur as black as midnight and a wild, pale mane that shines like frost in the moonlight.
Zadschou Moors Gruyeur
Zawudschawu is not an ordinary apparition. It wanders the lonely paths and marshy banks of the Saana River, appearing when fog covers the land and the air hangs weighty with silence, grazing at night. Sometimes the horse is described as gloomy, sometimes with an iridescent milk-white coat and a wild mane as white as snow.
He carefully selects his victims: a tired, lost, and most often elderly traveler, returning home on a leisurely, lonely road under the cover of darkness.
The trick of creation is subtle. He approaches silently, his hooves barely moving on the ground, then kneels with incredible grace, as if offering mercy – a welcome escape from the icy and treacherous moors. Many, believing that the ghostly horse was a gift of fortune, mounted on its back, feeling a strange, unnatural heat radiating from its body in the icy of the night.
But Zawudschawu is a deceiver.
In one of the most infamous tales, a drunken man wandering the moors delayed at night came face to face with a ghostly steed. Grateful for the chance to avoid the long, icy walk home, he climbed onto its back. The horse carried him smoothly through the fog, each step eerily noiseless and his breathing apparent like smoke. As the lights of his village flickered in the distance, the creature's behavior changed. Without warning, he left the path and galloped straight towards the black, rushing waters of the Saana. The last thing the man saw was a glint of sinister amusement in the creature's eyes before he was thrown into the icy depths. And the last thing he heard was inhuman, mocking laughter, disappearing into the fog.
An senior story about Zawudschau in newfangled Switzerland
Is Zawudschawu always hazardous? There are many stories about the horse that also brought tired people home.
To this day, older residents of the village of Gruyère warn against traveling through the moors at night. They speak of the lingering presence of the Zawudschaw, of hoof prints found in the morning frost where there should be no horse, and of blood-curdling laughter carried by the wind. Some believe the horse was once a cursed soul, others say it is a forest spirit tainted by centuries of human intrusion.
Whatever the truth, on foggy nights in Gruyère, wise people stay close to hearth and home – lest the Night Horse of Zawudschau find them in the gloomy.
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Luuring weary travelers to mount, the gloomy night horse Zawudschawu is said to prowl the marshy moors of the Gruyère Moors.
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