The Devil's Bridge and other hauntings

Greek folk horror wondertales

The bridge pictured is in Greek Thrace, but is in a similar architectural style to those described in the folktales. Much fear and superstition surrounds bridges and their construction in Greek folklore; traditionally at least a rooster, and often a human, must be sacrificed on the cornerstone before the bridge will stay in place. Many such stories reach us from across the Greek countryside, with the most famous being that of Arta Bridge - this will be the topic of a separate posting.

1. The Devil’s Bridge

From Troezen, Peloponnese

There was once a pasha in Damala, and he wanted to bridge the Kremastos river so he could go hunting. Many skilled masons came from many regions, but they were asking for a lot of money because the work was very difficult. But then a poor mason from Damala turned up, and he said he could make the bridge with half the money. The pasha agreed, but he told him that if he failed and didn’t make a solid bridge, he’d cut off his head.

This mason built the bridge down there by the mills. But at night it rained and the river swelled and took the bridge with it. So as not to lose his head, he begged the pasha in tears to let him build a new bridge. The pasha gave him permission, but when the first rains came, the river flooded, the bridge collapsed again; not a single stone remained atop another. Once again he begged the pasha, and for the last time he allowed him to rebuild it, and [the mason] used big rocks and built it, but as the river flowed, it flung those rocks into the gorge like pebbles.

The mason saw it was hopeless and sat at home in despair, waiting for the next day when the pasha would send for his head. Suddenly, a man dressed in black appeared before him, and told him that he could help him and have the bridge built solidly and sturdily by the next morning. He asked for only one thing: that the mason should give him his soul when he died, and he would not only build him the bridge, but would do anything else he asked. For the man in black was the devil.

The mason was in such despair that he was forced to agree, and he also asked [the devil] to make him rich and to help him to marry the village chief’s daughter, and to allow him to live three more years to enjoy life. The devil did not only promise all this, but he told him that he would live for six years instead of three.

So the next morning, the mason went to see about the bridge, and saw nothing where he had been building. He looked up towards the mountain, where the river could never reach even in a downpour, and there he saw a bridge fixed in place. He ran to see it close up, and as he examined it, he slipped and fell into the gorge.

Anyone else would have broken every bone. But the mason was unhurt, and as he grasped a rock to pull himself up, it rolled, and beneath it he found a huge pot full of gold coins. Without wasting any time he hid the pot before anyone saw it, and ran to the pasha to hand over the bridge.

The art of the travelling Epirus stonemasons remains legendary in Greece, and the countryside across the Balkans is full of their handiwork: monasteries, churches, mosques, mansions, castles, whole villages, mills, and bridges. 431 stone bridges are found in Epirus alone. Particularly from the 16th century onward, they would travel in ‘bands’ wherever work was to be had, and built without drawing designs, following age-old techniques handed down to them. (NB. I have seen this happen in practice). They had their own cant (secret language), and guarded their tools, techniques, and traditions closely. Some of these skills and traditions survive today among Albanian stonemasons who still retain these skills. Pictured here in the late 19th/early 20th century.

And so he built the bridge, and became rich, and married the village chief’s daughter, as the devil had promised. And when the six years were up, one day he went to the bridge, as he did from time to time to get more coins from the pot. But that day he never returned. Some shepherds saw him at the bridge, but a great whirlwind rose up with thunder and lightning and when it cleared he was nowhere to be seen. The whirlwind also reached the village below, and a lightning bolt fell and killed the mason’s wife and burned his house.

2. Kyra’s [Lady’s] bridge

From Lasta, Gortynia

Bad rivers make bridges fall. One of those rivers was Kyra’s river, where no bridge could stand. But the Kyra [Lady] - who seemed to be a Turk, threatened the masons, and they caught and nailed down a worker and a woman. And since then, finally the bridge held. And when the river rushes and is turbulent at night, the worker and the woman shout “Hold on, woman!” “You hold on too, worker!” meaning that the haunting is fixed in place. To this day the bridge is called Kyra’s bridge.**

Kyra’s bridge over the river Ladon in Gortynia. Archive of Peloponnesian Bridges.

** Translator’s note: Kyra’s bridge spans the Ladon river. Its construction began in the Francocracy in the 13th century, but only the first two arches were built. During the Ottoman occupation two more arches were added, and the fifth arch was added in 1908. Local tradition has it that Kyra (= Lady) was a lady from Akova Castle, also known as Monovyza (one-breast), for rumour had it that she had one breast so she could fight better. Politis records several such legends. Other local legends speak of a fearsome Amazon warrioress who guarded the castle. She had but one breast, while the other was huge and she would throw it over her shoulder as she stormed out of an underground lair to attack her enemies.

Akova castle, built c. 1250, a few miles from Kyra's bridge. Source: https://www.kastra.eu/castlegr.php?kastro=acova

Margaret was the second daughter and heir of Guillaume de Villehardouin, prince of Achaea. The older wooden bridge had been swept away, and she paid for the construction of the stone bridge. Some newer studies suggest that the name “Lady’s Bridge” has older roots, and may either be an epithet of the goddess Demeter, or the title of a human woman named Demeter, or even a corruption of the city Kaire in southern Italy, where local settlers had come from. Source.

3. Fanari bridge

From Andritsaina, Olympia

The masons building the big bridge at Fanari, near Pachypodi, were all cross-brothers [baptised by the same godfather], and they had with them a cross-sister, a virgin girl, who tirelessly brought them water to quench their great thirst, for they worked under a blazing sun. And forty masons built the bridge tall and solid up to the halfway mark, but after that point, it kept falling.

Fanari bridge at Andritsaina.

They thought that one of the workers would need to be built into the foundation to make the bridge hold. They drew lots, and the short straw fell to the cross-sister, the virgin girl. They said nothing to her, but as she slept one night, they tricked her and took her and built her into the bridge’s foundation.

Τhe ill-fated girl awoke as she felt freezing, heavy rocks being built atop her, she began screaming, pleading with the masons to release her, calling on their shared oath as cross-siblings, but they would neither hear nor answer her, they kept building until the bridge was fully built, and even now it holds, even if all of Alexander the Great’s armies were to cross it. The girl in the foundations moans and weeps incessantly, and her weeping and hollow moans can be heard in the night.

4. The haunted bridge

From Tirnavos

The single-arched bridge over Salavriās near the village Mousoular in Tyrnavos municipality is haunted.** As the song goes, when they were building it, every night it would fall again; they built in sheep and it would not hold, they built in a poor boy and it kept leaning to one side; until they built in the foreman’s wife.

This is not the same bridge as in the story; that one dated to the 15th century, was eventually demolished, and a modern one built in the 20th century. This is a typical example of a single-arched stone bridge from a nearby region. The modern bridge has also been repeatedly damaged by river currents in recent years.

And she cursed it to shake, as her heart shook, and for every traveller crossing it to weep. And now the bridge sometimes leans right, and sometimes left, and any strangers who cross it weep, because before they cross, some sudden disaster always befalls them.

** Translator’s note: The name of the village is lost. Salavriās is another name for the river Pineios. Many such tales of blood sacrifices being necessary for a construction, especially a bridge, to hold, are well-known across the Greek countryside. They are not myths - this form of ritual sacrifice was practised, possibly as late as the 19th century, with animal sacrifices carrying on into the late 20th century. Read more on the fixing of a genius loci in this manner elsewhere on this site.

Nikolaos Politis, Traditions: Studies on the Life and Language of the Greek People, Athens, Historical Publications, 1904; trans. by Sasha Chaitow © 2024

About these wondertales

Nikolaos Politis, Greek folklorist (1852-1921)

In the late 19th century, Greek folklorist and philologist Nikolaos Politis systematised early folklore collection and study in Greece by recruiting teachers, doctors, and priests from around the country and asking them to record the wondertales told in their region, complete with regional dialect. He wanted all possible expressions of traditional folk life: oral tradition (songs, proverbs, blessings, narratives etc), descriptions of social organisation, everyday life (clothing, food, household), professional life (agricultural, animal husbandry, seafaring), religious life, justice, folk philosophy and medicine, magic and superstitions, folk art, dance, and music.

He gathered these artefacts of Greek folk life and applied ethnographic and comparative methods of his day to their study. Politis published comparative studies in relation to other Balkan nations as well as to the myths and histories of antiquity. Though his methods were relatively simplistic and are now outdated, his collections form a valuable corpus of records and have been exhaustively studied by later scholars as the field in Greece became more sophisticated.

In this series of snippets, I aim to translate a handful of his most interesting or amusing stories since they have never been translated into other languages. They are presented as-is, with minimum commentary where it is needed for context. Many of these deserve commentary and analysis; this will form the topics of longer-form article in due course.

Read more about why they’re called wondertales in the first section of my article here.