Luring weary travelers to get on their back, the dark night horse Zawudschawu, is said to prowl the swampy moors of Gruyère Moors.
In the shadowy heart of Switzerland’s Gruyère region, where dense mist clings to the rolling moors and ancient forests murmur with forgotten names, an unsettling legend endures — that of the Night Horse Zawudschawu.
Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
There are many monsters said to roam the valleys and mountains. In the town, Sitten in Wallis, there is a three-legged steel seen prancing through the streets in the moonlight. Whispered from generation to generation, the tale speaks of a phantom steed with a coat as black as midnight and a wild, pale mane that shines like frost in the moonlight.
Zawudschawu of Gruyère Moors
Zawudschawu is no ordinary apparition. It roams the lonely paths and marshy edges of the Saane River, appearing when fog blankets the land and the air hangs heavy with silence, grazing in the night. Sometimes the horse is described as dark, sometimes with a coat like iridescent milk-white and his wild mane as white as the snow.
It chooses its victims carefully: the weary, the lost, and most often, the elderly traveler making their slow, solitary way home beneath the cover of darkness.
The creature’s trick is subtle. It approaches without sound, its hooves barely disturbing the ground, before kneeling with an eerie grace as if offering mercy — an inviting escape from the cold and treacherous moors. Many, believing the spectral horse to be a gift of fortune, have mounted its back, feeling an odd, unnatural warmth radiating from its body in the chill of the night.
But Zawudschawu is a deceiver.
In one of the most infamous tellings, a drunken man crossing the moors late at night found himself face-to-face with the spectral steed. Grateful for the chance to avoid the long, cold walk home, he climbed onto its back. The horse carried him smoothly through the mist, every stride eerily silent, its breath visible like smoke. Just as the lights of his village flickered in the distance, the creature’s demeanor shifted. Without warning, it veered off the path, galloping straight for the black, rushing waters of the Saane. The last thing the man saw was the glint of malevolent amusement in the creature’s eyes before he was hurled into the freezing depths. And the last thing he heard — an inhuman, mocking laughter, fading into the mist.
The Old Tale of Zawudschawu in Modern Switzerland
Is the Zawudschawu always dangerous? There are plenty of stories about the horse having brought weary and tired people back home as well.
To this day, elders in the Gruyère countryside warn against night travel across the moors. They speak of Zawudschawu’s lingering presence, of hoofprints found in morning frost where no horse should be, and of chilling laughter carried on the wind. Some believe the horse was once a cursed soul, others say it’s a forest spirit soured by centuries of human trespass.
Whatever the truth, on foggy nights in Gruyère, wise folk stay close to hearth and home — lest the Night Horse Zawudschawu find them in the dark.
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