INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

To celebrate Eurovision, and it truly was a masterpiece of a show - go Liverpool, but it brings all of Europe together and I love it so much, it’s the best night of the year. So I thought we could commemorate three European countries with a single monster this week!

DESCRIPTION:

Yes, this week, we’re looking at the Bokkenrijders from Dutch, German and Belgian folklore. They’re definitely not one of the bigger folklore options, but they’re interesting nonetheless and kills two birds with one stone in terms of covering two countries at once that we’ve not really focused on before. 

The Bokkenrijders are described as just ghosts, spirits and demons that rode through the sky on goat-back. The ghosts, by all accounts, were previously men, turned by the devil - however, still had all of their human features, including speech and looting abilities. They would also usually wear facial masks, sometimes depicted as animal shaped, but other times more like traditional balaclavas. 

The goats were winged and would bleat through the sky with the Bokkenrijder on their back screaming ‘Across houses, across gardens, across stakes, even across Cologne into the wine cellar!’ frightening the village folk across the land. They were known to terrorise these villages, looting and pillaging, as well as torturing and killing people who lived there for their goods. 

This land is actually an interesting part of this story - the Bokkenrijders were from Belgium and Holland or the Netherlands, but would mostly frequent the region of Limburg, in the south of Holland and top of Belgium, and is technically a province within both separate countries. However, they were seen all over both countries, from Amsterdam to Brussels and even as far as Cologne in Germany. But they lived in Mookerheide forest in Nijmegen - which is close to the German border in Holland. 

How do you become a Bokkenrijder though? Or how did they come to be? Well they were previously just normal men, who would swear a pact with the Devil for riches and wealth, in turn, the Devil would punish their greed because duh, he’s the devil - and turn them into demons or ghosts, and bless them with a winged goat. Once a year, the ghosts would emerge from their forest home and raid, pillage and kill their way through this part of Europe, and then return to the devil with their plunder.

So in theory, if you wanted to - you could totally become one of these, if you fancy selling your soul to the devil I guess. 

ORIGIN:

In terms of etymology, Bokkenrijders comes from the Dutch language rather than Belgian - from two Dutch words, bokken meaning buck, which is the animal group that deer and goats belong to, and rijders obviously meaning riders. In Belgium, they’re called Les Chevaliers du Bouc which is French - but they do dabble in French within Belgium, and it means buck knights - which is pretty cool. It is a bit of a simple one, but certainly interesting to say the least - especially as it’s different in two languages.

Now their history is the most interesting thing about this monster and you’re going to really enjoy this segment. 

The earliest record we have of the Bokkenrijders is from a book called ‘Causes, proof and discovery of a godless, averted gang of night thieves and gaggers within the lands of 'Overmaas' and adjacent regions’ from 1779 by Pastor A Daniels. This pastor was pals with a few Bokkenrijders, and told us of their story of signing a pact with the devil and flying through the sky. So we know they’re from the 18th century, which is an interesting time to be in Europe, especially if you’re in an occult club - but I’ll get onto that later. 

HOWEVER, I have an almighty twist to this. The Bokkenrijders were actually real - but not in the way that we think they were. They were not ghosts, but real thieves, murderers and highwaymen who would gang together in different regions - and obviously, they couldn’t fly and it was debated that they even rode goats. Legit - you can look this up, the ghostly part of it was solidified into folklore, but these monsters were very real. They would raid villages and force them to give over goods by force, and used the same name as the mythical group of ghostly bandits. 

Unfortunately, many of the bandits would use the myth as a cover for their actual misdeeds, and would rob houses and torture the citizens for their own gains whilst pretending to be the ghostly Bokkenrijders. We’re not even entirely sure if there are two separate entities - if the robbing Bokkenrijders and the ghostly robbing Bokkenridjers were the same monster. However, we do believe that the very-human robbing ones came AFTER, utilising the mythical monster group name to instil fear in the people. For example, one Bokkenrijder who was put on trial wrote a letter to a civilian telling him he’d burn down his house if he didn’t pay - and used the word Satan three times in the letter to add the threat of the supernatural.

But we do have to take into account that back in the 18th century, Europe was a pretty scary place if you had anything to do with the supernatural, and even though these people were already criminals - the punishment for being involved in the occult was so much worse. The main witch trials were over, but there were still smaller trials happening across the continent, and the Bokkenrijders had their own versions of these trials. 

If they were thought to have undertaken the Satanic oath, they would have often been tortured till the point of confession meaning many of them probably would have confessed just to get out of the torture. Superstitious and disabled people had a much more likely chance of being accused and falsely convicted - and if found guilty, were put to death by hanging, decapitation, strangulation, quartering or the breaking wheel - don’t look the last one up if you don’t know what it is, I really don’t recommend it. This was all between 1743 to 1794 and 1,170 people were accused with 468 people being convicted with 90% of those ending in execution for being Bokkenrijders in these regions. You can actually look up the gang leaders in each region, and how many of their gang were convicted and accused - there were 7 different buck rider raids that were prosecuted. 

When the 19th century hit, tonnes of books started to come out about the Bokkenrijders, and over time their reputation of being robbers and murderers changed to almost a Robin Hood type figure, giving to the poor by stealing from the rich - although there was no history of that anywhere from when they were around. They’re truly standing in European folklore now though, especially in these countries that suffered with them, and the two entities have naturally merged into one. 

There’s a Bokkenweken every October in Valkenburg in the Netherlands, where there is a goat market, a witch kitchen and a tour of the underground quarry where the Bokkenrijders apparently had a base. Apparently there is also a goat rider festival in Klimmen, but I couldn’t find any specifics anywhere - helps that I cannot speak Dutch I suppose.

Lastly, I want to talk about the comparison between another European monster and the Bokkenrijders, which is the Wild Hunt. I covered these a few years ago, but these are also ghostly riders who would rage through the European and Scandinavian landscape - headed by Odin, king of the Norse pantheon of Gods. Whilst these are a Viking monster, so the pillaging, robbing and killing of villages were their usual MO, but the Wild Hunt were more of a symbol - and they were hunters rather than usual vikings. The Bokkenrijders definitely embody the viking customs more than this monster, and needless, greed-inspired violence is definitely more their thing than hunting animals and pretelling catastrophe. But they are certainly the most direct comparison I can find to another monster in our catalogue.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there’s not much actually going around for the Bokkenrijders themselves, but I’ve gone with Wild Hunt suggestions, as they are similar monsters, with similar inspirations within modern stuff.

For art, I would recommend looking at the poster from De Bokkenrijder from Frederik van Eedens play in 1919 or Peter-Paul Rauwerda’s De bende van de bokkenrijders but I’m not sure on the date for this one - otherwise look at independent artwork for this one.

In movies, we just have The Wild Hunt really - slim pickings on this one this week!

For TV, we have; Little Witch Academia, Teen Wolf, Quatermass, Akame ga Kill!, Lord El-Melloi II Case Files & Samurai Jack.

In video games, we have ones such as; The Witcher, Darklands, Armoured Core, Dungeons and Dragons, The Elder Scrolls, Pentiment, World of Warcraft, Stellaris, Shin Megami Tensei, Guild Wars 2, Fate/Grand Order, Dark Souls & Dominions.

My book recommendation this week is Dutch Mythology: Unveiling the Mysteries of Dutch Folklore by Trident Books or Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks by William Elliot Griffis for some great Dutch fairy tales!

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I mean - this one kind of solves itself to be honest! I think if people are believing it, it’s probably out of folklore pride rather than anything proven. 

It does seem like that the myth of these legendary goat-riders were most likely just a continuous group of highwaymen and robbers that ended up becoming an urban legend like Robin Hood here in the UK. I do really like the idea of this monster though, that there are a bunch of demon-sworn goat-riders that go around swindling people.

But realistically, they’re just highwaymen who are taking advantage of a myth and 18th century townsfolk trying to mystify being robbed by blaming it on ghosts rather than those thieves. Although, sign me up for goat riding - I’m down.

But what do you think? Did the Bokkenrijders really roam the skies? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

This one is super interesting, I’m really glad we got to cover an urban legend monster like this one - they’re not even monsters really, which I think is pretty funny, and clearly it's good enough to make it into folklore from then, so it’s definitely a worthy one for an episode.

Next week, we’re heading over to the Amazon to look at a weird and wonderful dolphin hybrid cryptid - make sure you don’t get fooled by the Encantado next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.