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The Young Seamstress with Half of a Medallion

When Gyldenløve came to Norway to found the Countship of Larvik and build the Manor House in Larvik he brought his Danish tailor as well. A young girl followed the tailor because of her skills as a seamstress to work for the High Steward of Norway. The young Danish girl was an orphan and the only relative was a brother, working as a blacksmith in Denmark and had no way of following her.

Before the two orphan’s mother died, she had given her daughter a medallion split in two. The children got each one of the half. They promised they would reunite the medallion when they met again after working. All alone she traveled to work at the Manor House in Larvik, hoping she would one time be back with her brother and see her country again.

Read also: Banchō Sarayashiki — the Ghost of Okiku or The Mantelgeist of the Fortress about the ghosts of servants haunting the mansions they used to work in like the ghosts of the Manor House in Larvik.

It had only been a few years since she got to Norway and the year was 1677. It was just after Gyldenløves wedding with his third wife, 17 year old Antoinette Augusta Komtesse Aldenburg. The city of Larvik was still in a wedding frenzy as it wasn’t everyday the Count himself got married.

For the young girl however, the festive wedding days got an abrupt end and she died at the Manor House of Larvik. She never would see the white beaches of Denmark again, never the open flat fields. The last she would see was the bottom of a carp pond.

The Ghost of the Girl from the Koi Pond

The girl was found dead, floating in the koi pond in the garden at the Manor House in Larvik. She liked to sit there, feeding the carps, watching them swim under the surface. What happened that fateful day only she and the depth of the pond knows. People figured it was an accident as she didn’t know how to swim. Most think that the girl fell into the koi pond when she was feeding the fishes and no one heard her cries of help.

Read Also: The Child Coffin in the Venetian Lagoon, another ghost story about a child that drowned.

The 1600s and 1700s was a restless one for the ghost of the little girl. The locals in Larvik reported on observing her, haunting the mansion in this strange country she had found herself in and named her Piken fra Karpedammen (Girl from the Koi Pond). Young children seemed to see the ghost of her the most. Her ghost lingered for years, trying to lure children down to the pond. For what reason is uncertain. To help her in some way? Something more ominous like make them suffer the same faith she did?

**The Girl from the Koi Pond:** The Manor House of Larvik was said to be haunted by the ghost of a young girl that used to work in the mansion. She was said to appear close to the koi pond were she was found drowned.

In any case, the legend has it one can only make her find rest with reuniting her medallions she and her brother shared and thereby giving them peace in the afterlife. The fact that people have reported about seeing her ghost less and less in the later years, gives hope that she somehow found peace.

This is what is told in the legend of Comtesse Juliane Sophie, the daughter of the Count a hundred years later. The young Comtesse came from Denmark when she was 9 years old in 1766. She was said to have seen the ghost of the girl and somehow reunited the medallion the girl was rumored to carry and therefore giving the siblings spirits the rest and peace they were looking for.

The Grey Lady of the Manor House in Larvik

But the ghost of the girl in the koi pond isn’t the only one walking the Manor House in Larvik after her death. There is also suppose to be a grey lady haunting inside the mansion that have been called the Grey Lady in Larvik, or Den Grå Damen i Larvik as she is known as in Norwegian.

**The Grey Lady of Larvik:** The Manor House in Larvik is also haunted by a woman wearing grey that moves around the furnitures in the mansion.

Old castles and mansions have often legends about women haunting the place wearing a particular color. Most often we talk about women wearing white, like in the legends of La Llorona in Mexico or The Korean Virgin Ghost for example. In Norway together with the other Nordic countries they are often described as the Grey Lady like The Grey Lady of Stavern at Hotel Wassilioff or the Woman in Grey like in Hvítárnes — The Haunted Hut on Iceland.

But of her ghost and who she is, we know less of. We know the Grey Lady in Larvik is supposedly the woman in a painting hanging in the hall called the knight hall. It is the only picture were the people isn’t identified hanging in the Manor House in Larvik.

Read Also: Check out Cursed and Haunted Paintings and The Friendly Ghost Octavia at Den Nationale Scene for more haunted paintings.

People that have visited the Manor House in Larvik claim that the picture itself is creepy and perhaps the thing that ties the ghost to the house. When visitors walk around the room it hangs in, they claim the woman in the painting watches and her eyes are following them.

In the addition of the eerie painting and appearing in the corner of the eyes for the staff and visitors, the Grey Lady of Larvik also reported to be somewhat of a classical poltergeist according to the legends. It is said that her ghost is moving around the chairs and other furniture in the mansion.

According to people that have visited the mansion, the ghost of the Grey Lady seems to be active even to this day. Unlike the ghost of the girl in the koi pond, it seems that this ghost still has some unfinished business and haunts the halls of the Manor House in Larvik until further notice.