Headless Mule


The Headless Mule is a mythical character in Brazilian folklore.

Origins and occurrence

The term "Headless Mule" was first recorded in the 1940s. Though the myth is believed to have a medieval origin, and to have been brought to Brazil in the early colonial era.
The tale is most popular in the states of Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná and Mato Grosso but is well known throughout the country. Similar myths occur in the surrounding Hispanic countries.

Appearance

The Mule's appearance varies greatly from region to region. Its color is most commonly described as brown, sometimes as black. It has silver horseshoes that produce a hideous trotting, louder than any horse is capable of producing.
Despite being headless, the Mule still neighs, and sometimes it moans like a crying woman. It also has a bridle tied to its non-existent mouth, and spews fire through its non-existent nostrils.

The curse

According to most reports, the Mule is condemned to gallop over the territory of seven parishes each night. By some accounts, its trip begins and ends at the parish where the sin was committed.
Transformation usually occurs at a crossroads. Depending on the source the headless mule may have a placeholder head and mane, made of the fire it spews, to which a red-hot iron bridle is tied.
The curse of the Headless Mule cannot be transmitted, because it is acquired as a result of a sin committed willfully by the accursed woman.
The transformation can be reversed temporarily by spilling the mule's blood with the prick of a needle or by tying her to a cross. In the first case, transformation will be prevented while the benefactor is alive and lives in the same parish in which his feat was accomplished. In the second case the woman will remain in human form until the sun dawns, but will transform again the next time.
A more stable removal of the curse can be achieved by removing the bridle, in which case the woman will not shape shift again while the benefactor is alive. Tying the bridle back to the woman's mouth will return the curse.
Removal of the curse is a great relief for the woman because the curse includes many trials, so the grateful woman will usually repent her sins and marry the benefactor. In any case, when the mule changes back to human form the accursed woman will be completely naked, sweated, and smelling of sulfur.
A person who encounters the mule should not cross its path, or the mule will follow the offender and trample him down. Instead, one should either be brave enough to remove the bridle or spill its blood, or else just lay face down on the ground, covering teeth and nails, and the mule will hopefully fail to notice the stranger's presence and trot away.

Headless priest

There is also a similar, though much less known, folk tale where the curse fell on the sinning priest. In this story, the priest's headless ghost rides through the night on a normal horse, much like the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving's story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Indeed, this variant of the myth may well be just a modern import of that 19th-century tale.

Popular culture

  • The Headless Mule appears in AdventureQuest Worlds as "Mula Sem Cabeça". This version of the mule is depicted as having a fire for a head. It is among the creatures that attack Terra da Festa before the Carnaval Party.
  • In Ragnarok Online MMORPG, the Headless Mule is a monster in Brasilis Field. It appears as a red, fiery, headless horse.
  • In the 2nd season of the Netflix series Invisible City, Headless Mule was portrayed as a woman named Clarisse. She had cheated on her husband with the town's priest, which led to her turning into the creature.