The Ride of the Dead at Heiligenkreuz

Niederösterreich · Austria · Monastery

At midnight the dead soldier fetched his sweetheart on a snow-white horse, calling out: how bright the moon shines, how fast the dead ride.

At Heiligenkreuz they tell of a soldier who fell in battle, and of his sweetheart who longed for him so badly that she could not stop calling him back. One night he came and fetched her. He sat on a snow-white horse, lifted her up behind him and rode out into the moonlight while calling out to her the lines of the old ballad: how bright the moon shines — how fast the dead ride. Only at a shed along the road did the girl grasp what she was riding behind. She jumped down and fled. He called after her that she had been lucky, for he would have torn her to pieces, and that she should never again wish a dead man back. Then he was gone. The Cistercian abbey was founded in 1133 and still stands with its Romanesque cloister and the Babenberg tombs.

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Where is The Ride of the Dead at Heiligenkreuz located?

The Ride of the Dead at Heiligenkreuz is in Niederösterreich, Austria.