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Atlas NoctisA nocturnal atlas of folklore
A — documented

Borda

Emilia-Romagna · Lombardy · The Po plain and the northern Apennines
The Emilian and Romagnol lowlands, extending into the Lombard plain

Borda — blindfolded, hideous figure that appears at night or on days of thick fog, by marshes, retting pits, ponds and embankments.

The blindfolded figure of the Borda emerges from the thick fog beside a retting pit in the lower Po plain, where the embankment disappears a few steps away.
Variants and dialect names
Borda, Bourda, Bùrda, Burdâna, Bordón, Bordöe. In Milanese, Cremasco and Bormino borda means «fog»
What is told
Blindfolded, hideous figure that appears at night or on days of thick fog, by marshes, retting pits, ponds and embankments. It kills those who meet it; in the Romagnol tradition it strangles disobedient children with a rope.
What it was forthe author’s reading
Interdiction of stagnant waters and of embankments: it is the personification of the hydraulic danger of the lower Po plain before the land reclamations — drowning, malaria, disorientation in the fog.
Where it is attested
Olindo Guerrini, Alcuni canti popolari romagnoli, 1880. Nino Massaroli, 1927. Libero Ercolani, 1964. Eraldo Baldini and Giuseppe Bellosi, 1989.
Caution
Much of what circulates online today derives from Baldini's novel Mal'aria and from the television miniseries, not from the tradition. The derivation from the Celtic deity Borvo is speculation: borda = «fog» is attested in the dialects and is enormously more economical.

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In the same area

ABadaliscLombardy — Andrista di Cevo, upper Val Camonica (province of Brescia)AOm salvàrechTrentino-South Tyrol, Lombardy, Piedmont, the Aosta Valley — The whole Alpine arc, greatest density in Trentino and ValtellinaCGigiàtLombardy — Val Masino (province of Sondrio), with extensions into Valchiavenna and BregagliaAMascaPiedmont — Langhe, Roero, Monferrato, Canavese, Cuneo valleysAMazapégulEmilia-Romagna — Romagna: Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna, Rimini, with an Apennine coreCFojoncoEmilia-Romagna — Apennines between the Secchia and the Panaro, provinces of Reggio Emilia and Modena

Related by theme

Entries that share the motif, the phenomenon behind it or the history of their collection — not the geography.

BWitte wieventhe Netherlands — Drenthe, Overijssel (Twente and Salland) and Gelderland (Achterhoek, Veluwe); parallels in northern GermanyBNäkkiFinland — The Finnish lakeland; Kallavesi, near KuopioAShuiguiChina — Riverine and coastal China; the canonical tale is set in Zhaoyuan county, Shandong

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