The Ghostly Brigita

The Romanesque Church of St George was founded before 920. The precious Passional of Abbess Kunhuta comes from its convent; its creators expressed a medieval alchemical creed within it. According to legend, the crucifix in the church sweated while Kunhuta prayed at the very moment her husband, King Přemysl Otakar II, was dying on the Marchfeld. In St Martin’s Chapel stands the statue of a reclining woman, long known as Brigita. It depicts a woman’s partially decomposed corpse, crawled over by frogs, snakes and lizards. Legend says she was the daughter of a poor widow from the Lesser Town, loved by an Italian stonemason working at the Castle. They were about to marry when he suddenly had to leave for work in the countryside. On his return he asked how his fiancée had behaved in the meantime. Neighbouring women slandered her, he believed them, and in a fit of rage killed the girl and dragged her body into bushes. Her disfigured corpse was eventually found there. Suspicion fell on the stonemason, and when he was brought before the body, he recoiled in horror and confessed to the murder. He was sentenced to death, but repented of his crime and asked that he not be executed until he had carved the murdered girl’s likeness in stone. Permission was granted, and in prison he made the statue that can still be seen in the dim corner today.