The Mysterious Hanged Man

The area around Polička and Svitavy is exceptionally rich in old legends of restless dead, enchanted knights, fiery men, will-o’-the-wisps and unexplained phenomena. One of the strangest was told in Lubná. A man supposedly hung on the gallows there who did not behave like a dead person even after death. When they cut him down, he merely laughed loudly. The executioner summoned from Litomyšl invited the hanged man to eat, but in vain. So the executioner turned the plate upside down, and the man became stiff, as a corpse should. The executioner then hauled him onto a roof and threw him down. Finally, the body was buried beyond the village. He haunted the spot and appeared as a foal until a brave neighbour led him to a wayside cross, pronounced a spell, and the foal vanished. Another legend concerns Skalka Hill above Svatá Kateřina, home to a cruel robber knight and his followers. He loved only his daughter, who drowned in Manina’s Well while trying to pick yellow water lilies from its surface. In his grief, the knight terrorised the surrounding country. During a storm his servants drove away a hermit seeking shelter, and the traveller threatened the little castle with destruction in mysterious words. A storm broke out, and by morning the fortress was said to have disappeared. According to legend, a spirit called Houkálek then lived on Skalka, frightening people, while will-o’-the-wisps danced at night in the marshes of Královec Forest. They were supposedly the enchanted knight and his criminal companions, condemned to wander at night as punishment. Fiery men also appeared beside Rulák Forest beyond Lezník and near Rohozná. They took the form of a burning bundle of straw, a fiery snake or a headless man. Their fierce glare dazzled late travellers, who then strayed from the road, and their heat could supposedly cause a painful “fire” on the skin and suffocate people. These light-bearers were said to end their wanderings on Svobodník’s meadow near Lezník or vanish into Prostřední Pond. The wider area also has many legends of bulletproof fexts, wild women, sorcerers, water spirits and enchanted animals, with similar tales told in Sebranice, Bystré, Rohozná, Svratka and Svojanov. The strange stories were not confined to the distant past. In the 1920s, unexplained phenomena supposedly occurred at the home of Říha, a farmer and shoemaker, at 166 Hegrova Street in Polička. In broad daylight, the table shook, chairs jumped, plates fell, and shoemakers’ lasts and blocks flew violently out of the room as if thrown by an unknown force. The entire shoemaker’s family reportedly witnessed the events. An apartment building completed in the 1960s now stands on the site of the older demolished houses.