Now long abandoned and left to decay in the Swizz forests, The Sanatorium of the Gotthard is said to still have some patients that never checked out. Is it really someone haunting the old hospital in the mountains?
In the shadow of Switzerland’s Gotthard Massif, with mountains looming over the misty dense pine forests, stands a decaying relic of the nation’s darker past. The Sanatorium of the Gotthard, near the village of Piotta, also called The Sanatorio Popolare Cantonale di Piotta, is more than a run, a place where history, death, and whispered legends have blurred into one lingering, malevolent presence.
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Today, its broken windows gape like hollow eyes, and ivy-strangled walls crumble beneath the weight of decades of silence. But those who have braved its abandoned corridors claim the building is anything but empty. According to legend, there is said to be a mountain of corpses in the basement of the sanatorium, and some of them are said to still be haunting the place.
Sanatorio Popolare Cantonale di Piotta (1919)
A Sanatorium Built for the Afflicted
Constructed in the early 20th century, the sanatorium was originally designed to house tuberculosis patients, a common affliction in the Alpine regions due to the damp mountain air and close living conditions and opened in 1905. It was initiated by Fabrizio Maffi, who later became an Italian senator and fled to Switzerland. Just a year after its opening, the sanatorium went bankrupt for the first time.
Sanatorium of the Gotthards remote location, isolated in the hills, made it an ideal quarantine facility, but also the perfect setting for stories to ferment.
During World War I, the sanatorium’s role expanded. It began treating wounded and shell-shocked soldiers, men maimed not only in body but broken in spirit. It was here, according to local folklore, that the line between medicine and malevolence began to blur.
Among the most enduring and unsettling rumors is the tale of a nameless doctor who allegedly conducted experimental procedures on both TB sufferers and injured soldiers alike. Surgeries without anesthetic, grotesque experiments with electricity and cold therapy, and cruel psychological trials are said to have taken place within those bleak rooms. Though no official records confirm these claims, the sanatorium’s very architecture hints at secrets, a discreetly hidden morgue, unmarked underground tunnels, and sealed wings where sunlight no longer dares to enter.
Decades of Decay and Unease at the Gotthard Sanatorium
The Sanatorium of the Gotthard was quietly shuttered in 1961 as modern medicine outpaced its usefulness and the place faced economic hardships they would not overcome. Over the following 60 years, the building fell into disrepair, succumbing to the encroaching forest and harsh mountain winters. Yet even in its decay, it never quite fell silent.
Urban explorers and thrill-seekers drawn to its crumbling halls speak of disembodied voices, the sound of shuffling footsteps in empty rooms, and a lingering, oppressive chill that clings to the air like mist. Some claim to have seen pale figures watching from broken windows or glimpsed fleeting shadows in the peripheral dark. The sensation of being followed is nearly constant, and many leave with an inexplicable sense of dread.
Urban Explorers: The abandoned building has become a popular place for urban exploring and ghost hunters. // Source: Wendelin Jacober/Wiki
One widely retold account describes a man attempting to drive up the narrow road to the Sanatorium of the Gotthard, only to feel his car begin to roll backward on its own, as if some unseen force was physically repelling him from the site. Despite firming his grip on the steering wheel and applying the brakes, the car continued its slow, deliberate retreat down the road, stopping only when he gave up the attempt.
The Haunting Legacy of the Morgue
Perhaps the sanatorium’s most notorious feature is its basement morgue, where rows of rusting gurneys and shattered cabinets still linger, untouched for decades. Visitors report a sudden drop in temperature upon entering, and the unmistakable, sour scent of old antiseptic and decay — though the building has been abandoned for generations.
Some locals insist that the spirits of those who perished in agony within these walls — from soldiers torn apart by war to TB patients abandoned by hope, remain trapped, their suffering bound to the place of their torment. There are also said that a doctor carried out demonic experiments on patients, said to be associated with the fictional character, Dr. Mabuse. Lights flicker in its hollow shell, and faint, mournful cries sometimes rise above the wind that rattles its ancient eaves.
A Warning Carried by the Wind
Even today, few locals will approach the sanatorium after nightfall. Hikers claim to hear whispers in the trees, and it’s said that animals avoid the path leading up to the ruined building. Storms seem to gather with unsettling speed over its roof, and the once-healing Alpine air turns cold and heavy as one nears its gates.
The Sanatorium of the Gotthard was sold from Canton Ticino to a Kazakh group of investors in 2016, wanting to turn it into a winter sports training center, although nothing has happened.
In 2021, the “Corriere del Ticino” reported a strange ritual filmed in the ruins. The video shows a man who claims to be Swiss, dressed in black with a hood featuring a skull. He waves a (likely fake) skull in one hand and holds a notebook in the other, with a fire in front and small candles around it. What is happening in the old sanatorium today?
The Sanatorium of the Gotthard endures as one of Switzerland’s most chilling forgotten places, a decaying testament to human suffering, medical ambition, and the spirits that refuse to be forgotten. To wander its halls is to court the past — and perhaps meet whatever lingers in the shadows.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
The Grand Hotel Giessbach has housed the Swiss elite for over a century and is said to be haunting the ghost of Horace Edouard Davinet, the architect behind it all.
Above the glacial waters of Lake Brienz, the Grand Hotel Giessbach is a Swiss landmark of timeless elegance. Built in 1874, the hotel’s grand façade and sweeping views of cascading waterfalls have drawn royalty, artists, and weary travelers alike.
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Horace Edouard Davinet, the renowned 19th-century architect, poured his soul into creating the Giessbach after being commissioned by the Hauser family of hoteliers, from Wädenswil in the Canton of Zurich who wanted to expand on the guesthouse they had there. The Grand Hotel Giessbach was said to be one of his crowning achievement, a luxurious Belle Epoque retreat with stucco-decorated ballrooms and salons meant to harmonize with the surrounding Alpine wilderness. Yet behind its Belle Époque charm lies a spectral secret — the restless spirit of the man who designed it.
The Ghost of the Architect
Horace Edouard Davinet was a Franco-Swiss architect. He was born in 1839 and studied, worked and lived in Bern where he designed buildings for the Swiss elite. Before he died in 1922, he designed several hotels, including the original Rigi Kulm Hotel at the summit of Rigi mountain in Switzerland. Although there is nothing but designing the hotel that connects him to this Grand Hotel Giessbach, this is where they say he haunts.
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Two World Wars plus economic crises with their devastating consequences for the Swiss hotel industry combined with a different understanding of tourism led to the fading of the lustre and glory of the Giessbach. After many years of decline, the Grand Hotel Giessbach closed its doors in 1979 before opening up again with a haunted rumor.
Edouard Davinet: architect and inspector of the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, 1919, by Wilhelm Paul Friedrich Balmer, Museum of Fine Arts in Bern.
And though Davinet passed away long ago, it seems his devotion to the building has tethered him to its halls. And as the hotel director, Mark von Weissenfluh says: “We firmly believe that our hotel is primarily home to good spirits,”
The Haunting of the Grand Hotel Giessbach
For decades, staff and guests alike have whispered of eerie happenings within the Grand Hotel Giessbach, particularly during the quiet, snow-draped winter months when the rooms sit empty and the wind howls through the valley. Footsteps echo along deserted corridors, doors creak open without cause, and the air turns inexplicably cold in certain parts of the hotel — especially near the grand staircase, said to be Davinet’s favorite feature.
He is said to have gently touched two employees on the shoulder during their nightly rounds, but there are no malicious or negative stories coming from guests and staff about encounters with the house spirit.
The most unsettling encounters, however, involve the large, formal portrait of Davinet that hangs prominently in the hotel’s main hall. Many claim to have seen the eyes in the painting follow them as they pass, while others report a faint, spectral figure resembling the architect himself, standing motionless at the top of the staircase, vanishing the moment one’s gaze meets his.
Though skeptics brush it off as old hotel creaks and overactive imaginations, many believe Horace Edouard Davinet’s spirit continues to walk the halls of Grand Hotel Giessbach, ever watchful, ensuring that his masterpiece stands proud against the passage of time and that no one forgets the man who dreamed it into being.
For those brave enough to stay during a quiet winter’s night, keep an ear open for those ghostly footsteps — and if you pass the portrait in the main hall, you might just catch a flicker of movement in the architect’s unblinking eyes.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
Luring weary travelers to get on their back, the dark night horse Zawudschawu, is said to prowl the swampy moors of Gruyère Moors.
In the shadowy heart of Switzerland’s Gruyère region, where dense mist clings to the rolling moors and ancient forests murmur with forgotten names, an unsettling legend endures — that of the Night Horse Zawudschawu.
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There are many monsters said to roam the valleys and mountains. In the town, Sitten in Wallis, there is a three-legged steel seen prancing through the streets in the moonlight. Whispered from generation to generation, the tale speaks of a phantom steed with a coat as black as midnight and a wild, pale mane that shines like frost in the moonlight.
A haunting view of Gruyère Moors and Castle Gruyere, shrouded in mist, home to the legend of the Night Horse Zawudschawu.
Zawudschawu of Gruyère Moors
Zawudschawu is no ordinary apparition. It roams the lonely paths and marshy edges of the Saane River, appearing when fog blankets the land and the air hangs heavy with silence, grazing in the night. Sometimes the horse is described as dark, sometimes with a coat like iridescent milk-white and his wild mane as white as the snow.
It chooses its victims carefully: the weary, the lost, and most often, the elderly traveler making their slow, solitary way home beneath the cover of darkness.
The creature’s trick is subtle. It approaches without sound, its hooves barely disturbing the ground, before kneeling with an eerie grace as if offering mercy — an inviting escape from the cold and treacherous moors. Many, believing the spectral horse to be a gift of fortune, have mounted its back, feeling an odd, unnatural warmth radiating from its body in the chill of the night.
But Zawudschawu is a deceiver.
In one of the most infamous tellings, a drunken man crossing the moors late at night found himself face-to-face with the spectral steed. Grateful for the chance to avoid the long, cold walk home, he climbed onto its back. The horse carried him smoothly through the mist, every stride eerily silent, its breath visible like smoke. Just as the lights of his village flickered in the distance, the creature’s demeanor shifted. Without warning, it veered off the path, galloping straight for the black, rushing waters of the Saane. The last thing the man saw was the glint of malevolent amusement in the creature’s eyes before he was hurled into the freezing depths. And the last thing he heard — an inhuman, mocking laughter, fading into the mist.
Lake Of Gruyère: A serene view of the Lake Of Gruyère surrounded by autumn foliage, evoking the mysterious atmosphere of the Gruyère Moors where the night horse drowns his victims.
The Old Tale of Zawudschawu in Modern Switzerland
Is the Zawudschawu always dangerous? There are plenty of stories about the horse having brought weary and tired people back home as well.
To this day, elders in the Gruyère countryside warn against night travel across the moors. They speak of Zawudschawu’s lingering presence, of hoofprints found in morning frost where no horse should be, and of chilling laughter carried on the wind. Some believe the horse was once a cursed soul, others say it’s a forest spirit soured by centuries of human trespass.
Whatever the truth, on foggy nights in Gruyère, wise folk stay close to hearth and home — lest the Night Horse Zawudschawu find them in the dark.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
For years, the old Joller House that used to be in Stans was plagued by a poltergeist-like haunting that drove an entire family out of the city? What really happened within the walls where the knocking and scratching of the walls seemed to come from the other side?
Tucked away in the Swiss town of Stans, in the canton of Nidwalden, once stood an ordinary-looking residence with an extraordinary, and deeply unsettling, secret. Known today as the Joller House poltergeist, this case remains one of Switzerland’s earliest documented hauntings and one of its most mysterious ones.
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For a brief, terrifying period in the mid-19th century, the Joller House was the scene of violent, unexplained phenomena that left an entire community shaken and drove an entire family out. What happened in this house said to be haunted by a poltergeist?
The Haunted Joller House: Although it was torn down in 2010, the ghost story of the Joller House still linger in Stans. // Source: Nidwalden State Archives, StANW OD 1-9/4
The Joller Family Backstory
The central figure in this grim account was Melchior Joller (1818-1865), a seemingly respected lawyer and Nidwalden official and state archivist, known for his rationality and standing in the local government pushing for a liberal politic. He was a son of Jokob Joller, a farmer and Catholic churchwarden.
Melchior Joller in his younger years.
Although he is remembered as a stand up person in society, he wasn’t the most successful. He had served a single three-year term as a backbencher in the National Suisse and had run for office in Nidwalden, but was never elected. His liberal newspaper got him in trouble with the Catholic clergy. He also wrote a pamphlet Darstellung selbsterlebter mystischer Erscheinungen (Narrative of personally experienced strange phenomena) where he detailed strange things happening in his house.
In November 1842, he married Karoline Wenz and they had seven children together. The house in question was Joller’s childhood home, built by his grandmother, and he had lived there all of his life except for his years at university, and co-owned it with a sister or sisters. In 1845, he took over the house and farm that his grandmother had built. And his grandmother was no other than Veronika Gut.
Veronika Gut and her Lasting Presence in Stans
Melchior Joller has been remembered for the ghost story happening in his home, but his grandmother was remembered for her life. She was born in 1757 in Stans and was a fierce supporter for the Nidwalden resistance and Swiss cause against the French Helvetic Republic. In 1798 she was already a widow with six children, living on a farm in Spichermatt in Stans. When the conflict escalated to an invasion, she donated 600 guilders to the war chest.
Veronika Gut: Remembered as a powerful woman. Here from Landschaftstheater Ballenberg: Veronika Gut – Uprising in Nidwalden, an open-air theater from 2017.
After the invasion she was arrested and tried as a rebel and fined. She was also sentenced to stand in front of the local church every Sunday with a note saying: “Liar and Disturber of Peace.” She was ordered to wear a black cape for a year, a humiliating thing as respectable women wore white. But she wore it with so much pride that she was told to remove it.
The previous house had been burned down when the French invaded in September 1798. Her 17 year old son, Leonz Joller died in battle as well. In her new house in Nägeligasse in Stans, she established a patriotic party in 1813 after Napoleon lost and held secret meetings in the evenings. Although she remarried to Melchior Odermatt, she was always known by her maiden name.
The Style of House: Photo taken by Jakob Hunziker traveled extensively in Switzerland between 1883 and 1895. This house, looking very similar to the Joller house was in Wolfenschiessen.
Her life was filled with opinions, personal tragedies and political resistance. According to some rumors, it was also said that her spirit lingered in the house she built, and that she would come back in her afterlife with as much force that she had when alive.
The Haunting Starts in the Joller House
In 1860, Joller then 42, his wife, and their children lived in a seemingly pleasant home in Stans he had inherited from his parents, close to Lake Lucerne, unaware of the terror that would soon unfold. They had four sons, Robert (1843), Eduard (1851), Oskar (1853) and Alfred (1858) and their three daughters Emaline (1845), Melanie (1848) and Henrika (1850).
Family Photo: The Joller Family who lived in the Joller House and claimed they were plagued by a poltergeist for years.
They also lived with their servants who according to Joller, were the first to notice strange things happening in the Joller House. Sleeping on the third floor in the attic, she started to hear a knocking on her bed head during the night in fall in 1860. She told Joller about it, thinking it meant someone in the house was about to die.
Joller told to shut up about these things and forgot about it until another experience a few weeks later. A knocking noise also woke up Karoline and their second daughter, Melanie, who shared a bedroom when Joller was away from home on a business trip. According to them, it was as if the knocking was trying to communicate with them and they became frightened. Then a year passed and they thought nothing of it anymore.
In June 1861, nine year old Oscar was nowhere to be found when they called for supper, and they searched for him, finding him unconscious in a room on the third floor they used to store logs. When he woke up, he claimed to have heard three knocks and went to check it out. A door flung open and a formless white shape entered and he passed out.
The following days, the boys sleeping in the bedroom on the second floor above the living room, started complaining about knocking noises. It seemed to come from the floor above them. When they told their father, he even heard something sounding like scratching on the walls, but thought it had to be a cat or a rat making the sound. In his memoir Joller also adds the detail that he had heard this noise many times before in his study, perhaps for the past two years.
That autumn, a maid said she had seen grey shapes appearing and that someone was coming up the stairs at night, walking right past her and into a living room when she was cleaning shoes on the stairs. She had also several times heard her name being called out by no one. Once she also heard something she described as “profoundly disturbing sobs.”
The maid’s stories angered Joller and Karoline told her to not talk about these things to the children, thinking she was too superstitious. 11 year old Henrika even claimed to have seen a small child shortly after when she was doing schoolwork. This frightened her so much she refused to enter the living room.
Joller decided to fire the housemaid that had claimed to see and hear the strange things that October. In his writings he claims it was because they would be able to manage the household themselves, but who knows. Was he angry about her talking about seeing ghosts to his children? Did he try to get her to quit the job because of financial problems? He instead hired a 13 year old girl to replace her, and for a time, it seemed that this had solved the problem except from the odd scratching on the walls and mysterious knocking sounds here and there throughout the house.
The Haunted Summer at the Joller House
Again it came a winter of silence, but the summer of 1862, the paranormal activity hit full force. On 15 of August, Joller went to Lucerne with his wife and Robert at seven in the morning. They left the house and the rest of the children with the 14 year old Melanie and the 13 year old servant girl.
Henrika started to hear a rapping noise and told Melanie and the servant girl. They went to investigate. Oscar and Edward also came trying to coax the spirit to give them a sign. But the children became afraid and fled the house, sitting outside on the front steps.
When they went back in at lunchtime, hungry and rattled, every single cupboard and door had opened when they were outside. They shut them all, bolting what they could. But as soon as they had closed them, they sprung open, including the bolted ones.
A sound of heavy footsteps were heard and the children fled out the house again. As the servant girl looked behind her, she claimed she saw the shape that looked something like a hung sheet in the corner coming towards her before disappearing when she called out with their food they ate outside under a hazel tree. .
The children reached the barn where some laborers were working. They took turns running back to the house to see what was going on, and according to them, a lot was going on. The sound of moving furniture, a voice saying “even if no one is around”, in a sad and groaning voice. A voice singing to a single-tone string was playing Camille’s prayer in Zampa, from the Ferdinand Herold opera from the upstairs living room.
Frightened, they all gathered under a tree when an old woman passed by and asked if this was where Veronika Gut had lived. The children confirmed, and the woman, claiming she had known her when she was alive started to tell them about the tragic story that happened generations ago.
The Story of the Drowned Girls
Three years after the house had burned down, Veronika had heard a mysterious voice, telling her to flee with her family because the French had invaded again in 1801. The French had not actually invaded, but she decided to run away to Engelberg with her children.
Joller’s father was with them initially, but for some reason, they split up and he went to another place with a guide. At Wolfenschiessen there was a narrow footbridge of the Engelberger Aa river the daughters Agatha, Franziska, Josefa and Anna had to cross. Veronika crossed first, then her eldest daughter of 19 followed, then the rest. The bridge collapsed and although Veronika managed to jump to firm ground, all of her daughters fell into the river and drowned.
According to the old woman, she had been the one ringing the bell in St Joder’s chapel after the tragedy. That night they had seen a man dressed in white, carrying a lamp and coming to the chapel, the sign that the bell was about to toll. But when her brother had gone to check, he hadn’t seen anyone and it wasn’t until the morning that they heard about the terrible news.
The Drowned Girls: Engelberger Aa, near Wolfenschiessen, Switzerland were Veronika Gut’s daughters perished. // Source
The old woman continued on her way, and the children had to get back into the house for their next meal. When the maid was preparing for supper in the kitchen, a light was seen coming down the chimney in the evening. The maid explained the sight as an object of little blue flames, exploding inside of the chimney and dowsing the fire with water. This was the final straw and ran off to the annex where the mother found them crying and frightened to death.
When Joller came back home from Lucerne and heard the stories the frightened children told him, he didn’t believe a single word and the children lost faith in him and decided to not tell him anything else, as they thought that he wouldn’t believe them anyway. This would however change when he experienced the so-called haunting himself. Later he had also heard from a relative in Germany that their whole family had experienced something similar the same day.
Joller Starts to Believe Something is Going on
On August 19, he started to hear the rapping noise of the wall, taunting, almost mimicking the noises he made. This made him promise his family he would investigate the matter. The next day he saw the door between the bedroom and kitchen bend before his eyes as the sound of knocking and banging came back. When he raised the catch on the door, it flung open and he saw a dark and almost shapeless form moving from the door to the chimney and disappeared.
The next day he saw what he described as a force as “powerful as a wooden mallet might make when swung with all the strength of a powerful arm.” The doors were slammed and opened with this force, in the kitchen, bottles and other glassware were ringing as being hit by metal. The sounds coming from different parts of the house made it look like it had to be four, maybe five people. His wife and son claimed to have seen a figure and he himself saw something dark shooting from the door to the side of the chimney before disappearing.
He called on his older sister to ask about if she had ever experienced something similar growing up in the house. She claimed she had never heard anything about it. A priest came by and gave the house a blessing and advised him to not let anyone else know about what was happening there. When the priest left, the whole house started up violently all evening.
The gossip about what happened in the Joller house started to spread to the neighbors, claiming that they too could hear all the ruckus. They stopped outside on the road to listen for the noises. The press started writing about it, and Joller felt they were also attacking his character.
Then, on 23 August Joller, his wife and a servant were all touched on the head in a first-floor bedroom. It was like a hand, and when Joller and Caroline grabbed the hand it felt warm and small, like a child’s. By now they had police guards helping them, as they were starting to fear they might get hurt.
On the 16 of September, Joller saw an apple, jumping around and down the stairs, along the corridor and into the kitchen. When picked up and put on the kitchen table, it jumped off and headed for the corridor. It was thrown out of the window by one of the servants, but flew back to the kitchen table before continuing jumping around the house on its own.
On the 6 of October, five different people claimed to have seen a figure on four different occasions. It was described as a woman, bowing her head with a melancholic air about her. Melanie claimed it was the same figure she had encountered and seen on the 10 September.
A Tragic Aftermath
The strain of the haunting proved too much for Joller. Later that month the final straw was drawn for the Joller family. They packed up and left the Joller House forever and moved to Zurich where they rented. No one really knows what happened that made the family decide that enough was enough.
It is also worth noting that he had to appear in court three times on fraud charges together with Robert and they left a huge debt back in Stans. Some speculate that moving his family to Zurich and then to Rome was a financial move to get away from the debt.
In any case, the stress got to him, and contemporary sources claim that his hair turned white almost overnight in Zurich and had a “a peculiar dreamy look about his eyes” according to paranormal societies across Europe who picked up the case.
According to Joller who sold the Joller House to the Lussi family. The house was closed down until spring in 1863, and as far as he knew, nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the house.
A man named Emilio Servadio contacted Emaline in 1938 and interviewed her about the story, and she said that the poltergeist didn’t follow them to their new home. Her father died in 1865 in Rome where he had been hoping to see the pope, exiled and in poverty after he had been ridiculed by family and friends and lost his positions in Switzerland. He was only 47.
Left to Decay: For decades, the Joller house was left empty, gathering dust and legends before being torn down. // Source: Nidwalden State Archives
Explanations and Theories
As with many poltergeist cases, contemporary explanations struggled to make sense of the phenomena. Some suspected that one of the Joller children might be unconsciously causing the disturbances, a theory common to 19th-century poltergeist lore, which often linked such hauntings to pubescent or emotionally distressed young people.
Joller himself maintained that the disturbances were neither tricks nor delusions. His attempts to logically document and combat the events only added to the eerie credibility of the case.
Another theory about who was behind it all was Robert. He came under suspicion, particularly after he was seen talking to an actor in the street in Lucerne, and so did the servant girl. But things happened when neither was present. And for the motive? His family lost close to everything. For what reason would he have done it?
Another theory is Joller himself, driven by financial problems, started the poltergeist rumor himself to drive the price for the house he was about to lose down. A prank that went too far. The problem with this theory though, would he really have tormented his family and household to this extent? Also, to drive down the house price would also backfire when he had to sell it. Fact was, the family ended up suffering tragically from the whole ordeal.
The Spirit of Veronika Gut
But what about the tragedy of Veronika Gut? Could her spirit have something to do with the haunting as many posed as an explanation? Already having lost her eldest son when he was fighting the French, it was a huge family tragedy. Joller himself gave no notion in his sources that he believed this was the story behind the haunting.
There were however several theories that it was earthbound spirits that wanted attention from the family living in the house, and Veronika was one of the main suspects haunting the Joller House. According to this theory, she was in fact a militant nationalist and Joller’s liberal politics was the cause of her haunting and wanting to bring him on a more righteous path in her opinion.
There is also the theory about the haunting being because of how close in age Joller’s daughters started to be to Veronika’s daughters, and that this is what released the haunting.
This seems to be the holding theory of the family itself as well. When a documentary crew went to Rome to meet Riccardo Joller, Melchior’s great-grandson, he showed a spirit drawing og Veronika they had made.
Then there were the secret manuscripts allegedly existing and explaining the whole thing. An editor from Zurich told about her father and how he had talked with some of the great grandchildren of Joller. Apparently, Nicolao Joller, who was Alfred’s grandson, was in possession of a secret manuscript, detailing the exact reason of why the events of the Joller house had taken place. On the cover of the manuscript it read in the local Roman dialect: “for the family only.” But the actual contents of the manuscript were never published publicly, and there is no actual proof that it even exists.
The Suspicion of Teenage Daughters
One part of poltergeist’s hauntings, is the presence of teenage girls, in their early prepubescent. We see it from the Veronika case in Spain or the Enfield poltergeist in England from more modern times to the case of the Fox sisters in America starting the spiritual movement.
Exactly why do so many poltergeist stories have young girls in the midst of it? Some point to sexual exploitation or other dysfunctional dynamics within the household that would solve itself when they left Stans and started their independent lives outside of the family home. This theory is that the supposed poltergeist haunting is some sort of cry for help and is about unsolved trauma that the girls twist into a spiritual haunting to cope with their lives.
The fact is that we simply don’t know what really happened those years inside of the Joller house.
Legacy of the Joller Poltergeist
Today, little remains to mark the site where terror once held sway. The Joller House in Stans was demolished on February 23 in 2010 and a high rise shopping center was built in its place opposite the Länderpark.
Demolition of the Joller House: The haunted house on Veronika-Gut-Weg in Stans was demolished on February 23, 2010./Source: Corinne Glanzmann
Whether the product of unresolved grief, repressed secrets, or something far older and more malevolent, the story of the Joller House poltergeist endures as one of Switzerland’s most unsettling ghostly mysteries — a chilling reminder that even in idyllic mountain towns, darkness can take hold.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
For decades, sightings of a strange humanoid were seen wandering the Swiss forests in Maules. Clad in camouflage and masked by an antique gas mask, the figure now known as Le Loyon or the Ghost of Maule turned into an urban legend.
Deep in the dense, brooding woods of the Gruyère region in western and French speaking part of Switzerland lies the village of Maules, a sleepy Swiss hamlet surrounded by pastoral hills and ancient forest with around 350 people.
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For over a decade, locals and hikers whispered uneasily of something else among the trees: a tall, silent figure in a gas mask known only as Le Loyon. Shrouded in mystery and dread, this eerie entity became one of Switzerland’s most unnerving urban legends, known today as The Ghost of Maules.
The Gruyère District in western Switzerland: known for its rolling green hills, medieval towns, and namesake cheese, also holds a darker, more mysterious side. Its dense forests—often cloaked in mist—are steeped in legends passed down through generations. Here is the landscape of the woods near the Château de Gruyères.
A Forest Stalker in Camouflage
Le Loyon was first reported in the early 2000s where most sources state 2003 as the beginning of it all. But there are those who claim that the sightings of Le Loyon goes back to the late 1990s by residents and ramblers who ventured into the Maules woods near Sâles, in the Canton of Fribourg.
Witnesses described the figure as well over six feet tall, clothed in an olive-green or camouflage military-style boilersuit or gimp suit, draped in a dark cloak, and most disturbingly, wearing an antiquated gas mask that obscured the entire head.
This combination of industrial, military, and being faceless struck terror into those who glimpsed it. The mask, resembling those worn in chemical warfare, gave Le Loyon the unsettling appearance of something not entirely human. It never spoke. It never chased. But it watched.
It was most often spotted along a particular forest path known to locals and most often on Sundays. Reports recounted how the figure would appear in the distance and then vanish into the foliage without a trace when spotted, almost as the Ghost of Maule wanted to remain a secret.
In one of the first reported sightings, a local woman claimed to have seen Le Loyon in June, picking flowers on a clearing close to the trail, startled when it was seen and clutching the bouquet of wild flowers. According to the woman, Le Loyon dropped the flowers and fled. Who was the most frightened?
A Community Gripped by Fear by Le Loyon
Although Le Loyon never displayed aggression, fear spread through the area. Parents told children to stay away from the woods. Hikers changed their routes.
For around two decades, there were at least twelve encounters with Le Loyon. As Marianne Descloux said when she encountered Le Loyon: “It was a rainy Sunday. He had a hood, a dark pilgrim and his gas mask. What can go through his head? I don’t know, but it was impressive and unpleasant. I hope I never run into him again.”
The local authorities were contacted several times, but without concrete evidence of a crime, there was little they could do. Some speculated Le Loyon was simply a hermit with a strange sense of fashion. Some believed the figure was a mentally ill recluse; others insisted it was a supernatural being — perhaps a spirit of war, a forest warden cursed by time, or even a personified trauma from Switzerland’s hidden past.
The Photo That Made It Real
Everything changed in 2013 when a photograph of Le Loyon was captured and published in a regional paper, Le Matin. Taken by an anonymous hiker, the image shows the eerie figure standing alone on a woodland path, facing slightly away from the camera, cloaked and masked exactly as described.
‘I came across him near the marches,’ said the unnamed photographer who tracked it down. ‘I approached him up to a dozen metres away.’ ‘He had a military cape, boots and an army gas mask – an antique type, I think. He measured more than 1.90m. He stared at me then turned its back on me and left in silence.’
The photo quickly went viral giving hard proof to a tale many had dismissed as folklore or just seeing things. The local community was now more afraid than ever. Women and children didn’t want to venture into the woodlands by themselves.
Not long after the photo’s release, another strange discovery was made: Le Loyon’s clothes and gas mask were found neatly folded and left in the forest along with a disturbing note.
The Final Message from The Ghost of Maules
According to Le Matin, the note contained a cryptic and bitter farewell titled: “Death Certificate and Testament of the Ghost of Maules” and was first posted on a local bulletin..
In it, the author expressed anger at being hunted by the media and misunderstood by society, claiming that the forest was once a sanctuary — a place of peace — that had been taken from them by fear and judgment. The message hinted at emotional turmoil and deep loneliness but offered no identity. The way it worded the letter also left someone believe it was a suicide note.
Death certificate and testament of the Phantom of Maules (Translated into English from French)
Dear nickname Patrick du Matin, not only are you a moron but you are above all an assassin.
You murdered a very harmless being, who found, in his walks, a real therapy of happiness, a cerebral resourcing allowing him to face the responsibilities and the vicissitudes of his “normal” life and he had some!
The ghost cannot explain this happiness, but you do not seem to know Sacher-Masoch; you will discover that it takes everything to make a world.
Then you are an assassin of freedoms.
To hear you, we find ourselves in the Middle Ages, at the time of the witches. Why don’t you rise up against the little toads, helmets and hoods, dressed in leather, who backfire on their motorcycles, in these same forests, them in violation!
Do they take the time to meditate in front of the little Oratory, to ask for a better world? I terrorize children, make me laugh! Why are they not terrified by the horrors and the crimes, very real these, that they see on television, in the media?
Who is in charge of setting the Tolerance and Freedom button in this company? These beautiful notions benefit more dealers, pimps, burglars, rapists and hooligans!
Switzerland is small, anything that is not in accordance with the garden gnome must be eradicated. I thought, during these years, while I was always left alone, until you, that these feelings were evolving, you give me the opposite proof, unfortunately.
The Phantom disappears, the risk of a Beast hunt is too great. It will come back to haunt the narrow minds of your kind, for ultimately a ghost never dies.
To the amiable walker or mushroomer who will discover my tinsel: Deliver this letter to Mr. Syndic or Vice-Syndic, or even to a journalist, capable however of discussing Freedom and Tolerance.
Since the clothing and note were found, no further sightings of Le Loyon have been reported. The legend, however, has only grown.
Specter or Sad Soul?
To this day, no one knows for sure who — or what — Le Loyon was. Was it a reclusive individual driven to hide behind a mask for personal or psychological reasons? A mentally ill woman, a gigantic man or perhaps a strange survivalist or someone suffering from a skin condition?
Perhaps it was simply a person enjoying dressing up or playing a prank? A 4chan thread on the board /r9k/ appears to have Le Loyon themself posting. The thread was about an anonymous poster who was contemplating doing scary things in public for fun, which ‘Le Loyon’ posted in talking about what they did, Another poster quickly recognised it looking eerily similar to that of Le Loyon legend. If the poster said the truth, ‘Le Loyon’ would simply be a bored person looking for some fun.
As time progressed and the legend grew, some started to believe that the Ghost of Maule could be something far stranger than a person enjoying dressing up. Was it something closer to a ghost, or guardian of the woods, or some sort of other, specter wrapped in humanity’s forgotten horrors?
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
The Zurich Poltergeist was a well known haunting happening to the Pastor of Grossmünster Church in his home at Zwingliplatz in the early 1700s. For years, the family experienced torment at the hands of what they believed had to be the devil.
Some of the most intense ghost stories from Switzerland are definitely the poltergeist hauntings. One of the more famed ones turned out to be a hoax, but it left its marks on the city. Right by the most famous landmark of Zurich there was a haunted rectory that drove the Pastor and his family mad.
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In a time of witch hunts, religious change and the time of enlightenment, there was a supposed poltergeist knocking on the rectory walls. What really happened inside of the haunted house, and how did this poltergeist hoax help to stop any further witch trials in the city?
The Grossmünster Church: Construction began around 1100, with the church opening around 1220. It was originally a monastery church that competed with the Fraumünster throughout the Middle Ages. Legend states that Charlemagne founded it after his horse knelt over the graves of Zurich’s patron saints, Felix, Regula, and Exuperantius, helping to establish its seniority over the Fraumünster, founded by his grandson Louis the German. Archaeological findings show a Roman burial ground at this location.
The Haunting Begins at Zwingliplatz 4
One of them is the former rectory of the Grossmünster Church called the Antistitium, at Zwingliplatz 4. An invisible madness once drove a priest to ruin at the beginning of the 18th century. Anton Klinger was living there with his family, a theologian and a few maids, working as the chief pastor of Zurich and living by the church.
It started small in July in 1701. Small bells hanging in his daughter’s bedroom started to ring without anyone touching them. The little girl was sickly and had them installed for her to communicate with them. That night, her father was out of town.
They saw that the little girl hadn’t rung any bells, leaving the grown ups confused. Then the activity increased in strength. Footsteps from the upper floors sounded like they were approaching, but when they went to inspect the strange phenomenon, no one was there.
The wife was beside herself. She became convinced that it had to be a ghost, and that the ghost was her dead son from her first marriage. He had been struck in the head by a horse’s hoof when he was in the cavalry. There was whispers about it behind because of how she inherited more than what she should have, or so they say. The maids and a relative agreed that had to be the truth.
The maids could tell that they also had heard mysterious noises the night before, when the wife was away. This caused concern among the household, also for the pastor when he came home. From that day, all three women slept in the living room.
The servants and the other women were being protected by Bernhard Wirz, the 25 year old theologian living with them and hoping for a position as a pastor. He was visiting at the time and decided to extend his visit when everything went down.
And the haunting seemed to only escalate. Furniture would mysteriously move and books would come flying from the shelves as the light would flicker. On the 28th of September the bedcovers to the wife was pulled from the bed in the middle of the night as shoes and books flew through the room.
The 9th of October, a guest at their house was smoking his tobacco pipe that was knocked right off his mouth. As he said his blessing as protection, he heard a murmuring before the ghost, looking like a cloud, rose from the floor and flew down the chimney.
In the middle of the night, doors would slam open or shut in the middle of the night, even though they checked that they had closed them properly before going to bed.
Haunted by the Murder of the Witches of Wasterkingen
After the reformation, ghosts were not really seen as the souls of the deceased anymore, but the work of the devil, and we have more demonic and poltergeist stories after the reformation in places like Zurich.
Exorcisms, amulets, or other protective mechanisms to combat ghosts were forbidden. The only permitted act was prayer to God. However, the population wanted to take active steps against the intruders because they feared them.
One of the hypothesis Klinger was working with, was that the haunting had to be the ghosts of some witches he had condemned to death that year that have been remembered as the witches of wasterkingen. Elisabeth Wysser-Rutschmann and her daughter Anna had been executed July 9 in 1701. Earlier that year in April they had been accused by neighbors of harming humans and animals with their magical powers.
After days of torture, the 24 year old Anna pleaded guilty to witchcraft and told about how her mother and aunt Anna Vogel had thought her everything. They were both sent to death by burning. Anna and Margaretha Rutchmann were beheaded before the burning, but Elizabeth was burned alive. That year, three women and a man from Wasterkingen were convicted as witches and executed.
This lingered in Anton Klinger’s head, thinking that he was haunted by the devil himself for his action towards the Witches of Wasterkingen. He wrote it all down in his diary know known as Diarium Tragediae Diabolicae.
The Living Poltergeist in the Rectory
The pastor and his wife became certain that they were in fact haunted. To catch the culprit, they sent out a watchman to put an end to it all, working on the tower of the Grossmünster. The watchmen themselves claimed to have seen something looking like a glowing will-o-the-wisp phenomenon around the house. They found nothing at first, and suddenly, the haunting abruptly just stopped after seven months.
For three years, everything went back to normal, and they started to believe that they were rid of the spirit tormenting their household. Then one December night, a huge stone came crashing down the stairs, and they knew that the haunting had started again. The stone was said to be over 20 kg. The pastor and his wife became frightened, the watchman Hans Müller became suspicious.
He had just arrived at the house, and were not easily scared or fooled. Just before the stone came tumbling down, a book had come flying from the shelves and hitting him in the back. Coincidentally, it had come from where Wirz had been standing. Also a maid was said to have thrown an apple at him in an obvious manner.
Hans Müller chose to confront the servant, and eventually, she admitted to have been behind the haunting with Wirz, helping him. After this, other maids came forth and said that they too had assisted him. Among other things they had attached strings to certain objects and made them topple over.
Why? Some say it was to conceal their nightly activities of hooking up and they were pretending that it was in fact a poltergeist wandering around the house, not them. Some say it was to drive the pastor out of the house so that he could take over. It was all dragged forth in a public court and people laughed at the details of his assistant fooling around with the maids and the priest thinking it was the devil.
For this, the theologian was tortured before being condemned and lost his head. A hoax that went too far with a punishment that went to the extremes. It was however a shift in who was accused of witchcraft, and the ridiculous backstory of it all helped making so that there were no other witches burnt in Zurich.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
From the Swiss Riviera, the Ghosts of Château de Chillon is said to haunt the place. Deep in the dungeons, jewish prisoners accused of spreading the plague, those accused of witchcraft and the political enemies of The House of Savoy are still lingering.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, In Chillon’s dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns, massy and grey, Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, A sunbeam which hath lost its way, – The Prisoner of Chillon, Lord Byron
On a rocky islet along the pristine shores of Lake Geneva, the Château de Chillon is one of Switzerland’s most iconic medieval fortresses and one of the most visited historical buildings in Switzerland. Especially as it was this castle Lord Byron visited in the dark summer of 1816 with his friends, and where the birth of Frankenstein and The Vampyre came after him and his literary friends visited. Its postcard-perfect setting near Montreux, framed by mist-clad mountains and shimmering waters in the Swiss Riviera, belies the darker currents of history and folklore that swirl within its ancient walls.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
For centuries, Château de Chillon has been a site of power, imprisonment, and bloodshed and was never captured during a siege. Chillon’s doomed inmates entered the castle dungeon through a thick wooden trap door set into the stone castle floor, descended a rough wooden ladder, and found themselves in a small cave with prisoners chained to the pillars. And it is said that not all who entered its gates ever truly left.
Château de Chillon: Painters such as Courbet, Delacroix, Brooke and Turner painted Bonnivard or the castle over and over again. It has inspired poets and writers and if we are to believe the rumours, also ghosts to linger in eternity.
A Fortress of Shadows
Though Château de Chillon’s earliest recorded mention dates to 1150, under the House of Savoy, archaeological evidence suggests a fortified structure stood on this small outcrop as early as Roman times as it was a strategic way through the Alps. In 1224, Thomas I of Savoy ordered the castle to be strengthened and decorated as he wished to make it his main residence. The castle’s strategic location along a key trade route made it both a prized stronghold and a place of grim authority. This century was also when they built a prison in the underground, previously used as food storage and weaponry.
In 1342, the Black Death began to claim victims in the area and, wishing to find somebody to blame for the outbreak, Christians accused the Jews who lived there of poisoning water supplies and thus causing the plague. Since 1284, there had lived a group of Jews in the town called Villeneuve and in September in 1348, the Jews were sent to the dungeons for torture. At that time the Château de Chillon was under the rule of Amédée VI of Savoy.
The persecution of Jews: During the Black Death there was a series of violent mass attacks and massacres on Jewish communities, blamed for outbreaks. From 1348-1351, acts of violence were committed in Toulon, Barcelona, Erfurt, Basel, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and elsewhere. The persecutions led to a large migration of Jews to Jagiellonian Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Image of a massacre of the Jews in 1349 Antiquitates Flandriae (Royal Library of Belgium manuscript, 1376/77)
These unfortunate souls were arrested and taken before the Count of Savoy at Château de Chillon. Local Christians who had been friendly with the Jews were also treated in the same way and it is said that the prisoners were burned on the sides of the lake after a forced confession after torture.
The Château’s reputation for cruelty is largely due to its forbidding dungeons — cold, vaulted chambers hewn directly into the bedrock. It is also said that the chancellor of Savoy in 1455 was drowned in the lake after being questioned in Chillon. These prisons, with their damp walls and crude restraints, have witnessed centuries of torment, rebellion, and death. And according to enduring legend, many of those wrongfully punished still linger in spectral form.
Dungeons: Chillon Castle interior Bonivards Prison Geneva Lake Switzerland from around 1890/1900.
The Restless Spirit of François Bonivard
The castle’s most famous ghost is said to be François Bonivard, a Genevan monk, historian, and political dissenter of the 16th century. Back then, the Savoy district was a separate country ruled by the dukes and counts, looking at Geneva as theirs. Bonivard, a libertine and revolutionary, thought otherwise and fought back. Bonivard was imprisoned in Chillon’s dungeons in 1530 for opposing the Bishop of Genova and the Duke of Savoy’s oppressive rule over Geneva. For six years, he was captured at Chillon, where it his treatment gradually worsened. It is said for two years he stayed in a room in the castle before being thrown in the dungeon where he endured brutal captivity, shackled to a stone pillar that still stands in the castle’s underground vault for six years.
While Bonivard was eventually liberated when Bernese forces seized the castle in 1536, legend holds that his spirit, embittered and vengeful, remains. He died in Geneva after a life of extravagant lifestyle and perpetual debt in 1570.
Visitors and staff have long reported unnerving sensations in the dungeons like sudden drops in temperature, fleeting shadows, and the unmistakable clank of unseen chains in the oppressive gloom. Some claim to have glimpsed a robed figure silently pacing between the columns, his face obscured but his presence undeniable.
Lord Byron’s 1816 poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon,” immortalized Bonivard’s ordeal and helped enshrine the castle’s eerie reputation. Byron himself carved his name into one of the dungeon’s pillars — a mark still visible today — and reportedly felt a chill pass over him in the exact spot where Bonivard was held.
One of the most tragic stories in the history of Château de Chillon occurred in 1382. Sir Raoul de Monthenard, a cruel tyrant nicknamed “The Breaker,” then master of the castle, wished to marry the daughter of his first cousin, a beautiful girl called Erdelinde. But she was in love with a young man, named Mainfroi de Luceus, whose father was the sworn enemy of Sir Raoul. Afraid of his anger, Erdelinde and Mainfroi married secretly and later Erdelinde had a baby.
When Erdelinde’s father died, Sir Raoul seized her by force and took her to Chillon, where he arranged for a priest to marry them in the castle chapel. The priest who was to perform the ceremony was the same one who had already married Erdelinde in secret and, as soon as he saw her, he refused to perform the ceremony, enraging Sir Raoul..
Meanwhile, Erdelinde had arranged for her baby to be brought to the chapel to prove to Sir Raoul that marriage to him was impossible. When he saw the child, the master of Chillon, in a terrible fury, seized the baby and hurled it through the chapel window into the lake below. Erdelinde immediately leaped after it, and both mother and child drowned.
Grief-stricken, the true husband of Erdelinde, Mainfroi de Luceus, challenged Sir Raoul to a duel in which he received severe wounds from which he died.
People have later claimed to have seen her ghost walking along the lake, looking for her baby as her anguished screams pierce the night. Sir Raoul de Monthenard is also said to haunt the hallways of his castle, roaming around with a maniacal look and evil smile on his face.
Other Hauntings and Dark Whispers at Château de Chillon
He died—and they unlocked his chain, And scooped for him a shallow grave – The Prisoner of Chillon, Lord Byron
While Bonivard’s ghost commands the most attention at Château de Chillon, other strange occurrences haunt the castle grounds. In the upper halls, guests have described hearing footsteps in empty corridors, doors that creak open of their own volition, and unexplained cold spots in rooms warmed by roaring fires. Visitors have come back with stories about being pushed against the wall by an unseen force.
There was another terrible time at Chillon when, between June 9 and September 26, 1613, twenty-seven people accused of witchcraft were executed there. In 1613, the Bernese convicted 27 people as witches and burned them in Chillon’s courtyards. The spirits of these as well is said to linger within the halls.
Another ghost said to haunt Château de Chillon is simply called The Man in Rags. This story comes from a tour guide who claims this raggedly clothed man came through the walls, saliva dripping from his open mouth, blood dripping from his body. One of the former prisoners of the castle. The tour guide claims this specter was also seen by a maintenance worker who quit the same day.
A Place of Uneasy Beauty
Today, the Château de Chillon is one of Switzerland’s most visited historic landmarks, drawing travelers eager to marvel at its medieval architecture and panoramic lake views. But beneath the idyllic surface lingers the weight of history — and the restless spirits born from centuries of confinement and cruelty.
As dusk falls over Lake Geneva, and mist creeps once again around the castle’s stone foundations, those who linger may find themselves catching an icy draft where none should exist, or hearing the mournful clink of ancient chains in the deep, shadowed vaults below.
The Château de Chillon stands not just as a monument to medieval splendor, but as a sentinel of the lingering dead — a place where history and legend bleed inseparably together.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
Hidden in the valleys of Switzerland, the Neu-Bechburg Castle is said to be haunted by the Robber Knight, Junker Kuoni who was walled up inside a secret chamber in the castle.
High above the town of Oensingen in Switzerland’s canton of Solothurn, the brooding ruins of Neu-Bechburg Castle watch over the valley like a silent sentinel for centuries. It has been the home of knights and Barons, the seat of the Bishop of Basel before falling from grace, becoming a poor house and an inn among other things.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
Oensingen is in the Swiss Plateau at the foot of the Jura Mountains with green forests as far as the eye can see. Yet Neu-Bechburg Castle’s ancient stones carry more than just the weight of history over the Roggen River — they harbor a dark legend that has plagued the castle for centuries: the curse of the robber knight Kuoni.
Neu-Bechburg Castle: The haunting ruins of Neu-Bechburg Castle in Switzerland, where the legend of the Robber Knight Kuoni endures.
The Bandit Knight Junker Kuoni of Neu-Bechburg Castle
Neu-Bechburg Castle was built in 1250 by the Lord of Bechburg before changing hands several times. It went to the Counts of Frohburg, Nidau, Thierstein, Kyburg and Buchegg. It used to be the most important place in Switzerland in Roman times. In 1415, the castle and lordship were sold to Bern and Solothurn. In 1463, the castle became the full property of Solothurn and a bailiff’s seat was established.
Swiss jura: Scenic view of the lush Swiss landscape surrounding the Neu-Bechburg Castle, where the legend of the Robber Knight Kuoni unfolds.
In the 14th century, Neu-Bechburg was home to Junker Kuoni, an infamous knight-turned-bandit who ruled the surrounding lands through violence and fear. Tales of his cruelty spread swiftly — of caravans ambushed on mountain roads, travelers vanishing into the forests, and innocent villagers stripped of their meager belongings. His crimes grew so terrible that even his fellow nobles could no longer tolerate his presence.
According to legend, Kuoni’s reign of terror ended in a fittingly grim fashion. Betrayed by his own men and captured by the local townsfolk, the robber knight was bricked up alive within the castle walls, left to die slowly in suffocating darkness.
There is also a much more detailed version of the story, telling that the knight was actually taken by the plague. It came to the village and the locals feared for it spreading. Some say they confined him in a small house on the south side of the fortified tower, in what was the tower guard’s house. Some sources said he was fed through a narrow slit, getting more and more sick and he eventually died. And after he died, this slit was also walled up.
When or where in the castle has various sources telling different things. It is said that it was in the east or south tower and it happened in 1408. Maybe. Did he die because the people around him wanted to put an end to his cruel ways, or was it actually a deadly disease he succumbed to?
Since that day, Neu-Bechburg has never truly been at rest.
The Haunting of Neu-Bechburg Castle
The Neu-Bechburg Castle changed owners several times and, in 1635, it temporarily became the seat of the Bishop of Basel. It fell into ruins when the French invaded and the place lost its place and importance, before being restored again. In 1835 it was acquired by Johannes Riggenbach. His son Friedrich restored the castle from 1880 onwards now owned by the Neu-Bechburg Castle Foundation.
Visitors to the crumbling fortress speak of chilling drafts in sealed rooms, disembodied whispers in the dead of night, and an oppressive presence that clings to certain corridors. Electrical equipment fails and photographs turn black. He also occasionally plays small pranks, locks doors, and otherwise mostly wanders through the castle.
Castle caretaker, Patrick Jakop has said of his own experiences when he heard footstep above him:
“I went up the stairs as fast as I could. I was upstairs for a few seconds, but there was no one there. I searched every cupboard, but there was simply no one,”
During a Brazilian wedding being celebrated at the Bechburg, the water pipe to the well was blocked. A voodoo priestess was among the guests. She told Jacob that an unhappy soul was lurking in the pipe. “I called out to the spirit in the well: If you don’t like it here, then just go away,” the castle warden continues. And lo and behold: “There was a gurgling, a bang, and a sudden rush of water. The pipe was clear again.”
Neu-Bechburg Castle: illuminated at night, a haunting sentinel over the valleys of Switzerland, tied to the legend of the Robber Knight, Junker Kuoni.
Several mediums and ghost hunters have tried to get to the bottom of it. Even in modern times, technology seems to falter in the castle’s shadow. In 2002, a Swiss television crew set out to film a historical documentary at Neu-Bechburg. When they brought X-ray equipment to scan what was believed to be Kuoni’s burial niche, the machinery inexplicably failed — screens flickered to black, batteries drained without cause, and strange, muffled knocks came from the walls.
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The tale of the robber knight is not the only thing said to haunt the castle and not the only horrible death if we are to believe the rumours. There was a dungeon in the east tower, and the so-called witch’s cage in the west tower. The stories vary from children claiming to have seen a ghost to visitors reporting a weeping woman in the castle fountain.
The Truth of the Robber Knight
What are the facts we’re dealing with when talking about Kuoni? There is no historical evidence of him having existed, and there is no physical evidence that he is in fact walled up inside a wall of the castle. And when we talk about the bubonic plague, we often talk about it hitting Switzerland in 1349 when the plague reached Bern, Zürich, Basel and Saint Gallen.
To this day, locals claim the spirit of Kuoni stalks the ruins, restless and bitter. He’s blamed for sudden gusts that snuff out lanterns, the sharp, metallic scent of blood in the air on misty nights, and eerie, unexplained noises when the castle is supposedly empty. The legend endures — a whispered warning to those who dare trespass in Neu-Bechburg’s shadow.
For in these ancient stones, it seems, Kuoni’s curse lives on.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
Roaming around Basel a ghost called Weisse Tod, or The White Death was said to terrorize the neighborhood around the Baroque Markgräflerhof building. Who was this terrifying ghost peering into people’s windows with its empty and dark eye sockets?
In the winding medieval streets of old Basel, where the shadows gather thickly beneath the crooked eaves of centuries-old houses, there was once a peculiar belief. It was said that the new moon, with its empty black sky, was a time when the veil between the worlds thinned, and the city’s most restless dead rose to walk among the living.
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The citizens of Basel learned to draw their shutters tight on those nights, for the new moon brought not peace, but a procession of specters. Foremost among these was the terrifying figure known simply as the Weisse Tod, or “The White Death.”
Markgräflerhof Palace: An engraving of the Markgräflerhof Palace from 1845.
The White Death of the Markgräflerhof
At the Markgräflerhof, a grand residence facing the Rhine, locals swore that with every new moon, this ghastly apparition called Weisse Tod would rise from a hole in the ground near the water’s edge — a ragged, deathly pale form with empty, dark eye sockets that seemed to drink in the night itself.
The Markgräflerhof was built between 1698 and 1705 by the Margrave Margrave Friedrich V of Baden-Durlach and is the oldest Baroque palace in the country. The Markgräflerhof, purchased by the city in 1808, with its associated gardens and outbuildings, together with the adjacent area of the former Preachers’ Monastery and the University’s Botanical Garden, formed the basis for the new building of the Basel Citizens’ Hospital. Today it is used as an office building by the university.
The White Death was relentless in its habits. It would appear at the windows of the surrounding houses on Hebelstrasse, gazing in silently, its hollow eyes fixed on the inhabitants within. Those who met its gaze were believed to fall gravely ill soon after — as though death itself had marked them.
Who Was the Ghost Behind the White Death?
But what was the lore behind the legend? Although the story of The White Death was widely told, there was little details and information as to who actually was haunting the place. Was the legend from after it turned into a hospital perhaps? Some sorry patient or doctor who perished? There are also some connecting the haunting to its time as an insane asylum.
Was it from the time before the Markgräflerhof was even built? As it turns out, this isn’t the only neighborhood ghost said to have been haunting Basel. In Kleinbasel, the working class district, they also had The Gray One lingering in the streets of the neighborhood.
Now, what about the name, the White Death? Around Europe, this name has often been given to Tuberculosis and its victims were often said to have been taken by The White Death. As if for years there was also an epidemic, could the fear of the disease have created the fear of a ghost personification of the illness close to the hospital?
The Shadowed Man at the St. Urban Fountain
The ghost of The White Death is however not the only ghostly thing haunting the area. Right around the corner, along Blumenrain at the Rheintürlein, another ghost made his mournful appearance around the new moons.
At the old St. Urban fountain, near the city gate, townsfolk claimed a man in dark, ancient garb would appear without warning. He would linger by the water’s edge, staring silently into the depths of the basin, as though seeking some long-lost reflection.
His face was said to be obscured, either by shadow or some unnameable disfigurement, and his presence would chill the very air around him. Many whispered that he was a soul lost to the river — a suicide perhaps, or a murdered man whose body had been hidden in the water.
The city church bells would toll an extra hour before midnight on those nights, a final effort to ward off the restless souls. And though the Marktgräflerhof and the old fountain have long since been changed or lost to modernity, some say the air along the Rhine still feels heavy on moonless nights, and dark shapes move where no one ought to be.
In Basel, it seems, the new moon still belongs to the dead.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
One of the oldest castles in Switzerland is the hilltop fortress Lenzburg Castle. Said to be built on top of an old dragon lair from ancient times, it is also said to be haunting with a bell ringing for no one and the ghost of a maid by the well in the midst of the night.
High above the medieval town of Lenzburg in the Swiss canton of Aargau, Lenzburg Castle is one of the oldest and most storied hilltop fortresses in the country. Many would also consider it one of the most important castles in the country. Its thousand-year history is steeped in bloodshed, intrigue, and mystery.
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From dragons and cursed maidens to bells that toll for no living hand, the haunted history of Lenzburg Castle offers a chilling glimpse into Switzerland’s darker folklore.
A Fortress Raised from Dragon’s Blood
Even before the 11th century castle was built, someone had been living there. In 1959 they found a Neolithic gravesite at the carpark as well as Roman and Alemannic traces. As with many ancient sites, the origins of Lenzburg Castle are rooted in myth. Long before it became the residence of counts and Bernese bailiffs, the hill on which it stands was said to be home to a fearsome dragon. The beast, hiding in a dark, yawning cave within the hillside, terrorized the surrounding countryside, until two courageous knights — Wolfram and Guntram — confronted and slew the creature.
Grateful for their bravery, the people of Lenzburg awarded the knights by naming them Counts of Lenzburg and granting them the hill to build their stronghold. After the family became extinct through the male family line in 1173, the lands were shared between the houses of Kyburg, Zähringen and Hohenstaufen before the Habsburg took over the territory.
The Bell That Rings for No One
Among the castle’s most eerie features is its 12th-century bell in the courtyard of the bailiff’s office in the castle. After the Habsburgs occupied the castle in the 13th and 14th centuries, it was then used as the seat of government by the Bernese bailiffs until the 18th century.
Local legend holds that on nights of the full moon, the great bell sometimes rings out, even though no one is in the tower, and no hand is seen to pull the rope. The ghostly toll reverberates through the ancient walls and across the shadowed courtyard, waking uneasy dreams among those staying nearby.
No satisfactory explanation has ever been found for these phantom peals, though some believe they are a call from the other side, or a lament from the countless souls who once called the castle home.
Some say it comes from a legend that happened not too far from Lenzburg. A man was once said to have been found murdered on the street, but they were unable to find his killer. To catch him, they decided to break a bone from the corpse and hang it on the pull of the Lenzburg Castle bell.
Anyone seeking justice or alms from the bailiff had to ring it. For many years, the bone had been tied like this to no avail, until one full moon night, a begging old man rang the bell and was suddenly splashed with blood, a sure sign of his guilt. He was arrested and confessed to having attacked and murdered the man in his youth.
The Sod Maid Ghost of Lenzburg Castle Haunting the Well
Among Lenzburg’s spectral inhabitants you will find the ghost of a maid haunting the castle. Today she is mostly referred to as the Sod Maid. She is said to appear each year on Corpus Christi Eve that falls at the end of May or in June. Dressed in a trailing gown and clutching a small, pale child to her breast, the sorrowful ghost wanders through the castle gardens under cover of night.
Her path is always the same: she moves toward the ancient sod well, a type of dug shaft well, now-sealed pit within the grounds, rocking and soothing the child in her arms. As the church bell strikes midnight, the woman lets out a grief-stricken cry and drops the child into the dark, watery depths. A sickening, heavy thud follows. It is said this tragic act was born of forbidden love, and that the maid, unable to bear the shame of her secret, drowned her child to keep her secret safe.
The legend claims she can only be redeemed if a pure, virgin maiden can catch her tears in a jug before they touch the ground. But when one brave girl once attempted it, the tears proved impossibly heavy, and the jug slipped from her grasp. Since then, the Sod Maid still wanders the grounds, weeping for the child she lost and the salvation forever out of reach.
A Castle Steeped in History and Shadows
Though today Lenzburg Castle offers family-friendly exhibitions and meticulously restored rooms showcasing medieval domestic life, the weight of its history lingers. The echoes of lost souls cling to its ancient stones, and visitors often report unsettling feelings in certain parts of the castle, particularly near the old well and bell tower.
It remains a place where history, myth, and ghost story intertwine — a castle raised from a dragon’s grave and watched over by a mother’s eternal sorrow. Lenzburg Castle is not just a relic of the past, but a living, breathing testament to Switzerland’s darker folklore, its legends as enduring as the mountains themselves.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
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Is the ghost of Anne Brandfjell, a famous fortune teller and wise wife from Norway haunting the old Maritime school in Oslo?
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
