curse-broken-by-removing-bridle-or-harness

Dunnie · salience 0.5

“It appears as a horse or a pony standing conveniently where a traveller wants one — often a farmer needing to fetch a midwife in a hurry, which is the version most often retold — submits to being saddled and ridden, and then dissolves, drops, or bolts, leaving the rider sitting in a bog, a ford, or the mud of the road. Local tradition attaches it to particular crags and to a specific district, and some accounts connect it with the ghost of a Border reiver who hid plunder in the rocks, which gives it a treasure-guarding aspect that sits loosely alongside the practical joking.”

Headless Mule

“Some versions of the legend claim that the curse can be broken if a brave individual removes the bridle from the mule's mouth, though this act is perilous and rarely attempted.”