Buckriders
name for different gangs active in Countries of Overmaas and County of Loon during the 18th century
The Buckriders (Dutch: Bokkenrijders, French: Chevaliers du bouc) are a part of South-Eastern Dutch and North-Eastern Belgian folklore. 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"). Once a year, they would visit their master, the Devil, on the Mook Heath.
Throughout the 18th century, groups of thieves and other criminals adopted the belief to frighten the inhabitants of southern Limburg, a province in the southern part of the Netherlands and in parts of what has become since eastern Belgium. Using the name "Bokkenrijders" (buckriders), these criminal bands launched raids across a region that included Limburg, and parts of modern-day Germany. In response to the robberies towns in Limburg started to build defences like moats around them and farms started to develop a closed square building style.
The buckriders were feared and despised by the common people throughout the area because of the ruthlessness and violence the robberies were committed by. 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.
Commonly, the buckriders raided small communities, parsonages, churches and more remote farms.
The public source identifies “Buckriders” as name for different gangs active in Countries of Overmaas and County of Loon during the 18th century. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Buckriders, name and different.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q539273. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Buckriders” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.