Headless Dešvenda

In the evening after the Angelus, the ghost of the Lanškroun governor de Sienne, or de Suenne, nicknamed Dešvenda, appeared here, especially in the former Hylvátská Street, now Třebovská. He wandered like a shadow, carrying his head under his left arm and sometimes rolling it before him. His head had been cut off only after death, because even at his funeral he was already leaping like a ghost through the nearby trees. When setting out on his wanderings, he left his coat by the bell tower. A brave local schoolmaster once supposedly took it and ran. Dešvenda's ghost pursued him all the way into the tower. As soon as the schoolmaster rang the consecrated bell, the ghost crumbled to dust. For many years the saying survived here: 'He runs as though Dešvenda were after him.'