Buckriders

They are witches, who rode through the sky on the back of flying bucks provided to them by the Devil to rob and murder common people and church possessions.

The trials against the buckriders differed from 'ordinary' criminal proceedings because in many cases a so-called 'ungodly oath' was involved ("I renounce God and swear submission to the Devil").

Using the name "Bokkenrijders" (buckriders), these criminal bands launched raids across a region that included Limburg, and parts of modern-day Germany.

The belief existed that the buckriders could travel fast and vast distances through the skies to rob in a widespread area and be home before dawn to remain obscured in their crimes.

Because of the link to the occult and witchcraft, authorities accused a large number of potentially innocent men of being buckriders and the majority of suspects were tortured and subsequently convicted of crimes they initially denied having committed.

The common people told stories about them flying through the sky, pronouncing the following spell: 'Over huis, over tuin, over staak, en dat tot Keulen in de wijnkelder!'

The condemnation of people because of an impious oath or their alleged alliance with the devil can be compared to the witch trials in Europe between 1450 and 1750 with brutal persecutions.

In that trial, Mathijs Smeets from Beek claimed that he and 42 others had sat on large bucks at night and flown to Venlo to commit a robbery there.

The pioneer of this trend, Attorney General Gaspard de Limpens, wrote in 1774 about the convicts: "Their statements are full of contradictions, varying versions and violations of logic and the laws of gravity."

It is unclear how many people were involved in the actual robberies and that were convicted for it, but the widespread area and long period of time these occurred suggests many smaller groups.

The trials against the buckriders differed from 'ordinary' criminal proceedings because in many cases a so-called 'ungodly oath' was involved ("I renounce God and swear to the devil").

This impious oath, typical of buckriders in this tradition, is said to have originated in the Lands of Overmaas (according to the trial of Hendrik Becx in Nieuwstadt in 1743) and then spread to Loon.

In the 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism, a flood of stories about buckriders emerged, pioneered by the Sittard author Pieter Ecrevisse.

These popular themes resulted in a colorful collection of folk tales, in which the subject has become increasingly distant from historical facts.

In the park at Den Halder Castle there is a bronze statue of a buck that refers to the nickname of residents, not directly to the gang.

[13] In the center of Schaesberg in the municipality of Landgraaf there is a statue of a buckrider, just like in Stein, Sint Joost, Geleen, in Herzogenrath (Germany) and in Maaseik, Wellen and Overpelt (Belgium).