Number 54 in Junkerngasse, Bern in Switzerland might be hiding more than just old history and dust. The legends of this long abandoned house just won’t let go with the tale of the Headless Ghost Woman.
Taking a stroll down the eye catching Junkerngasse is like taking a stroll through time. The old architecture of old Bern, Switzerland is all around as the best preserved street in the city. The street was once called Edle Gasse (Noble Lane), and it gives a hint of who used to live here.
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Stately houses with Baroque façades and big garden terraces still give off these noble vibes as you walk along the old street, feeling the fresh air of the Swizz cities in your lungs as well as the old history of the city on your shoulders.
The Haunted Street: Junkerngasse street in the old part of Bern in Switzerland and was once a place were the rich lived. Today many of the old houses still remains, including the abandoned ones.//Photo by: Tony Badwy/wikimedia
The Haunted House on Junkerngasse
Along the noble houses there are prominent families and old money that can be smelled just as well as the wild gardens and decaying houses fight amongst themselves to be noticed. Inside Junkerngasse 54 though, it is said even the old ghosts of a headless ghost woman of the house who still lingers and suddenly makes an appearance.
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Junkerngasse 54 is an abandoned house and has been unoccupied for decades and therefore the legends and rumours of the house are old and plentiful like how it goes with many of the abandoned buildings. Most likely it was always used as a stable for nearby houses like the Von-Wattenwyl-House, but from the outside it looks like a normal residential building. Check out the picture from inside here.
Who started the story of the headless ghost woman originally is still a mystery as the house was built in the middle ages but left empty since the 1800s. Therefore names and faces, facts and dates are muddled.
Headless: The headless ghost woman seems to still lingers in the old parts of Bern.
According to the story however, around twelve and one in the morning the windows of the house opens and the ghost of a headless woman appears, laughing, creeping out anyone that catches a glimpse of her and is walking past.
There are also tales of a woman in black that seems to be walking through the rooms of the house. If this is suppose to be the same ghost as the headless ghost woman, or another additional ghost is unsure.
Das Gespensterhaus The Movie
Das Gespensterhaus (The Haunted House) is a film directed by Franz Schnyder . The horror comedy was filmed in Bern and Zurich in the spring of 1942 and premiered in Bern on August 28. One of the location of filming the movie was in Junkerngasse 54. It was based on Uli Wichelegger’s novel The Ghost House: A Story from the City of Bern.
The movie was set in the old town of Bern there is an abandoned house that is said to be haunted by deceased residents. The new journalist Rico Häberli receives the order from the editor Oppliger to scout out the house. He spends a night in the building and discovers a ghost. Together with the young owner of the house, he tries to get to the bottom of the matter.
After a husband caught his cheating wife, the punishment for her lasted into the afterlife. After she was discovered, the husband imprisoned her in the tower of Château de Puymartin, and according to legends, the wife is still haunting this French Château as a Dame Blanche, or the Lady in White.
The honey colored towers of this elegant castle in France called Château de Puymartin is like taken out of a fairytale romance. But the tales about this castle in Southwestern France, is by no means fairytale-like, but more of a horror story without a nice ending.
The Château de Puymartin was constructed in the early 1200s and the castle went through a lot of hands throughout history. In 1357, the castle was taken by the british before being bought back by the council of Sarlat. They didn’t stay though and the castle was left abandoned.
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The castle was abandoned for a while and it wasn’t until the 1450s Radulphe de Saint-Clar rebuilt the Château de Puymartin and making it bigger that people started living in it. But can anyone really say they lived peacefully in it?
The Prison in the castle: The castle that used to be the Lady in White’s home at Château de Puymartin turned into her prison were she lived her remaining years in the tower and the rest of eternity walled up in the walls of her former prison. Photo: Manfred Heydesource
Dame Blanches in French Folklore
All French Château’s must have its own legend of a Dame Blanche or the ghost of a Lady in White roaming around the castle halls at night. The Château de Puymartin is no exception from this and has it’s own twisted tale of the Lady in White. But really what is this types of ghosts that we always hear of wandering the castle halls?
One of the most pervasive supernatural mythologies associated with haunted castles and Château’s is the Dames blanches, or White Ladies. These mysterious figures are said to wander through fields and forests near the city, bringing with them both luck and misfortune to those who encounter them.
They are known way back from myths and folklore as well and quite well spread in European ghost stories. Tales of these enigmatic creatures have been told for centuries, inspiring many artistic interpretations and offering a glimpse into a fantastic world beyond our own.
There’s also a long-standing local legend involving the castle’s ‘Dames Blanches’, or ‘White Ladies’. According to folklore, these female ghosts are said to inhabit the castle and torment its inhabitants with misfortune, calamity, and sometimes even death in many stories in French folklore.
Lady in White Ghost: The most common ghost you hear about is the ghost of a lady, often described as wearing white. The legends is different from every culture, often described as a sorrowful ghost in European ghost stories and taking a more vengeful spirit take in Asian ghost stories. What they all have in common though is they experienced something unfair in their life and in their death they can’t see past in their afterlife.
What used to be vague figures from old mythology and legends, now tells the tragic ghost stories about real women who died in horrible ways and have unfinished business in their afterlife. Such is the tale of the Dame Blance in Château de Puymartin.
The Legend of the Dame Blanche in the Castle
The legend of la Dame Blanche, or the woman in white that is said to reside inside of Château de Puymartin is said to be the spirit of a woman called Thérèse de Saint-Clar. She was married to Jean de Saint-Clar, the man of the Château de Puymartin in the 1500s. Her name is not set in stone, as the legends most often specify her name at all.
The husband could also have been Raymond de Saint-Clar who fought in the French Wars of Religion, a war between the Catholics and Protestants. He is well known to be the one who managed to get rid of the Huguenots from Sarlat. The timeline with the names in this legend can get a bit messy as we can neither confirm or deny all of the details.
But either way, the story goes that the man of Château de Puymartin was away at war and while he was away, the wife stayed home and took a lover.
But the affair would not stay secret for long at the Château de Puymartin. After distinguishing himself in the battles, the husband was allowed to return home to his home and wife for what he thought would be a happy reunion and he would be recieved by his wife as a war hero.
The homecoming was anything but thought and when he went to her, his wife was found in her lover’s arm.
The husband went mad and ended up killing her lover out of jealousy in a fit of rage. His wife was also punished but in a much slower and torturous death. He ended up imprisoning his cheating wife in a tower in their Château as he no longer could trust her on her own and their marriage was in all sense of the matter over.
Imprisoned at the Tower of Château de Puymartin
For years the wife was trapped in the northern tower of Château de Puymartin, never allowed to leave or go outside, not even after her death. One could almost argue that she is still not allowed out in her afterlife.
Immured: Throughout the years, there have been plenty of stories about women sealed inside of walls for punishments or for religious purposes. Who knows just how many old walls are hiding a secret?
The wife lived trapped inside of the tower until she died in what was called a ‘fifteen long years of repentance’. 15 whole years she stayed in the same little room never allowed to leave.
The door leading into her tower was supposedly walled up to keep her from escaping, only leaving a small trap door for the servants to bring her food while she was alive. She was stripped away from the fine living she was used to being the mistress of this grand castle and they only left a bad mattress for her to sleep on in a corner.
The only view she had was to look out from the window through the barrs they put up for her to prevent her from escaping. There she could see just how close freedom was, past the garden, over the hill and into the forests. This almost seems more cruel than shutting the window off completely.
It doesn’t say if she had any visitors, but over the years it looks like the husband never pitied her and let go of her anger. And if she spent 15 years inside the tower without anyone to talk to, she most likely went mad after the first few years.
According to legend her body was sealed inside the walls of the room when she died, trapping her there, even in her afterlife and she never got a proper burial in the ground, and was laid on the cold stones of the castle walls. Since then, she comes back to haunt the castle at night. At least now she can move outside the tower. She wanders the stairs, her room and on the pathways around the grounds.
Today you can visit the Château de Puymartin for a fee to try to get a glimpse of the sorrowful ghost that have been spotted by its owners and visitors over the centuries.
The Château de Puymartin have in its later years embraced their Dame Blanche legend and it’s a part of the experience when visiting the castle. They have even made the story into an escape room play during Halloween season. Would you like to play?
There is a ghost story that a Lady in White is haunting Haapsalu Castle in Estonia. According to the legend, she was walled up alive inside of the walls when the Bishop discovered her true identity. Her crime? She fell in love.
The ghost of the Lady in White is a wide spread thing in Europe. Every country and even region have their own local version on it. Many are haunting the old castles, cathedrals and mansions scattered across the universe. Some are haunting the waterfalls, some haunts whole families. Estonia is no exception and according to legend, their White Lady is found in Haapsalu Castle.
Sitting in the midst at the cusp of the eastern Europe Baltic heritage as well as so far north, the culture of Estonia is somewhat of a mix of the two. Many consider themselves more Nordic than Baltic, being so influenced by both Sweden and Finland, they have a rich and varied lore still alive and well today.
The Haunted Haapsalu Castle
On the western shore, the sleepy seaside town of Haapsalu is best known for its warm seawater, curative mud and peaceful atmosphere facing the Vaiinameri Sea. Salt mud spas frequented by the Russian Romanov family still operate. Everything is made for a relaxing weekend and a nice holiday for sunny days. Just don’t go to the Haapsalu Castle, it’s haunted.
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In the 13th century in the coastal city of Haapsalu, a castle and a cathedral was built from 1279 and it’s the only one of its kind preserved today. It was also known as Haapsalu piiskopilinnus, or more simply Bishop’s Castle. It was to be the new seat of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, were God’s law was the lands law. So it was a sort of royal as well as godly position, and the design of the castle was as well.
The HaapsaluCastle by night: The castle in Haapsalu is said to be haunted by a lady in white that still lingers long after her death. She is perhaps the most well known ghost in Estonia. Here is a picture from Haapsalu Castle in the dark, or, at least what is left, is still there. Photo:Sergei Gussev/
It was not a particular popular way of ruling as the last seat they had ruled from in Perona, where the Lithuanians burned his home down to the ground. Although he needed the place quick as his previous residence had been burned down, the whole castle took around 300 years to complete with the attached cathedral and monastery to it.
The position of Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek changed hands all up to the 1500s, and in 1279, the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek was Hermann of Buxhoeveden. It was also then he founded the castle and probably the bishop who is talked about in the legend of the Lady in White in Haapsalu Castle.
The life there, especially in the episcopal castle, was a strict one. Every canon working and living there in the monasteries were meant to live a chaste and virtuous life according to the monastery rules.
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Meeting women in the Haapsalu Castle was therefore strictly forbidden and punishable by death. The castle forbade all access for women and the monks rarely ventured outside to test their vows. But all of these rules is useless, love will always find a way.
The Maiden and the Canon in Love
The Forbidden Love inside of the Castle Walls: One of the monks was on a walk outside of the castle walls when he fell in love with a woman he brought back to the castle with him.
As legend of the White Lady Haapsalu Castle tells, one of the canon working there fell in love with a girl when he was outside of the castle walls. When it was clear they had to be together no matter what, he brought her with him to the Haapsalu Castle.
As there was a strict no women allowed policy, they had to disguise her so that no one would now her true identity. She went undercover and was working as a choirboy for a while to be able to meet and have a relationship with him.
They were then able to meet and talk and be in each others lives as long as they were able to pass her off as a boy to the rest of the men living there. They had no other choice if they wanted to be together. He had taken a vow to god that couldn’t be broken, and she had no way of following him with being herself.
Their little scheme worked for a while. That is, until the bishop came back to the castle and their whole world came crashing down.
The bishop had been away for some time while this was going on and when he returned, a young choirboy caught his eye. Something was off, and even though they had been able to fool the rest he caught on to the deceit.
Perhaps he wasn’t the only one who knew, but everyone else had left them in peace as long as it was discreet. These details we’ll never know for sure. The bishop however couldn’t be fooled and he ordered an investigation, finding out the singer’s gender and found her to be a woman.
Starving to Death inside of Haapsalu Castle Walls
Sightings of the White Lady: The ghost of the Lady in White in Haapsalu Castle has been spotted in the chapel for a long time. Photo: Sander Säde
When the girl was found out, the bishop summoned his council to decide on their punishment. The boy was sentenced to prison were he was going to starve to death. But the girl got the worst end of the deal according to some.
She was to be put immured inside of the walls of Haapsalu Castle. The chapel was under construction at the time and they made a space where they could wall her up. They gave her a single piece of bread and mug of water before they closed up the wall with her inside and left her to die.
For several days her cries for help, her banging on the walls rung throughout the castle. No one came to her aid and everyone just passed the wall in silence, ignoring the screams that grew fainter and fainter.
Who know what she must have been thinking. She probably didn’t know she would die the way that she had been living since she arrived at Haapsalu castle, hidden inside of the castle walls.
Eventually, she died. But her soul, according to legend, remained and came back as a ghost.
Haunting the Chapel During Full Moon
Now the White Lady can move through the walls. In Haapsalu Castle there was built a chapel still standing today, and this girl is always seen at the inner wall of it, or standing by the Baptistery window around the place she is said to have been walled up.
Whether some have actually done some digging and looked if there actually is a walled up skeleton inside of the chapel wall, is unknown.
The sightseeing of this Lady in White are always around full moons, particularly in August, when it is said is when the Bishop returned to Haapsalu Castle and she was walled up inside of the walls. Why full moon? Did it all happen during a full moon? Perhaps because of the legends that strange things happen during full moons? Or perhaps it was the imagination of the writer Carl Russwurn who popularized the legend, or perhaps even made it up?
Full Moon Haunting: It is said that the ghost of the Lady in White comes out and shows herself during the hot August full moons. Photo by Ben Mack on Pexels.com
The Lady in White is not said to do anything in particular other than to mourn her lost love and life that were taken from her because of the verdic of one man.
Coincidentally, the sightings of her in Haapsalu Castle happens during full moon in the hot August nights. This sightings is also said to happen when a music festival is held in her honor, called: The White Lady Days.
In these strange and scary pandemic times, its nice to live in a world of modern health care, science and the wide spread information about the internet. But pandemics and epidemics have always been a part of the human experience through history, and it’s really just in the last couple of centuries, we’ve really been able to combat the spread of viruses. So in that regard, we took a look at past pandemics and epidemics and how they affected the society and how they at that time, tried to combat it.
The plague of Justinian (541-542 AD)
St Sebastian pleading for the life of a gravedigger afflicted with plague during the 7th-century Plague of Justinian. (Josse Lieferinxe, c. 1497–1499)
This plague is the first well documented occurrence of a wide spread pandemic. And according to some historians, the most deadliest. In 2013 it was confirmed that the bacteria was the Yersinia pestis, the same that caused the Black death.
“During these times, there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated” – Procopius
The name comes from the Emperor Justinian of the Byzantian empire, a peasant son that had been chosen as emperor Justin, his uncle, to rule in these times. Justinian and members of his court, physically unaffected by the previous 535–536 famine, were afflicted, with Justinian himself contracting and surviving the pestilence. He was said to have been a stern and vicious ruler in the plague times, not budging on collecting the taxes from his starving and sickly farmers.
Mosaic of Justinianus I – Basilica San Vitale (Ravenna) Photo by: Petar Milošević 2015
Merchant ships from Egypt came into the city of Constantinople the seat of the Roman Empire, carrying infected rats in the grain ships. We have a lot of first hands accounts of the Byzantine historians, like Procopius. He recorded that at its peak, the plague killed 10 000 people in the city of Constantinople, daily. There was no room to bury the dead, the bodies had to be stacked on top of each other. In the streets, in the houses, unburied, left unattended, feared. No one was left to bury them. There was no room for funeral rites and the once so great city reeked of death.
Proocopicus, hated the Emperor Justinius, and blamed him in his “Secret History”, claiming the emperor was a demon that created the plague, or at leas, was a punishment for his malice. He told of supernatural beings in human disguise that spread the disease after appearing to people. He claimed other dies after seeing visions in dreams, or heard voices, telling them that they would be getting the plague.
1975. This patient presented with symptoms of plague that included gangrene of the right hand causing necrosis of the fingers. Author=CDC/Dr. Jack Poland
In the end, the tombs were filled, so the soldiers built trenches for the bodies to be thrown in. That too failed, as it in the end, was no where left to dig. In the end the people carried the bodies of the dead down to the sea and threw them in to rid themselves of the stench of death and piling of bodies.
In the VIth century the inhabitants of Philippi embarked on the construction of an imposing basilica on the site of the town’s palaestra; the size of the planned building clearly exceeded the needs of the town, thus indicating that Philippi attracted many pilgrims. In 547 the so-called Justinian plague devastated the countries of the Mediterranean basin and in the early VIIth century an earthquake struck the region of Philippi; these two catastrophic events could have halted the completion of the basilica, standing as a proof and evidence on how plagues can alter the history as intended.
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The Black Death (1347-1351)
Physician attire for protection from the Bubonic plague or Black death from 1656. A so called plague doctor. The purpose of the mask was to keep away bad smells, known as miasma, which were thought to be the principal cause of the disease, before it was disproved by germ theory.
It swept cross Europe in medieval times, laying towns, countries, cultures and riches in ruins. It did not start in Europe, but it remained as an imprint on it, to this today, some would even claim, a fear for it, that still rings today. And in the western world, every plague since then, has been compared to the infamous Black Death. So many myths, so many legends spun around it, who was to blame, were did it come from. It left plague pits, its own cemeteries and around 25 million dead in Europe alone.
People would die suddenly. They would be in the market, at work, at home, and the, suddenly fall dead of the illness. Doctors refused to attend the patients and priests declined administering last rites. Even worse, healthy people from families would often leave their infected loved ones to die and escaped to other places.
Contemporary sources say that the plague originated in Mongolia. It traveled all the way before it hit Europe in full force in 1347/48 along the coast. Giovanni Boccaccio, most known for his book, Decameron, was a first hand witness to the plague. In his book, he describes the harsh reality of it:
“The pestilence was so powerful that it was communicated to the healthy by contacting the sick, the way a fire close to dry or oily things will set them aflame.”
They established their camps in fields near towns and held their rituals twice a day. The ritual began with the reading of a letter, claimed to have been delivered by an angel and justifying the Flagellants’ activities. Next, the followers would fall to their knees and scourge themselves, gesturing with their free hands to indicate their sin and striking themselves rhythmically to songs, known as Geisslerlieder, until blood flowed. Sometimes the blood was soaked up in rags and treated as a holy relic. Painting by Pieter van Laer (1599–after 1641 ) from ca. 1635.
In Milan, if a person was found to be infected, they would close them inside the house, the house would be walled up, windows and doors filled with bricks, with all the people still inside.
Several people were blamed of the disease. Jews were burned throughout Germany or banished. In Esslingen, the Jews gathered in their synagogue and set it on fire. In Strasbourg the town counsel tried to protect them, but they were burned in their own cemetery.
The pestilence paved way to a scary brotherhood, The Flagellants, the Brethren of the Cross. Devout Christians looked at the plague as a punishment from God fro their sins. In Germany, this movement spread like the plague itself. They wore dark clothes with red crosses, hiding their face and walked in a line behind their leader. They would parade in a circle before throwing themselves on the ground, the leader beating them all for their sins. Then they would get up before beating themselves with a scourge, a stick with three tails with knots. They would whip their backs bloody. This they hoped, would appease God. Many died from these marches that raged in Germany and France.
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Theodor Kittelsen – Pesta i trappen, 1896 (Pesta on the Stairs).
The plague reached far, even to outskirts countries like Iceland and Greenland, The plague managed to hit Norway in 1349 when a wool-carrying ship from England halted at Bergen port. Within days, the entire ship crew were dead and then the rampage started in rest of Norway. Norwegian called the plague “pest”. Folklore thought that the plague was an old woman, “Pesta” and that she came to town with either a rake or a broom. If she used her broom, everyone would die. If she used the rake, some would live. Today, people are named after the deserted and dead farms. Ødegård (desolate farm), a common surname among Norwegians to this date.
This wasn’t the last Europe saw of the plague however. It came and went in waves during the next centuries.
The Third Plague (1855 to the 1950s)
This plague started in Yunnan, China, and eventually led to the discovery of a cure for it. It was then the connection to rats were discovered and a more planned combat against the plague could go forth.
Picture of Manchurian Plague victims in 1910 -1911 that has been historically mislabeled as “Body disposal at Unit 731” A much higher resolution photo, with Russian text stating that these were “Dead plague bodies held in storage awaiting scientific research” can be seen here.
Shi Tao-nan wrote a poem about the plague called: Death of Rats.
Dead rats in the east, Dead rats in the west!
As if they were tigers, Indeed are the people scared.
Few days following the death of the rats, Men pass away like falling walls!..
The coming of the devil of the plague Suddendly makes the lamp dim,
Then it is blown out, Leaving man ghost and corpse in the dark room
The writer of the poem died of the plague only days after it was written.
The plague continued to rage, from Hong Kong it spread with ships to the world. To US, Latin America, India and South Africa. India was particularly hit by the plague, and over the next thiry years, over twelve million people died of it in India alone. It died out in the 1950s. In 1894 the Hong Kong doctore, Alexandre Yersin found evidence of the Yersinia Pestis as in the Justinian plague and Black Death.
Today, fewer than 200 people die of the plague worldwide each year, mainly due to lack of treatment. Plague is considered to be endemic in 26 countries around the world, with most cases found in remote areas of Africa. The three most endemic countries are Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru. The latest victim to it being a couple in Mongolia after eating the raw kidney of a rodent. Commonly considered a folk remedy for good health.
Orent, Wendy. Plague: the Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the Worlds Most Dangerous Disease. Place of publication not identified: Free Press, 2012.
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
