📜 LEGEND · EXP. Nº0270
ACTIVE
The Headless Mule
The Headless Mule is a legend from Minas Gerais, BR — a folk story passed down over generations. This file collects its origins, its meaning and how it has been retold.
Where does the legend of The Headless Mule come from?
- Location
- Minas Gerais, BR
- Kind of legend
- Curse
- Coordinates
- -19.917, -43.935
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
What is the legend of The Headless Mule?
In Brazil, and with variants throughout Spanish America, people tell of the Headless Mule, the punishment that falls upon a woman who carries on a love affair with a priest. According to the tale, every night from Thursday to Friday the woman is transformed into a furious mule that gallops through roads and villages, its shod hooves throwing sparks, whinnying amid groans, and instead of a head it bears a jet of fire or a flaming skull. It runs through seven parishes or seven hamlets before dawn, and its gallop and fire can kill or cripple anyone who crosses its path. To break the curse and restore her human form, it is said one must wound her and make her bleed, or remove the bridle from her mouth, though drawing near is extremely dangerous. At dawn the woman comes to herself, exhausted and remembering nothing. Born of the colonial Catholic imagination, the legend blends sin, hellfire and fear, and remains alive especially in Minas Gerais and the Brazilian interior.
📎 Source: Enigma Atlas
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