The Silver Duck Underground

Feudal lords once believed that walling people inside their strongholds would make them impregnable. Thus at Svojanov, a deranged, jealous knight’s wife persuaded her husband to wall up a young girl. Her soul entered a silver duck swimming in a marble fountain beneath the castle. After a passage was excavated, the knight learned of the underground hall. He tried to seize the duck, but the underground chambers collapsed and buried him. The duck supposedly swam out through a secret opening and mingled with ordinary ducks, so no one recognised it. Discoveries of bones in many parts of the castle encouraged such legends. Many human bones were found by the third bastion, at the so-called Vypadni Gate. In the New House at the castle, a mason found an upright human skeleton walled into the second floor, while remains of children’s skeletons were found elsewhere in the foundations.