A young guy walled up alive - terrible legends of castles. Walled up alive

All the castles in Transcarpathia were once built as guardian fortresses of this land. Each of them spans centuries of existence – even non-existence! - became surrounded by legends. And no matter what success you have historical science, many of these myths still cannot be substantiated or refuted...

Walled-up maidens and underground groans, bloody trails the genus of Dracula and the mountain of torment - all the legends of Transcarpathia cannot be listed. Moreover, the castle passions were supplemented by the stories of all the countries and authorities that visited here, the myths of castle-palaces, the secrets of fortifications that disappeared in ancient times. Thus, over the centuries, dozens (if not hundreds) of mystical tales have been formed, which still haunt the imagination of contemporaries.

Uzhgorod Castle, Uzhgorod

The legend of Uzhgorod Castle tells of the cruelty of Count Druget towards his daughter. The girl was walled up alive in the castle walls for unconscious treason - giving away castle secrets to her beloved, who turned out to be an enemy commander. According to another version, because she did not want to become the prince’s wife, but gave her heart to a simple guy. And the worst thing is that in the 17th century, when the Drugets ruled and when the Poles attacked Uzhgorod, there really was a custom of immuring people in the fortress walls. Allegedly for the sake of increasing the defense capability of the structure...

The castle in Nevitsky is shrouded in legends about the obnoxious filthy girl and the daughters-in-law, whom he allegedly protected. A filthy girl, as they say folk legends, nicknamed the Turkish princess who ruled the castle. She ordered eggs and milk to be added to the defensive walls for strength. The walls became stronger, but hunger began among the people... Another story tells about the Nevichanskaya maiden, the young mistress of the castle. Fleeing from a forced marriage, she threw herself into the abyss right here.

Knights Templar monks, monks of the Order of St. Paul, feudal lords, Uzhgorod magnates... Serednyansky castle could not withstand all its owners and the historical collisions that befell its fate over seven centuries. The ruins of the fortress could tell us, for example, about a beautiful and cunning young lady: they say she once lived here. But even cunning could not save the girl from her murderous father, who was walling up people in the castle dungeons. By the way, Transcarpathians still say that some kind of underground passages connected as many as four castles in Transcarpathia - Uzhgorod, Nevitsky, Serednyansky and Mukachevo.

Mukachevo Castle, like living fairy tale, rises on a large lonely volcano that long ago fell asleep forever. However, it is still described as a “mountain of torment” created by the hard work of the peasants. Another story about torment says that people suffered during construction due to steep mountain, on which it was necessary to pull stones. There are also many legends about the castle well, where, supposedly, the devil himself found water in order to later destroy Prince Koryatovich.

About the castle of Saint Miklos they say that a walled human skeleton was found within its walls. It seems that in the Middle Ages people thought that a person immured in the castle walls became the patron-guardian of the fortress and did not consider this matter to be murder. But the more romantic history of the castle is connected with lovers - Count Imre Tekeli and Princess Ilona Zrini. It was here that they first met and fell in love with each other... At least, that’s what the legends say, thanks to which the fortress was dubbed the “castle of love.” Now the fortress is being actively revived and is welcoming guests.

The most interesting legend about Khust Castle has certain historical roots. She is connected with the family in which the notorious Count Dracula was born. Dracula's mother, Vlad the Impaler, actually came from these lands, which are now divided between Ukraine and Romania, and were once called Maramorosh. And Dracula’s grandfather, Bogdan from the Sas clan, the Maramorosh voivode, could well have lived in the castle. But is it true that his grandson later hid his treasures here and did evil deeds? Unlikely, although the version is intriguing.

The Vinogradovskaya fortress is now just a fascinating memory; little remains of it. The ruins and the cross stand alone on Black Mountain, but you still want to touch them. Vinogradov legends say that the castle was built during the time of the glorious Hungarian king, whom we know as St. Stephen. But over time, this castle became only an object of struggle and war - and then it fell into decay.

The royal castle also did not know the mercy of history. Its powerful walls have not even retained their outlines. But the legend about him is among the most romantic, because it is about King Vladislav and the beautiful Caroline. It is surprising that the legend is not tragic - meeting, love, marriage and children follow one after another. It is only unknown what happened to the royal family next - tragedy befell them during one of the Tatar invasions. They say that the noble couple and the princes fell asleep forever under the castle walls.

This defunct castle in Vyshkovo (a village near Khust, famous for its unique architectural monument- Wooden Reformed Church) had a certain common feature with the fortresses of Khust, Vinogradov and Korolev. It was also a “salt” castle - designed to protect salt mining in Transcarpathia. Castle legends are associated with twelve robbers who once occupied the mountain where the Vishkov fortress stood. The robbers mocked the peasants, and one owner’s daughter was stolen and taken to the castle. She cursed, and prayed, and begged... And suddenly such a storm covered the castle that it destroyed it. All that remains of the fortress are ruins.

To see the remains of the Minta Castle in Kvasovo above the Borzhava River, you should hurry. A few more years and there may be nothing left of him at all. People say that once upon a time an unfortunate rich man lived here. Dying, he cursed his goods. And no one could reach it or capture the castle... So the stronghold disappeared over the centuries.

The remains of Borzhavsky Castle in the village of Vary are located a 25-minute drive from the town of Beregovo, famous for its healing thermal waters. It's almost on the border with Hungary. According to legend, the castle was destroyed by Batu Khan, and this happened in 1241. Legends tell tragic story the unhappy marriage of the Borzhavian prince Chernogor and the Galician princess Milota. The unfortunate princess loved another - and in a tragic coincidence, she died during the Hungarian attack precisely at the hands of her beloved.

The castle in Bronka (28 km from Irshava) has hardly survived at all; all that remains are barely noticeable ruins of walls and foundations. Nobody knows the time of his appearance. This could also be the period ancient state Dacia, which later became part of the Roman Empire. The treasures of Bronetsky Castle, its fate and death are shrouded in tragic legends; even why the fortress fell, only its ruins know for sure. Not without tragic love: here the robber knight Brinda allegedly died, having cheated on his beloved with another. The unfortunate girl took revenge by denouncing him to the authorities. Along with Brinda, the secret of the treasures he stole, which the Transcarpathian Robin Hood hid somewhere in the Bronets dungeons, perished.

The remains of a Slavic settlement (8–9 centuries) on the outskirts of the village of Belki, Irshavsky district (this is one of the largest villages in Ukraine with rich history, located 10 km from Irshava) only one remained folk legend. The peasants built a castle on the mountain to escape their enemies. They called that mountain Gorodishche. When a powerful attack by the Tatar horde occurred on the village, women and children dug an underground passage under the castle while the men held the defense. So everyone escaped, but the castle, they say, fell into the ground, and now even traces of it are no longer noticeable.

In addition to the classic fortresses of Transcarpathia, well-known similar architectural structures, but of a different type, are of interest - in particular, the Dolzhansky castle-palace and the hunting castle-palace in the Beregvar tract (Schönborn castle).

Countless legends have been preserved about the disappeared and mythical fortresses of Transcarpathia. These are, for example, the mysterious Cat Castle near Chernecha Mountain (Mukachevo region) and the Owl Castle in the village of Antalivtsi near Uzhgorod. There are also legends among the people about the Pagan Castle on Mount Stremtur near Irshava, Beylev Castle (Beilovar) in the village of Belovartsy, Tyachevsky district. They also talk about the Galabor kastel (that is, a castle-palace) in the village of Galabor near Berehovo and other fortifications, castles and fortifications in Ardanov, Mala Kopan, Vyshkov, Dedova, Velyki Berega... Transcarpathia is shrouded in legends, as in the cradle - and they are were and are an indispensable feature of this mysterious region with a magical, unique charm.

There is a small town in Belarus called Golshany. It is famous for its famous castle - the residence of the Sapieha family, built in the first half of the 17th century. At the moment, the main attraction of the castle is... ghosts.

White lady

Many lovers of mysterious stories know about the White Lady from Golshansky Castle. As the legend tells, one of the walls of the castle could not be erected for a long time: it constantly collapsed. Then someone remembered an ancient custom: in order for a building to be durable, you need to wall up a living person in its wall, preferably a young girl or a child. After thinking, the builders decided that when choosing a future victim, it would be fair to rely on chance - let the woman who first brings dinner to her husband die...
The young wife walked very quickly to her husband, almost ran - she couldn’t help it: she loved him too much, she missed him, and she wanted to bring him hot dinner.
But her husband greeted her sadly, and the faces of the other builders were gloomy. Some versions of the legend say that after the last stone was placed in the wall, the woman's husband committed suicide and his corpse was walled up next to her.
This story would have remained one of many dark medieval legends if in 1997, during renovation work, builders had not stumbled upon the skeleton of a woman. Her pose allowed us to conclude that, most likely, she was walled up alive in the wall. This was also evidenced by the broken fingers with which the unfortunate woman scratched the wall in vain attempts to get out.
The skeleton was buried, but without observing Christian rites. The workers who found him soon died one after another, and all under strange circumstances.
A ghost called the White Lady appears every now and then in the castle, terrifying the staff of the art museum located there.
The story of a girl sacrificed during the construction of a building is not at all a unique plot. Soviet ethnographer D.K. Zelenin (1878-1954), in his work “Tree Totems in the Legends and Rituals of European Peoples,” gives many examples of legends about construction sacrifice; the most illustrative of these stories will be given below.

Curious Alena
In the book by A.A. Navrotsky “Tales of the Past. Russian epics and legends in verse" (1896) there is a ballad called "Rocker Tower".
The basis of its plot is the legend that during the construction of the Novgorod Kremlin, a certain Alena, the wife of the merchant Grigory Lopata, was buried alive in the ground. That day, the woman woke up too late and, in order to have time to do all the housework, decided to go to the river for water by a short route - along a path running along the mountainside.
Returning, the woman saw a hole near the city wall. Curiosity made her come closer and look there. The construction workers immediately surrounded Alena and asked her for a drink. As soon as the woman took the yoke off her shoulders, she was grabbed, tied to a board and lowered into a hole. The rocker and buckets were buried with her - as custom dictated.
It must be said that the builders did not at all fearlessly commit a terrible act - they did not agree to bury the unfortunate woman for a long time, but the chief foreman convinced them of the need to make a construction sacrifice:

Let her die alone for the whole city,
We will not forget her in our prayers;
It's better to die alone
yes behind a strong wall
We will be safe from enemies!

These lines from the 19th century poet A.A. Navrotsky from the poem “Roomyslova Tower” explain in an extremely clear form the reason for the perfect ritual. His goal is to protect the city from harm by making a human sacrifice.
It is interesting that this kind of sacrifice was performed in the Christian era; the builder - one of the heroes of the poem - even says that the deceased will be remembered in prayers. Of course, this testifies to the close intertwining of Christian and pagan beliefs in people’s minds. The given legend is full of everyday details, due to which it is perceived as a real story. If someday during construction work in the Novgorod Kremlin a woman’s skeleton is dug up, it will not be surprising.

crying walls
Legends of construction sacrifice are found all over the world. True, women are not always immured. For example, in Georgia there is a legend about the Surami fortress, reflected in the folk song “Suramistsikhe”. Based on it, Sergei Parajanov’s film “The Legend of the Suram Fortress” (1984) was shot. During the construction of the citadel, its walls collapsed several times. The king ordered to find a victim - the only son of a lonely man. One can only speculate about the reasons for such selectivity - perhaps the sacrifice should have been associated with the maximum amount of suffering. One way or another, the young man Zurab, the son of a lonely widow, was chosen to play the role of the victim. The song conveys a dialogue between a mother and her son being walled up.
The woman asks him several times: “To what point are you laid?” He answers: “Ankle-deep, stomach-deep, chest-deep, neck-deep...” According to legend, the tears of a crying Zurab still seep through the stones of the fortress...

Mother's love

In the Serbian folk song “Building Skadra” we find another version of the construction sacrifice - a young woman, the mother of an infant child, was walled up in the wall of the fortress. The song says that at the request of the victim, two holes were left in the wall: for the chest, so that the woman could feed her child for a year, and for the eyes, so that she could see him. Surprisingly, the song does not say anything about the woman eating anything at that time. Perhaps such a detail was simply missed, and the mother immured in the wall was fed through a hole left at face level. Or perhaps the medieval belief in miracles played a role in the formation of the final text of the song “Construction of the Skadr” - the author was convinced that the walled up woman was invisibly nourished by higher powers.
One way or another, after the baby was weaned, the mother was walled up completely. There is a superstition among local women that a white liquid sometimes oozes from the wall in the place where the unfortunate woman is walled up. It should be collected and drunk by mothers who have problems breastfeeding.

“I can’t see you at all!”
Children can also act as construction victims. Legend says that during the construction of a fortress in the Thuringian city of Liebenstein (now it is dilapidated), a little girl, the daughter of a vagabond woman, was walled up in the wall, who herself sold the child to the builders and was even present at the walling up.
The girl was treated to sweets and began to block the opening in which she was standing with stones. It seemed to the child that everything that was happening was a fun game. “Mom, mom, I see you!” – the little girl screamed at the beginning. But the hole became smaller and smaller, and the girl began to ask for at least a small crack to be left for her in order to look at her mother. As in the Novgorod legend about Alen, it was not so easy for the master to complete the terrible task. In the end, his student completed the work. “Mom, mom, I can’t see you at all!” – came a desperate cry. They say that then for many years at night in those places one could hear the plaintive cry of a child. Other legends claim that the ghost of a heartless mother, who after her death repented of her crime, still wanders through the ruins of the fortress and in the surrounding forests...

An egg instead of a bird

There is no doubt that stories about construction victims are often (though, we emphasize, not always) based on true facts. What is the reason for this terrible, from the point of view of modern man, ritual? There can be many explanations. Firstly, there was a belief that the soul of a walled up person would become a kind of guardian of the building. Secondly, the sacrifice could serve to appease local spirits who were disturbed by the construction.
However, the most convincing explanation is offered by D.K. Zelenin. He rightly points out that before the advent of stone buildings, people lived mainly in wooden houses. Ancient people were convinced that trees have a soul and angry tree spirits could harm people living in the house.
Wanting to come to an agreement with the spirits of the trees, people made a sacrifice to them - usually someone of low social status: a captive, a woman, a child. As human society developed, the sacrifice of people began to be replaced by the sacrifice of animals, or even inanimate objects.
In 1874, while repairing the city gates in Aachen (Germany), a mummified cat was found. Apparently, it was walled up in the gate tower when it was founded in 1637.
In 1877, the skeleton of a hare and a chicken egg were found in the foundations of a Berlin house. This building was built in the 16th century. Apparently the builders decided that the egg could be considered the equivalent of a bird. Over time, a taboo was imposed on the ominous ritual, but legends full of tragedy remained in the people's memory...

Featured in the folklore of many nations creepy stories about people walled up alive. Why did this happen to them? terrible death? It was believed that some were punished for crimes, real or imagined. And others had to forever remain watchmen and guardians of the place in which they found their death. And everything could be considered simple folk tales, if only builders and archaeologists during their work would not sometimes stumble upon such terrible finds.

From the history of sacrifices

But let's start in order, from the very beginning. The peoples of ancient times (and some even until today) believed that gods and spirits must be properly appeased if you want to receive something from them.

Everything is logical: people also prefer not to work for nothing. Also with perfume, if you want to get something meaningful and valuable, you need to pay accordingly. What do spirits and gods prefer? And this depends on the “specialization” and the nature of the invisible entity.

Good spirits and gods will accept sacrifices of flowers, oil, incense, wine, but more serious ones want serious gifts, often in the form of bloody sacrifices. So serious invisible helpers have always been considered stronger. Therefore, in order to appease them, they sacrificed the living: animals, and in the most serious cases, people.

Human life in ancient times it was not considered particularly valuable, not only among some wild tribes, but also among the civilized peoples of Europe themselves. Fairy tales and legends reflect harsh realities long gone. Remember the fairy tale about Thumb? In a hungry year, the family simply left the children in the forest, with nothing to feed them.

There is a Belarusian legend that frail old people were supposed to be taken to the forest to die. In his literary fairy tale The classic of Belarusian literature V. Korotkevich wrote about this. Jack London has a story on the same topic, how the Indians left for more favorable places, abandoning the old people.

It was such a time when people got rid of extra mouths without regret. Therefore, in order to ask for a harvest, prosperity, or relief from danger for the tribe/people, people were sacrificed. Much has been written about the Aztecs, who slaughtered captives en masse to please their Sun god.

But it was not only the Indians who were distinguished by this. And not only then. One of the Indian tribes lost in the jungle practiced a similar custom back in the 20th century. They took a child, a stranger, they stole or bought it – it doesn’t matter. The child was raised for several years without being denied anything. And then, on the right day, they were sacrificed in the fields, and in the most brutal way.

It was believed that the more the victim suffers, the better the harvest and the more favorable the spirits. So, as we see, the custom of sacrifice was everywhere and even quite recently. Over time, morals softened and people began to be replaced by animals. Particularly valuable. By the way, everyone remembers the fairy tale about sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka.

But they hardly thought about the origins of the fairy tale. According to one version, Brother Ivanushka is a substitute victim. Often, in necessary cases, human sacrifices were replaced by a horse or cow. These were very valuable animals in ancient times, there were only a few of them, and they were protected.

And sacrifices were made only as a last resort, for example, at the funerals of princes. Or during the construction of particularly important buildings. In Europe, by the way, skeletons of horses are found... under old churches! Amulets made from horse bones were generally valuable.

Horse skulls were hung over Slavic dwellings. It is unlikely that the horses were specially killed for this; rather, they took them “ready-made”. But they also killed, at the most crucial moments. As a sacrifice during the construction of buildings, bridges, etc. They used pigs and roosters.

Sometimes they were slaughtered, and sometimes they were buried alive. Apparently, it was believed that this way they would better guard the building entrusted to them. And the local spirits will be happy and will not harm. Apparently, this was the logic of the ancient builders.

Golshansky Castle in Belarus

And now we have finally reached the victims of capital construction. Judging by the legends, human sacrifices were most often made not “just in case,” although this could have happened, but when construction did not go well. Since construction is not progressing, it means the spirits are angry, people reasoned. And they must be appeased with a suitable victim.

A similar legend exists about an ancient castle in Golshany, Belarus. One day the owner of the castle ordered to build a tower. But no matter how hard the workers tried, the walls constantly crumbled. The prince hurried the construction and began to get angry, and the anger of the prince in those days, you know, is no joke.

Then they decided to make a sacrifice, they decided that it would be the first one who comes to the construction site in the morning. The first to come running was the young wife of one of the workers. I wanted to quickly bring breakfast to my beloved husband... The tower was completed and stood until our time. The castle had suffered greatly over the centuries, but many parts were still intact.
7 of the most terrible places in Ukraine, which not all tourists decide to visit.