The bride's Ghost is dangerous for men

Legends about ghost brides sometimes evoke sympathy even from people who can hardly be called sentimental. However, the" girls", the heroines of these legends, are often very insidious, and meetings with them do not promise a person anything good.

One of these young ladies is a maiden from the island of Rügen (Germany), thanks to which he got his own exceptional attraction. On the north-eastern coast of this piece of land in the Baltic Sea, near its famous chalk cliffs, you can still see a huge stone of unusual shape, popularly called Washing Stone. And the boulder got this name for a reason. According to local legend and numerous eyewitness accounts, once a year, on the night before Midsummer's Day (July 7), a beautiful girl appears on a stone and begins to wash a bloody handkerchief in the sea. What" evidence " the unfortunate woman is trying to destroy is unknown to history, but the fate of the young lady is well known to the residents of Rügen.

Local legend tells that once this beauty was the daughter of a noble citizen of Riga. In the spring of 1401, the girl was preparing for a wedding with a worthy young man who had been in love with her since childhood. That's just to enjoy family life, she never managed.

On the day of the poor girl's wedding, Riga was attacked by the gang of the famous pirate Klaus Stertebecker. He kidnapped the beauty he liked right at the moment of the wedding. The Baltic freebooter brought the captive to the island of Rügen, where his team's cache was located near the chalk slopes — a secret cave filled with looted treasures. Having imprisoned the girl here and unloaded the loot taken in the future capital of Latvia, Stertebeker and his comrades immediately went on a new raid. And this time unsuccessful! After another expropriation of other people's property, the band of daring pirates suffered a crushing defeat from the Hamburg fleet, and Klaus himself was captured and soon beheaded.

Treasure as a reward

Without waiting for the kidnappers, the unfortunate bride imprisoned in the cave soon died of hunger and thirst. To get out of his prison, she could not, as the RAID associates Stortebeker blocked the entrance with a great stone. And the poor thing couldn't move it.

Since then, she began to wash her mysterious handkerchief in the sea, thereby causing terror to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and villages. But soon another legend was born in these parts. So, the citizens of Rügen believe that if a person who met a beautiful woman at night by the sea, says to her: "God help you" - she will give him countless treasures from the pirate cache. Only here there is a certain "but", otherwise on Ryugen there would be a great many people who want to get acquainted with the ghostly bride.

The fact is that the beauty invites the person she meets to follow her to the cherished cave, so that her new friend can collect as much gold as he wants. The offer is certainly tempting! But according to the same local legends, Klaus Stertebecker, who was killed on the scaffold with a severed head under his arm, sometimes visits his possessions in order to conduct an "audit" of the looted property. This is partly confirmed by the mysterious ringing of coins on the cherished coast, coming from the rocks, which from time to time is heard by people walking here. Of course, a valiant filibuster is unlikely to like an uninvited guest caught in the "scene of the crime", plundering his wealth. Needless to say, the poor guy has little chance of returning home alive and well after such a meeting?

Be my husband!

No less dangerous for single men is the insidious Bertha von Windeck, who has been waiting for her betrothed for several centuries in her ancestral castle, located near the town of Weinheim (West Germany). True, over the centuries, the home of her valiant ancestors turned into ruins and became a tourist attraction, but this does not bother the ghostly beauty at all. Although she has no choice, because, according to legend, the path to the realm of the dead is reserved for her until Bertha is legally married. Legend has it that the young lady once had a beautiful groom, to whom she cheated on the eve of the wedding. Upon learning of this, the disgraced cavalier committed suicide, cursing his unfaithful bride before dying. Soon Fraulein von Windeck died of an unknown disease, but she can not calm down to this day. After all, even a decent young lady to find after the death of the groom oh, how difficult. What can we say about dishonest…

But Bertha does not lose hope, which is confirmed by a story that happened at the beginning of the XVIII century. A few decades after Windeck Castle was abandoned, a young man got lost while hunting and decided to stay here for the night. To his great surprise, when he entered the empty halls, he saw in one of them a black-haired beauty in rich clothes. The girl introduced herself as the owner of the house, who had returned home from a long journey, and offered the guest dinner. A plentiful meal in pleasant company with a large amount of hot drinks caused romantic feelings in the soul of the young man.

And so, after taking another sip of wine, he confessed his love to the young lady. The answer of the hostess, the meaning of which was reduced to the following: "If you love — get married!", — very puzzled the guy. He had hoped for an easier and shorter relationship. So the unfortunate guest, before he knew it, found himself before the altar in the chapel of the castle, where a skeleton in the vestments of a bishop immediately began the sacrament of the wedding. Only the timely crowing of a rooster saved the poor fellow from a hasty marriage, after which his bride and the priest disappeared into thin air.

A hundred years later, another young man from a nearby village became the hero of such an adventure. But fortunately, he was familiar with the history of his predecessor, and therefore, when he encountered Bertha in the ruins of Windeck Castle, he hastily retreated.

The Fatal Wanderer

Alas, not only in overseas countries, but also in the Russian expanses there are ghostly brides, whose insidious nature leads to serious consequences. So, in the Moscow region on the highway Lyubertsy-Lytkarino near the village of Pekhorka, a ghostly girl in a long white dress often appears in front of motorists. Old-timers of these places say that a few decades ago on this road, a wedding motorcade was involved in an accident, during which a very young bride died. Since then, she has not been able to leave the place of her death, and this is not accidental.

According to local legends, the area where the fatal highway passes today was a suicide cemetery two hundred years ago, and since then it has been saturated with dark energy. Probably, her unhealthy influence left an imprint on the character of the deceased bride, who can not find peace in the afterlife. According to the stories of motorists, meeting with this ghost is fraught with a terrible accident. Here is what one of the eyewitnesses told about his "acquaintance" with the ghostly bride:

— We drove along the Lytkarino road with grandpa in front of us and formed a fog. In principle, fog is a common phenomenon here.

But when we entered the fog, the car was thrown sharply, as if on ice. Although the time is warm, there should be no ice. The car spun, we almost flew into the oncoming lane, eventually flew into a ditch. And when all the dust had settled, we saw a ghost-the silhouette of a woman in a white dress.

Of course, it is difficult to believe in the intervention of otherworldly forces in automobile traffic on this section of the road. But, according to traffic police reports, over the past 20 years there have been more than forty major fatal accidents and several hundred less significant ones. However, for several years now the deceased bride appears less and less often on the fatal highway, and I want to believe that the wanderings of this unfortunate girl will soon come to an end.

Magazine: Secrets of the 20th Century #48, November 2020

Category: Ghost World

Author: Elena Lyakina