The Haunting of the Frick Stairs: Bern’s Processions of Death and Ghosts of Murderesses

There is not a single ghost story about the Frick Stairs in Bern, there is a plethora. Tales of women murdering their children and horrible funeral processions that left the spectators in shock is said to have walked up and down the steps for centuries.

Between the Matte district and the cathedral heights, the old and wooden Frick Stairs in Bern appear to be nothing more than another steep passageway of stone steps, worn by centuries of footsteps. By day, they are ordinary, a shortcut for locals overlooking the Aare River coming down to the river from Münsterplatz. But when the city quiets and the cathedral clock strikes midnight, the stairs reveal their darker legacy.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland

Where Munsterplatz turns into Herrengasse, at number 1, is the Fricktreppe, a covered wooden staircase, connecting the upper town with the Matte district. The staircase, with its 183 wooden steps, dates back to the 14th century. Ghostly processions, murdered children, and restless spirits are said to haunt this narrow stairway, where Bern’s sins of cruelty and bloodshed play out again and again.

Hans Franz Nägeli: (c. 1497 – 9 January 1579) was a Swiss politician, military leader and diplomat who was a prominent force in Bern for four decades. He was the Schultheiß, or the chief magistrate, of Bern from 1540 to 1568. — Source

The Funeral Procession of the Mutilated

Perhaps the most told ghost stories from these particular stairs is about The Restless Spirit of Hans Franz Nägeli, so check out the legend about him and who he was in life. He is certainly not the only ghost said to linger on the steps however, although the others remain nameless and largely forgotten. .

One of the most chilling stories tells of a laundress returning home at midnight after a shift of ironing. As she climbed the Frick Stairs, she was suddenly surrounded by a silent funeral procession. A policeman led the way, followed by six bearers carrying a black coffin. Behind them came four children with horribly mutilated heads, and then followed an endless line of what she described as twisted dwarves and cripples, limping and staggering forward in silence.

The parade of the grotesque seemed to go on forever, filling the stairway with a suffocating terror. The laundress let out a scream and collapsed, later falling into a fever that consumed her for months. And although there are stories about strange funeral processions that have been seen around Bern, this certainly

The Woman With the Severed Head

Another tale tells of a poor musician making his way down the stairs at midnight on his way to his lodgings. There, he encountered a young woman in peasant dress, but her head was gone. Instead, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, while bats whirled and screeched in the bloody space where her head should have been. Horrified, the musician fled to an inn in the Matte and told his story. A story that was according to these sources, a well known one for the locals.

They told him that the woman was the ghost of an executed murderess who was convicted of infanticide, condemned to roam forever with the souls of her slain children, who took the form of bats. But as the story would have it, she was apparently not the only woman haunting the stairs because of murdering children.

The Woman in White Murdering her Child

On other nights, witnesses have reported seeing a pale, slender woman in white, drifting up the steps with a child by her hand. Both child and mother are said to wear dresses trailing behind them. Could this be the same woman said to wander the stairs with her head under her arms? The two stories have certainly the same reason for the haunting.

The two move in silence, the hems of their long dresses brushing the stone. They vanish through a doorway in the old monastery wall, but just before disappearing, the woman stops. She turns to her child, gazes at it for a long, dreadful moment, and then twists the child’s head until it snaps. A scream echoes through the night, followed by silence. When horrified onlookers rush to the spot, nothing remains.

Some claim the woman was the disgraced daughter of a nobleman, cursed to reenact her unspeakable crime for eternity. Could there be two separate ghosts accused of infacide? Or is it the root of the haunting based on the same horrible tragedy? Truth will perhaps never be known completely, and all we have to speculate on are stories and rumors.

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