Who Doesn't Like A Good Ghost Story?

 Especially if it's true, so here comes...

We've had a darn good vacation. Too good, in fact, as we've done all the things and visited all the places we couldn't for the last 2 years:)

I'll write more about it and post pics later this week, but now about this medieval festival. One day we went to a donkey market in a village close by and discovered that this village had a castle, and not just a castle, but one with unique architecture (only 5 in the whole Europe), a violent history and its own ghost. And a medieval festival being organised, there, too, so we right away decided to attend it, which we did. 

There was a tournament, sword fighting, music, food and all kinds of entertainment so we enjoyed ourselves very much. But we didn't meet a ghost. I guess they don't run around when it's so busy. The castle was originally the property of a warrior bishop, who was ambushed and killed by his enemies, and you can see the replica of his skull with a hole in it in the cellars. The next owner was a cousin or something, and his own son rebelled against him and put his father in prison where the said father died 6 years later.

Some further in line, there was a duke who couldn't produce a heir.  The ownership then went to the line of sheriffs and somewhere in the 14th or 15th century a sheriff died and left a widow and lots of treasure which tempted his neighbour into attacking the castle. Here the ghost story begins. It has a couple of variations so I'll try to present a compilation of them. 

The widow was a lady from an old aristocratic family mentioned in European genealogy, and she was determined to fight, but first she had to secure the treasure so she divided it into 3 parts (gold, jewels and coins) and buried it in three separate chests and also signed a treaty with the Devil presumably to secure help in her martial endeavours. 

Somewhere on the ruins of the main tower they say you can see distinctly the print of a female left hand and that of the Evil one right next to it (I won't lie I didn't find it). But, as we all know sin doesn't pay, so her soldiers who all came from a nearby village  rebelled and beheaded her. So since that time, presumably, on Wednesday and Friday eve (traditional Catholic fast days) this lady wanders around with her head in her hand, kidnaps men of that village, tears their heads off and cooks them in a witch's cauldron.

It's like 5 km away from us, lol! And her treasure has never been found...