2024 stories
She neither slams doors nor pursues anyone. The White Lady of Bechyně watches over a child, sits among the maids and carries a candle through the castle at night. Her very calm is what makes her extraordinary.
A protector of the Jewish Town was said to rise from clay. Yet the Prague legend also tells of the moment when its creator had to stop his own creation. What remains of the Golem in the story?
The devils hurried to finish their castle before morning. But two housewives were heading to Jihlava market, carrying something in a basket that the builders had not reckoned with.
Beneath the castle chapel, a fissure into another world was said to have been sealed. But the Houska legend has another face: a well from which nobody could draw water again.
A dragon frightens the city, but no knight rides out to fight. The famous Brno legend gives the leading role to a journeyman, an oxhide and a trick.
In the boulders on Za klášterem Hill, people saw a shepherd boy with sheep. Another tale found fleeing nuns there. One place, two utterly different fates.
The lord paid in gold. The jester kept something more valuable: his own name on the castle. The Beckov legend tells of a bargain meant to outlast generations.
According to legend, gold, silver and pearls sleep inside a rock north of Abertamy. Anyone hoping to enter must above all know how to wait.
North of the town, a rocky formation known as Skalka (Felsl) lies on a peat bog. According to a local legend, it is the ruin of a castle whose depths…
Býčí skála is among the Moravian Karst's most impressive archaeological sites. In the nineteenth century Jindřich Wankel uncovered an extraordinary…
The extraordinary archaeological finds at Býčí skála inspired many dark interpretations and legends. Modern tales speak of voices, singing and cries from…
Nearby Býčí skála in the Josefské údolí valley was once dedicated to the pagan sun god Svantovít, and immense treasures are said to be hidden inside it.…
Local tradition says that a great treasure is hidden inside Čihadlo hill (432 m). A version of the legend about a woman who left her child inside a…
South of the village rises the wooded hill of Sedlo (902 m), with the remains of an ancient hillfort. Local inhabitants saw the finds made here as traces…
Before the Battle of White Mountain, when the local castle was held by Linhart Colonna of Fels, a leading figure in the opposition of the estates, there…
Above Annín–Dlouhá Ves, on the wooded hill of Mouřenec (617 m), stands the late Romanesque church of St Maurice, popularly called Mouřenec, with an old…
One of the most remarkable stories of European alchemy is said to have taken place near Aš. The Wertherburg envoy Liebknecht was returning from a…
Beyond the village, opposite the cemetery, lie the remains of a fortified manor known locally as Vlčí hrad. At night a headless rider rode a headless mare…
About 500 metres from the pond, beside the walking route to Česká Kubice, lies a rocking stone called Čertovo kamen, the Devil’s Rock. A hundred years ago…
A duke called Dragon once owned the castle. He killed not only his subjects but also chance travellers, so everyone kept well away. In this way the tyrant…
A fantastic story from here tells how people unknowingly skinned a living horse. When they realised that it was alive, they smeared it with lard and stuck…
In September 1603, a woman named Zuzana Santová was burned alive here, accused of witchcraft because she “anointed herself with a magic ointment,…
The devil once hauled stone from the rocky Vršek near Batelov to build his castle north of Rohozná, at the place now called Čertův hrádek. It is a hill…
At an unearthly hour of night, the ghost of the wicked estate steward Gaiger appeared here. People said that he could find no peace in his grave and…