Posted by BDM Historian

Chapter 5
The Heidersdorf Ghosts

The day had been humid. In the evening, clouds had appeared in the sky; clouds with thick, white heads reaching higher and higher. Irm thought to herself, this is what icebergs or large glaciers must look like.

"We'll have a thunderstorm," said the hostel mother and wiped her forehead when she returned from the shed carrying a heavy basket of firewood. - "We'll have a thunderstorm," said Kathrin too, when everyone got together after dinner to sing on the lawn in front of the hostel. "We will need to get our sports equipment from the shed by the lake. It can't stay there if it's going to rain. The roof has large holes."

"I'll go," Liese said immediately and stood up. She always joined them to sing with the Jungmaedel. Kathrin nodded. "Thank you," she said. "But take someone along to help." - Liese briefly looked over the hundred Jungmaedel who were sitting at her feet. "Irm," she then said, "will you come along?"

Irm rose a little slower than normal. She looked critically at the dark tower of clouds behind which a slight glow appeared every so often. If she listened closely she could already hear the far away thunder. What if the storm came close quickly and they were caught in it out in the forest? But to show that she was afraid - no, that was out of the question. "Of course," Irm said a little too loudly and climbed over the heads of the others to Liese.

They walked closely together along the small path crossing the muddy lawn that separated the youth hostel from the woods. Now she'd get to see the forest in the dark after all! Irm listened alertly into the dusk. "Liese," she then said, "Sometimes you write such nonsense in school essays, don't you?" Lise laughed: "It happens. But what made you bring this up now?" - "Hm..." Irm thought for a moment. "We had to write an essay once titled: The Night. I started: Deep silence lies over nature at night. The sentence sounded really good to me back then. But it isn't true at all. Listen! Do you notice anything resembling deep silence?"

"Only people who've never been outside at night could write that or find that pretty," said Liese. "You always hear something. Crickets or frogs or toads or whatever other animals. If you listen close enough, you can even understand what they're saying. Just listen to the frogs!"

"I only hear: Ribbit - Ribbit - Ribbit," said Irm. - "You need to listen more closely. There's a fat old frog, who's calling: Wet, wet, wet is the water! And then the others are laughing at him: So stay away, away, away!" Of course! Irm could understand them now as well.

"And over there, Liese, the ones that are going "too-coo, too-coo"?" - "Those are toads. They are calling, "duck down, duck down." It's actually a whole song they're singing:

Duck down, duck down, a royal daughter
has drowned here many years ago,
on the bottom, on the bottom, she sits and spins,
she's the queen of us toads.
She sits in moss, she sits in mud,
and deep at the bottom of swamps.
Whoever will want to win our queen,
must kiss her on the mouth!"

Irm looked at her in surprise. "Pretty," she said, "But it's so sad." She was glad to reach the edge of the forest. She didn't want to look at the muddy grass any longer because it made her think of the drowned girl.

"Ki-wi, ki-wi," called a tawny owl as they took the path through the woods. Irm winced a little. "Liese, is it true that someone dies when the owl calls?" She remembered what the merchant's wife had said after her brother's death: "And the entire night long a tawny owl sat on the chestnut tree by his window and called: Come with me, come with me!" Ever since then, Irm had been afraid of owls.

"What nonsense," Liese replied, and it was strangely comforting to hear her voice so lively nearby. "Look, that's where it's sitting!" Now Irm saw the dark lump on the lowest branch of a big pine tree. When it noticed the human voices, it took flight. It looked big and dark, and they could hear its wings flapping heavily.

Liese said, "Now it's going hunting to feed its young." The owl had a nest inside a hollow tree, Liese said. The young owls looked grey and had soft, fluffy feathers. Irm thought it would be neat to find such a nest, but of course you couldn't pet the little ones and you had to be very quiet or you would scare the adults so much they would abandon the nest. Then the little fluffballs would starve. They sleep all day. But at night, the adult owls left to hunt. They circled the woods calling out, "Ki-wi, ki-wi" and all small birds ducked deeper into their own nests when they heard the tawny owl call.

A bright flash of lightning suddenly ripped through the darkness and lit up the path, the low bushes, and the dark tree branches. Irm yelled and reached for Liese's hand. But Liese stood still and counted, "One, two ... seven, eight, nine..." Only then the thunder came. "The storm's still far off, but if we don't hurry now, we'll still get soaked," she said. "Are you scared?"

Irm threw back her head and laughed. You didn't have to be afraid of anything out in nature, she'd learned that much already in just a few days. But if she still felt uncomfortable - which could happen - then that was something for her to deal with by herself. She didn't need Liese for that...

By the time they returned to the hostel the first heavy rain drops started to splash onto stone tiles at the door. Inside, everyone was in the day room. It was almost entirely dark only some candles in front of Kathrin provided any light. "We're telling ghost stories," Shorty called across the table. "Hurry up, this is great!" Irm quickly slid into the circle. Everyone looked expectantly at Kathrin. "Now's the time for Inge's surprise," she said. "Up at the manor house, they have an old palace chronicle which they let Inge borrow yesterday. Inside is a ghost story. A ghost story - well, I won't tell anymore."

With this, she pushed the three candles in front of Inge, and Inge straightened up. This beginning was already promising:

(Translation notice: The following text was written in 17th Century formal German, which proved difficult to translate. I've chosen to go with a simple translation rather than one equivalent to the formal old German used in the original text.)

"The story recounted here demands strong beliefs in order to take it as truth. The reader may believe none of it at all, or just as much as he would like. I do not feel myself qualified to take away one's believes or to set boundaries to limit them. The Roman Catholics are much more gullible in such affairs than the Protestants. It is also to be desired that there are not many Sadducees among us who, since they do not believe in ghosts whatsoever, would be reinforced in their wickedness."

Outside, lightning and thunder followed each other in shorter and shorter intervals. Inside, Inge continued reading the "curious historical notice from the old palace in Heidersdorf".

"Among the servant staff of the baronial family was a house maiden who, in carrying out her proper duties, had to enter the cellar each day when one day she noticed an opening in the wall through which a bright light was emanating.

At first, she did not pay it any attention, but since it continued, she told the lordship as well as the domestics, all of whom were eager to see this light and went together and looked through the hole in the wall. Without exception, they all saw the glow of light, although they could not tell where it was coming from because of the wall.

The master of the house found this even more curious because the hidden part of his palace had not been known to him, and he could not understand how this hidden fire could have been nourished for so long.

There was much discussion as to how one was to react to such an unusual experience until the unanimous conclusion of the present illuminated clergy was that there must be a large treasure hidden there and that the light was a sign of its presence. However, the treasure would have to be recovered by the house maiden because it was her the light had first appeared to.

Now an effort was made to create an opening to get closer to the light: but when the workers had torn down a large part of the wall, the light disappeared before their very eyes and they remained only with the lights they had used to for their work. They had to leave without having located the treasure.

On the following day, however, the house maiden entered the cellar again and to her big surprise saw an even larger light, and when she stepped closer, she saw 33 lights in the order in which they are traditionally set around a noble corpse at funeral, without noticing anything further.

When she returned to the upstairs, she told her story with all its details which confused the clergy, particularly since they noted that the good house maiden was no longer willing to continue with her duties in light of the strange occurrences. They needed great effort to talk her into continuing her work, so that three days later, she descended into the cellar once again.

She did not, however, set out on the return journey upstairs and also did not report anything she had seen; instead, a horrible commotion was heard and nobody dared to follow her footsteps down into the cellar.

The cellar, however, was the one where wine and other edibles were stored, which the household could not live without. Therefore, the domestics, accompanied by three clerics, were sent into the cellar, each carrying a light. But even though they had many steps left to go to the opening in the cellar wall, they noticed a horrible stench so bad they had to hold their noses, and when they came closer, they found the house maiden dead on the ground. But what had happened to her could not be ascertained, and there was no light or shimmer of a light to be seen anywhere.

But because it was believed that otherwise there would never be an end to this affair, it was concluded that the hidden treasure had to be excavated. As soon as they started digging into the loose soil, however, bones began to be unearthed along with the sand, which seemed even stranger and even more suspect since nobody would use the cellar of a palace for a funeral.

Meanwhile they tried to speed up the affair through digging faster. But the deeper they dug, the more bones they dug up and slowly, they began to understand what sort of treasure was buried there. After much labor they finally reached solid rock and realized that all of their work would be for nothing.

During the following night, the lord of the house could not find any sleep because his disquieting thoughts would not let him rest, and he sat down in a window facing the church to pass the time more quickly.

When the clock struck one, he realized that the church was filled with lights and a mass of people dressed in white were exiting it and walking toward the palace. The lord received such a shock that he quickly ran from the window and crawled into his bed.

When he began to fall asleep and only the small night light still burnt on his table, the chamber door suddenly opened and the house maiden entered in her normal dress, followed by a row of bodies dressed in white which were all missing their heads and carrying them underneath their arms. The good lord was frightened stiff but he understood through an inner knowledge to address the house maiden and ask her what she wanted from him.

Instead of her replying, one of the heads of the present corpses said with a weak voice: "We are all innocently executed subjects of your ancestors, and if you wish to know the reasons for our deaths, you only need to check their records. We have rested in peace for many years and were never disturbed by anyone although we are still seeking revenge on our judge which we will get when the time is ripe. You, however, have destroyed our resting place and thus we have come in this form to ask you for another resting place." After those words, the entire procession disappeared like a whisp of smoke.

The next day, the lordship had the skeletons buried next to the church with the permission of the clergy, including the body of the house maiden. And from that time one, the palace was returned to its previous state of quiet."

So that was the ghost story from the Heidersdorf manor. "Uh," Liese said, and then started to sing in a hollow voice: "A ghost, a ghost, steps close to the bed and moans." It became the final song of the evening, but the Heidersdorf ghosts continued to spook all the way into the bathrooms.

"Booo, Shorty, aren't you scared? I bet you can't sleep tonight," called Ellie when Shorty stumbled up the stairs to their rooms carrying her sweat suit. "That's what you think!" Shorty stood on the landing and waved her pants like a flag. "I'll sleep snug as a bug in a rug as soon as the room has gotten quiet!"

"At which Shorty returned herself from the washing room and moved herself to bed," Irm laughed over to her - When Kathrin came to wish them a good night ten minutes later, she found a long row of ghostly figures covered in white sheets, who greeted her most properly. Strangely enough, all of those creatures spoke in most proper 17th Century language.