What Is the Trud?

The Trud also recorded as the Drud or Drude, is a nightmare-being found in German-speaking folklore and especially associated with southern Germany and the 

Alpine regions. Its identity was never entirely fixed. Depending on the place and account, the Trud might be described as a spirit, a witch, a human being acting unknowingly in sleep, or something closely related to the Alp and Mahr.

The Trud was said to visit during the night, entering even a locked house through a keyhole, crack, or other tiny opening. Once inside, it pressed or rode upon a sleeping person’s chest, leaving the victim unable to move, speak, or breathe freely. Other traditions blamed such beings for exhausted horses and mysteriously tangled hair discovered in the morning.

Folklore offered numerous ways to resist the attack. People reversed their shoes beside the bed, sealed openings, made protective signs, or attempted to force the visitor to reveal itself. In one account collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, a victim could invite the pressing Trud to return the following morning. The attacker would withdraw, but a person connected to it would then appear in human form, supposedly exposing the source of the visitation.

These descriptions resemble experiences now associated with sleep paralysis: waking while unable to move, feeling pressure upon the chest, and sensing a presence nearby. The resemblance offers a possible explanation for the tradition, but the Trud was more than an early medical misunderstanding. It gave a face, motive, and name to the terror of awakening in darkness and discovering that your own body would not obey you.S

History and Folklore

Origins and Names

The Trud belongs to a broad family of nightmare-beings found across German-speaking Europe. Its name appears in several forms, including "Trud, Drud, Drude," and the older Middle High German "trute". Friedrich Kluge’s etymological dictionary defines the Drude as a “sorceress,” “demoness,” or “nightmare,” but notes that the origin of the word remains uncertain.

The names "Trud, Alp," and *"Mahr" sometimes describe similar nocturnal experiences, but they were not necessarily interchangeable in every region. The Alp was commonly blamed for the crushing nighttime attack known as "Alpdruck", or “Alp-pressure,” while the Mahr belonged to the wider Germanic tradition that also produced the English word *nightmare*. Trud and Drude became especially associated with southern German and Alpine traditions, where the creature was frequently imagined as female or connected to witchcraft.

Folklore did not develop according to a single organized system. Names changed across dialects, and storytellers combined local beliefs with neighboring traditions. Consequently, one account might call the visitor a Trud, another an Alp, and another a Mahr, even when all three were describing the same terrifying sensation: something arriving during sleep and pressing the victim beneath its weight.

Regional Variations

In southern Germany, Bavaria, Austria, and other Alpine regions, the Trud or Drud was often described as a nocturnal female presence. Elsewhere in Germany, "Alp" or "Mahr" might be the more familiar name. Northern traditions recorded still more forms, including "Mahrt, Mårt," and "Mara". These beings shared recognizable behaviors, but their identities, genders, and origins varied considerably.

Some accounts treated the visitor as an independent supernatural creature capable of slipping into a house through the smallest opening. Others connected it to a living person. A story collected in Vorarlberg, for example, describes a farm worker who suspects that a woman tormenting him is a "Schrättlig or Trud". He places a knife marked with three crosses upon his chest. Something leaps onto him during the night but immediately retreats. The next morning, the woman appears with bandaged hands, suggesting that the injury inflicted upon the night visitor had carried over to her human body.

These regional stories rarely attempt to define the Trud systematically. Instead, they preserve individual encounters, protective customs, suspicions, and explanations. The result is not one universally accepted creature but a shifting body of belief shaped by local language and experience.

The Night Visitor

The Trud was feared primarily as a visitor that came after its victim had fallen asleep. Locked doors and windows were not considered sufficient protection. In the account included by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in "Deutsche Sagen", the related Alp could enter through minute cracks or holes in a wall. Its movement might be heard in the stillness before it emerged into the room.

Once inside, the being pressed or rode upon the sleeper. The victim experienced crushing weight, difficulty breathing, an inability to move, and sometimes an inability to cry out. The attack might end when the person awakened fully, performed the correct protective action, or forced the visitor to withdraw.

Humans were not its only alleged victims. Alps, Mahrs, and related night visitors were blamed for riding horses until the animals appeared exhausted the following morning. They were also associated with tangled or braided manes and human hair. Sudden animal deaths, disturbed livestock, and unexplained disorder discovered at dawn could therefore be interpreted as evidence that something had entered during the night.

The creature’s ability to pass through small openings made it especially disturbing. The home might be locked, the family asleep, and every ordinary precaution taken, yet none of those defenses guaranteed safety. The Trud transformed the bedroom, the place where a person should have been most secure, into a place of helplessness.

Nightmares and Sleep

The Trud tradition belongs to a much wider attempt to explain frightening experiences that occur between sleep and waking. Across Europe, people described nocturnal beings that sat, rode, or pressed upon the body. The German words "Alpdruck" and "Alptraum" preserve this connection between supernatural assault and nightmare.

Many features of these accounts resemble what modern medicine calls "sleep paralysis". During an episode, a person may become conscious while the body remains temporarily unable to move. The experience can include pressure upon the chest, difficulty speaking, intense fear, and the sensation that another presence is standing nearby or sitting upon the body.

This resemblance does not mean that every Trud story can be reduced to a medical event. Folklore incorporated sleep experiences into a much larger world of witchcraft, curses, protective rituals, livestock disturbances, and relationships between neighbors. The physical experience may have supplied the terror, but culture supplied the identity of the thing believed to have caused it.

For those who accepted the tradition, the experience was not merely a malfunction of sleep. It was an intrusion. Something had selected the sleeper, entered the home, and left before daylight could expose it.

Protection Against the Trud

Because the Trud could supposedly enter through the smallest opening, many protections focused upon the boundaries of the bedroom. Holes and cracks could be sealed after the visitor entered, trapping it inside until it promised never to return. Shoes might be reversed beside the bed, and some accounts claimed that closing the thumb within the hand could force the pressing being to retreat.

Christian and older folk practices frequently existed beside one another. Crosses, prayers, blessed objects, iron, plants, water, and spoken formulas could all serve as protection. One Austrian tradition placed mistletoe upon the threshold to guard against the Trud and "Alpdrücken". Another practice placed the feet of the bed in water, creating a boundary the visitor was believed unable or unwilling to cross.

The "Drudenfuß", or "Drude’s foot," was a protective geometric sign generally represented as a pentagram. It was used as an apotropaic mark, a symbol intended to turn away harmful supernatural forces. Naturally perforated stones, sometimes called "Drudensteine", were also hung in rooms, near cradles, or in stables as protection against nightmares and disturbances attributed to the Trud.

One of the strangest defenses did not repel the visitor permanently. Instead, it attempted to expose it. A person being pressed could invite the Trud to return the following morning to borrow something or share a drink. The nocturnal attack would cease, but someone connected to it would supposedly arrive in human form the next day. Protection therefore became a method of identification: the unseen terror of the night could be forced to show a familiar face in daylight.

Spirit, Witch, or Human?

There was no single answer to what the Trud actually was. In some accounts, it behaved like an independent spirit or demon. It traveled at night, entered houses through impossible openings, and attacked humans and animals. In others, the Trud was closely connected to witchcraft and could be sent against another person through hatred, malice, or supernatural power.

Some stories implied that the night visitor possessed a human identity. The person who appeared the following morning, carried a corresponding wound, or behaved suspiciously might be accused of being the Trud. Related Mahr traditions went further, claiming that certain people could become night-riders without consciously knowing what they did while asleep.

The form taken by the visitor was equally unstable. It could be invisible weight, a shadow, an animal, a cat, a small creature, or even a white butterfly emerging from the body of the person believed to have sent it. What united these descriptions was not appearance but action: the being crossed the boundary of the home, deprived the sleeper of movement and breath, and often left behind some physical sign of its visit.

That uncertainty may be the Trud’s most enduring quality. It was not merely a monster waiting outside. It could be a spirit, a curse, a witch, a neighbor, or an unsuspecting person who awakened with no memory of where the night had taken them.

Sources and References

1. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Der Alp,” in Deutsche Sagen, vol. 1 (1816), no. 80. English translation and source notes.

2. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Der Alp.” German transcription at SAGEN.at.

3. Friedrich Kluge, An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, entry for “Drude.” Public-domain English edition.

4. Friedrich Panzer, Bayerische Sagen und Bräuche: Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, vol. 2 (1855). Digitized by the Bavarian State Library.

5. Richard Beitl, “Die Trud im Schwabenland,” in Im Sagenwald: Neue Sagen aus Vorarlberg (1953), no. 137, pp. 93–94.

6. “Zauberpflanzen, Kapitel V.” Austrian traditions involving mistletoe and protection from the Trud.

7. “Wasser,” drawing upon the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens. Traditions involving the Trud and the protective use of water.

8. Ann M. Cox, “Sleep Paralysis and Folklore,” JRSM Open 6, no. 7 (2015). Full text through the National Library of Medicine.

9. The Field Guide to Evil (2018). IMDb. Film details, cast, directors, and segment information.