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The Dark History and Mysterious Hauntings of Bhangarh Fort

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If you’re a fan of ghost stories and haunted places, you might have heard the supernatural tales of Bhangarh Fort. Often deemed to be the most well known haunted place in India, the fort and surrounding village is said to have been cursed to doom. 

Bhangarh Fort in the Alwar district in Rajasthan, India is known as one of the most haunted places in the world and there are even government signs warning people to stay away from the place after dark.

Read more: Check out all of the ghost stories from India

Bhangarh Fort, or भानगढ़ दुर्ग as it is in Hindi was built in 1573 century by Raja Bhagwant Das, a ruler of the Kachwaha Rajput dynasty when the surrounding town also was established and is today well preserved and frequented by tourists. 

Legend of the Hermit Curse

According to the legend, the fort has been cursed for a long time. A hermit or sadhu named Guru Balu Nath used this place for meditation and had a house there. King Raja Bhagwant Das pleaded with the sage and wanted to build the fort there. The guru agreed on one condition: the shadow of the fort would not reach him and no house should be taller than his own. 

Although King Raja Bhagwant Das agreed to this term, it wasn’t upheld and the meditation spot for the sage fell into shadow when the columns that were added later of the fort were built too high. 

Royal Palace Bhangarh: A fortress wit an entire city and palace inside although most of it is in ruins today, the Bhangarh Fort is thought to be one of India’s most haunted places in the country. //Source: Chainwit /WIkimedia

So the hermit cursed the fort and the entire Bhangarh village ended up being destroyed as seen by how there are no roofs. Before 1720 there used to live over 10 000 people in the village until the population started to dwindle and today the village is just a ghost town.

Legend of the Black Magician

This is not the only legend, and not even the only curse that is said to linger at the Bhangarh Fort. Legend has it that a sorcerer and necromancer named Singhia fell in love with the princess of Bhangarh, Ratnavati much later. 

She is often said to have been the daughter of Chatr Singh, who was the grandson of Raja Bhagwant Das. She was said to be quite beautiful and Singhia fell in love with her. He tried to use black magic to make her fall in love with him by using sorcery on the oil she used for massages. Often it is said that they met in the market place and he tried to sell it to her. But Princess Ratnavati discovered his plan and threw the oil onto a huge stone that cracked, revealing its magical powers. 

Read more: Check out all of the Haunted Castles around the world

The stone rolled on top and crushed the magician to death. Before he died, Singhia cursed the fort and all who lived there, saying that the city would be destroyed and no one would be able to live within its walls. 

The curse came true when the fort was attacked and destroyed by the Mughal army as it was annexed by force in 1720, and it has remained close to abandoned ever since compared to its former glory.

How it turned out for the princess is uncertain, but it is said that she is haunting the Bhangarh Fort, and at night you can hear her together with the people of Bhangarh, cursed to forever be trapped in limbo as one of the spirits that comes out after sundown. 

The Supernatural Experiences Reported by Visitors and Locals

Visitors and locals alike have reported a variety of supernatural experiences at Bhangarh Fort. Some have claimed to see ghostly apparitions, while others have reported hearing strange noises and feeling a sense of unease or fear and paranoia when taking a trip around the fort. 

There have also been reports of people feeling as though they were being touched or pushed by an unseen force on the ground of the fort. 

The Archeological Survey of India has put up signs everywhere around Bhangarh Fort of not coming here after dark and before sunrise. Despite the ban on visiting the fort after dark, some still venture there in search of a supernatural thrill. According to the legends, those who do, will never return.

Although the fort is supposedly haunted, it can also be dangerous because of the dark. Something that three friends experienced when they stayed after sundown and one of them fell into a well. Although rescued from the well on the way to the hospital, they got into a road accident and died. 

The Explanation Behind the Roofless Village

There are some things that legends claim that a more natural explanation tries to debunk. When talking about the roofless village, it is said by the locals that the way they are structured, are not meant to have roofs, and if built, it would collapse. They also claim that many have died because of this. It used to be a flourishing village, but today it is deserted.

The Abandoned Ghost City: Ruins of the Royal Palace in Bhangarh Fort, Rajasthan. //Radha Joshi/Wikimedia

As for why it is close to deserted today with only 1250 people remaining in 2001 in a village outside the old city limits, is a bit uncertain. After the death of Chatr Singh in 1630, it is said that it was the start of Bhangar’s slow decline. 

The deserting of the village and the fort might have something to do with the famine in 1783 that pretty quickly either drove the inhabitants away, or killed them off. 

The Current State of Bhangarh Fort

Despite its reputation as one of the most haunted places in India, Bhangarh Fort has become a popular tourist destination in recent years. The government has invested in the preservation and restoration of the fort, and visitors can now explore the ruins and learn about its history through guided tours. 

Although if you are a foreigner, you need a special permit to get into the Bhangarh Fort, a step the government took because of their disregard for the rules in the area. But do you really want to visit?

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References:

Bhangarh Fort – Wikipedia 

5 mysterious facts about Bhangarh that will scare you to bits | Times of India Travel 

12 Things to Know About Bhangarh Fort, The Most Haunted Place in India 

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Casino degli Spiriti — The House of Souls

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By the Venetian lagoon there is a house so cursed not even fishermen will fish near it. Many dark legends surround the Casino degli Spiriti, or The House of Souls, from black magic to the ghost of a heartbroken painter.  

Right by the water there is a decaying of a once grand palace that is haunted by its own legends. The house of Casino degli Spiriti or the House of Souls was once a very beautiful building in Fondamenta Gasparo Contarini, overlooking the famous Murano island just across the lagoon. 

The house of souls is actually part of the Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo, and the house is an annex which are more commonly known for its legends of ghosts, murder and spiritism. Today, there are so many versions of the legend as to just why it is so cursed. 

The Ghost of Pietro Luzzo da Feltre

One of the most famous legends of Casino degli Spiriti is that of Pietro Luzzo da Feltre, a painter who lived in the 16th century, together with famous artists like Titan. This is at least the painter most associated with the legend, although we have proof that he actually died in war, not over unrequited love as this legend would have it as.  

Casino degli Spiriti: The house, overlooking the Venetian Lagoon.

Anyway, this was at the height of the Renaissance and Italy was a culture center. The Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo was back then known for a meeting place for Venetian philosophers, artists and learned men. 

Not a lot is known about Pietro Luzzo da Feltre’s life and not many of his works are preserved to this day. We do now know a couple of curious facts about him though. For one, one of his many nicknames was Morto da Feltre, where Morto means ‘dead’ or ‘dead one’. There are a couple of reasons why this was his nickname. It could be because of his joyless temperament, the fact that he looked ghostly or his peculiar hobby of exploring crypts and burial grounds. 

Pietro Luzzo da Feltre’s legacy though is his demise because of an unrequited love rather than his art. The woman was known as La Bella Cecilia and it was said she had a cherub face and was also a singer. She however was Giorgione’s lover and model, another painter during that time and rejected Pietro Luzzo da Feltre when he fell for her.

According to some variations of the legend, he simply disappeared one day. It is believed that he killed himself in the annex he lived in that would be known as Casino degli Spiriti, unable to go on. 

It is said that once, his artist friends saw him through the window a few days after his disappearance, and they hurried over to talk with him. But when they entered the room they thought they saw him in, it was empty. 

Strange noises were heard at night after the place was abandoned. Could it be the ghost of Luzzo? Or perhaps it was religious cults gathering to invoke demons and do magic. According to legend his ghost is still in that house, still pining for the woman he could never have.  

The Murder House

Later, after the artist of the Renaissance had left and the grandieu of the place started decaying overtime, it was used for various purposes. Casino degli Spiriti was the place venetian died from the plague as the house was used as a hospital. It was also used as an anatomical theater where they did autopsies. So a lot of souls came and left in this building. 

In 1929, four people were found dead in the house: a priest, two brothers and a gondolier. There was no explanation of this random gathering of people or what had happened. They were apparently all missing their heads and their right hands, but they never got the ones that did it. 

In recent years, the house is still not rid of its ghosts and gruesome history. Linda Civetta lived in Belluno and managed her family’s bar. She went to Venice in 1947 to resell cigarettes on the black market which was big business after the second world war.  She was never able to return home. She was killed, cut up and thrown into the lagoon in a trunk. She was found right in front of this cursed building two weeks after her murder by a local fisherman. 

Apparently she was carrying large amount of money and this was the motive behind her murder. The murderer was Bartolomeo Toma, a gambler and a gondolier named Luigi Sardi. 

Even to this day, the local Venetian fishermen don’t go near that place to fish. 

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References

Haunted Venice – Legends, Mysteries and Stories

The Casino of the Spirits — ArtCurious 

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Black Magic at Pfaueninsel

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On the beautiful island known as Pfaueninsel in Berlin, there are rumours about the soul of an alchemist doing black magic still remains. 

The Pfaueninsel or Peacock Island is a little island in the River Havel In Berlin. The island is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the impressive Prussian architecture. The Pfaueninsel castle looks like something out of a fairy tale, and the island is a heaven for nature and animal lovers.

In the late 1600s the island was called Kaninchenwerder, or rabbit island after they set up a rabbit breeding station by  Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg of the Hohenzollern dynasty. 

Did you know: The Hohenzollern family has a long history of being a cursed family, and many have claimed to have been haunted by the Lady in White. Read more

The Alchemist on the Island

Peacock Island: The whole island is adorned with prussian architecture//Source: Sebastian Rittau/wikimedia

The island was also a place where alchemist Johann Kunckel built a glass foundry where he produced artificial rubies known as gold ruby glass. The elector who he produced the red colored glass was so pleased with him that he gifted him the island.

Entering and leaving the island was made a punishale offens except for Kunckel himself, and the whole place became shrouded in secrecy. The black smoke and smell of chemicals from the islands made the farmers around the island suspicious and they started to believe it was witchcraft going on out there. 

 After he lost financial support after his patron, the Great Elector died, the foundry went up in flames and he took off to work for the Swedish king. It was very possible that the fire was arson. 

It is here the dark rumors of the island starts as it is said that Johann Kunckel played with black magic as well as chemistry in his laboratory before he set it aflame, making the island an inhospitable place to be after dark. 

It is said that the spirit of him is still wandering restless around as a black ghost with red glowing eyes. 

The Exotic Animals

After this the island was abandoned until the Prussian king Fredrick William II got the island and built the Pfaueninsel castle for his mistress. 

From then on they started putting excotic animals like alligators, buffalos, kangaroos, monkeys, lions and peacocks on the island. At its peak there were over 900 animals there of over 100 species. They stayed on the island until 1842 when they were transferred to the Berlin Zoo. 

Today the remains are a mixture of exotic birds, great architecture and legends about the black soul of a sorcery after witchcraft tainted the very earth. 

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