by Bob Curran
King Matthias agreed with Thurzo’s decision not to bring Elizabeth to trial—she was to remain under house arrest at Csejthe, but with certain conditions. She was to be confined to two or three rooms, which were to be boarded up, and she would not be permitted to see God’s blessed sunlight again. Stonemasons were brought in to seal up the doorways and windows, which allowed no daylight to penetrate her quarters—only a small aperture was left so that her jailers could leave food for her. She was condemned to a living tomb. Her name was not to be spoken anywhere in Hungary again, and all references to her were to be excised from all documents. The Hungarian people—and the world in general—were to forget her completely.
But, of course, they didn’t, and even during the remainder of her life, she was secretly talked about and her name was whispered in old folktales. Stories about her grew wilder and wilder—that she was immortal; that she had somehow retained her youth; that even in her grim and lightless world, she was still the most beautiful woman in Hungary; and that she had drunk blood and was a vampire. It is this later connotation that has stuck, and she has become known as “the Countess Dracula.”
On July 31st, 1614, Elizabeth (reputedly aged about 54) dictated her last will and testament to two priests from the Estergom bishopric. What remained of her family holdings were to be divided among her children, with her son Paul and his descendants receiving the major portion. Shortly afterward, one of the guards decided that he would try to look at her through the aperture through which she was fed—after all, she was once said to be the most beautiful woman in the country. When he looked through, however, he could just about see the body of the Countess lying face down on the floor. The monster that had killed so many servants and had bathed in their blood was dead in her own lightless world.
Records concerning Elizabeth’s life and her hideous crimes were sealed for 100 years. The name Csejthe became a swear word in Hungarian and the Slovaks who dwelt within the borders of the country often referred to the Countess obliquely as “the Hungarian whore.” And yet, the shadow of Elizabeth Bathory continued to hang over the country—and further afield—like a dark and musty cloak. She has appeared in books, stories, and films, most notably Countess Dracula (1971) starring Ingrid Pitt, becoming almost as famous in her own way as Dracula himself. Was she a vampire, a monster, or simply insane? That is a question that’s never been answered.
Her ghost is still supposed to haunt Csejthe, the place of her tomb-like imprisonment. A number of visitors to the ruin claim to have seen strange shadows drifting through the fallen archways or heard eerie cries echoing from some unknown but far away location—perhaps the Countess’s death cries? Her former presence there seems to have left an eerie pall over the place, which lingers down to the present day.
“The stone walk is paved with dark cries.”
—Pierre-Jean Jouve
Dragsholm Castle (Dragsholm, Denmark)
“… it is as though they haunt for haunting’s sake—much
as we relive, brood and smoulder over our pasts.”
—Elizabeth Bowen, Preface to The Second Ghost Book
If it’s ghosts you want then Dragsholm Castle (Dragsholm Slot) in Denmark is said to have more than 100 of them. The fortress is without question, one of Scandinavia’s most haunted sites, and reflects its turbulent history and those who inhabited its frowning walls.
Although today the castle is a Baroque building, it stands on the remains of an earlier medieval structure. Indeed, there has been a fortress on the “Drag” (isthmus) of Odsherred since the early 13th century. Prior to the damming of the Lammefjord (a large inlet), the settlement of Odsherred was connected to the rest of Zealand by a dag or draugh—a small strip of land, and the Castle (which lay to the east) was supposed to protect this. It was built around 1215 by Peder Sunesen, titular Bishop of Roskilde, although he never lived to see it fully completed (he died in 1214). His successor, Neils Stigsen, later secularized the diocese and the castle, and while still the property of the Bishops, became home to many nobles and churchmen. In fact, a man who is counted as the last Catholic Bishop of Roskilde, Joachim Rannow (1529–1536), was briefly incarcerated there, before being taken to Copenhagen Castle, where he died in 1544. Although he is counted as a Bishop, Rannow was never consecrated, nor did he formally hold the Episcopal properties, but nonetheless his troubled spirit still haunts Dragsholm and can be seen in full robes wandering in various areas of the Castle in which he was a prisoner. For some reason, his predecessor Lage Ume (Bishop from 1512–1529) also haunts the building and has been seen by a number of people.
It was during the stormy events of 16th-century Denmark that the castle came to ghostly prominence. It became one of the central conflicts during the Grevens Fejde (the Count’s War—1534–36), which was an important turning point in Danish history as it ushered in the Protestant Reformation across the country. Following the death of King Frederick I, the nobles of Jutland rose in revolt and deposed his Catholic successor (and co-ruler) Christian II, replacing him with Frederick’s own son Christian (Christian III), who was staunchly Protestant. However, Christian II had some very powerful support in his home area of Oldenburg where the Protestant Count Crisoffer raised an army in his support, sweeping through Denmark, burning and pillaging. Castles fell before his army, but Dragsholm held out—the only castle in Zealand to do so—and even managed to drive the Count’s forces back. However, many were killed in defense of the fortress and their ghosts are still attached to the place. Many have heard the sounds of a 500-year-old siege echoing around its walls.
On June 11th, 1535, Count Crisoffer was finally defeated at the Battle of Oksneberg by the armies of Count Johan Rantzan, opening the way for the siege of Copenhagen and the end of the War. The victor, Christian III, ruled as a repressive and absolutist monarch, and this meant a change in status for Dragsholm.
The castle now became a prison. Christian had been so impressed with its impenetrability that he assumed it would make an excellent place of incarceration—those who had failed to break into it would now fail to break out. Its prisoners however, came from the upper ranks of both the nobility and the clergy and someone could be imprisoned simply for insulting the king. Denmark was still in a very shaky state with Sweden casting greedy eyes in its direction and king Christian was determined to hold onto power and maintain stability of his throne. He trusted no one, not even the nobles from Jutland, who had brought him to the throne. A number of prisoners were thrown into Dragsholm and the cries of the incarcerated are still said to reverberate around the castle walls.
Although it held many prisoners, one of the most famous to be incarcerated in Dragsholm was James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and 1st Duke of Orkney (1534–1578), third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Following the Battle of Carberry Hill, East Lothian in Scotland (1567) in which Mary’s forces were defeated, Hepburn fled to Scandinavia in the faint hope of receiving backing from Frederick III of Denmark and Norway, and raising an army there to put Mary back on the Scottish throne. Unfortunately, his ship was seized by the Norwegian navy and he was taken as a prisoner (he had no proper papers) to the port of Bergen. There he was lodged in the house of a noblewoman named Anna Throndsen with whom he had apparently enjoyed a relationship around 1557 (in Flanders he had persuaded her to sell all her possessions in order to finance his gambling). He is alleged to have asked her for more money. Anna could take no more and raised a complaint against him, mainly for the return of the substantial sum she had given him in Flanders as a dowry and which he had gambled away—a complaint which was back by her kinsman, the powerful Erik Rosenkrantz, a leading political figure in Norway. Although Anna softened toward him (perhaps she still had feelings for him) her kinsmen still pursued the claim, despite his offer to them to take his ship as compensation. Moreover, King Frederick had heard that Hepburn was wanted by the English Crown for the suspected murder of Mary’s second husband Henry, Lord Darnley, in 1567 and thought that he might profit from keeping Hepburn
as a prisoner. At first, Frederick treated Hepburn well, but later he was sent to Dragsholm Castle where he allegedly went mad due to the conditions in which he was kept. He was supposedly chained to a pillar, which is still sometimes shown to visitors, together with a circular track worn in the floor which is said to have been made by his pacing feet. He allegedly died at Dragsholm, and his supposed mummified body was displayed to tourists at nearby Farevejle Church. The actual identity of the body has, however, never been conclusively proven and some authorities say that he was imprisoned there for no more than five years. This does not prevent Hepburn’s insane ghost from haunting the Castle and indeed he is one of its main phantoms, appearing and gibbering to several visitors and rattling his chains at them. Apparently his specter is most terrifying to behold. From time to time, too, the sound of horses hooves can be heard in the cobbled yard, and this is also taken to have some connection to Hepburn and his incarceration at Dragsholm.
Yet another mad ghost who still continually makes its presence felt is that of Ejier Brockenhuus, the so-called “Mad Squire.” The Brockenhuus family was a very powerful one in Denmark, but were always suspected of being involved in strange practices. They had been involved with the famous Danish witch Christinze Kruckow (one of very few Danish nobility that was executed for alleged witchcraft) during the reign of King Christian IV, a monarch with a great interest in witchcraft (and in its persecution). Ejier Brockenhuus was a noted profligate, who was almost (it’s said) uncontrollable in his excesses. Accused of plotting against the King, he was imprisoned in Dragsholm where, once again, he went completely insane (although there are those who assert that he was insane before he was imprisoned). His mad laughter can frequently be heard echoing through the Castle, sending a chill down the spines of all those who hear it.
On June 1st, 1657, the simmering tensions between Denmark and Sweden finally exploded into open conflict as the Danish King Frederick III formally declared war on King Charles X Gustav of Sweden. Sweden won the conflict with the celebrated and unexpected March Across the Belts in which the Swedish king led his army across the Great and Little Belts from Jutland to Zealand. During this time, an attempt was made to blow up Dragsholm, which was only partially successful, but killed a number of people and left the Castle more or less a ruin. It was given, as part of King Frederick’s outstanding debts to a grocer, Heinrich Muller, who really did nothing with it.
In 1694, the ruins were sold to the nobleman Fredrik Christian Aldeler, who finally built the Baroque castle that is standing. The family also made several improvements to the surrounding land, including the draining of the Lammefjord by one of Aldeler’s relatives who was an engineer. The Aldelers finally died out in 1932 and Dragsholm Castle passed into the hands of the Central Land Board who sold it to the Bottger family, which only included the main estate and not its subsidiary lands. They have been continuously running it since then and the castle has now been developed into a hotel. The place has been modernized slightly, but certainly retains some of the former architecture and antiquities of its violent past.
Besides the spectres of James Hepburn, Ejier Brockenhuus, and the soldiers who died in Dragsholm’s defence, several other phantoms haunt its corridors. One of the most regular is said to be the Grey Lady who is rumoured to be actually the spirit of a minor noblewoman who was employed in the Castle. She was apparently troubled with a painful toothache and sought help from some of the servants who eventually cured her. Out of gratitude she wanders the Castle corridors determining that all’s well. Many have felt her presence there and a few have seen her. She appears to be a relatively harmless ghost.
A much sadder phantom is the so-called White Lady, whose story is a more tragic one that involves a love affair. A high-born young lady fell for one of the more lowly born workers, but because of her high status, they had to keep their affair secret from her father. Nevertheless, her father found out and in a fit of rage forbade the girl to see the boy again. When she ignored the prohibition and the lovers were caught, they were separated. The girl was imprisoned within the walls of Dragsholm Castle until she came to her senses. Instead, she made a bridal gown for herself in defiance of her father’s instructions. She also passed notes to her lover from her prison. This infuriated her father, who in a fit of blind and total rage ordered her to be walled up within the prison so that her lover would never see her again.
For a long time, this was thought to be just an old and fanciful story representative of the bloody history of Dragsholm. However, during the early part of the 20th century, some workmen were tearing down part of an old wall in order to make way for a new toilet block within the Castle when, behind some plaster-work, they came upon the skeleton of a woman dressed in what appeared to be the remnants of a white bridal gown. Some say that the skeleton was very small and might be more representative of a child—and that the dress was an ordinary white one—which would tie in with the story of the child who is said to wander through the Castle each night. Whether this is the spirit of the White Lady or some other ghost is unknown. No story concerning the death and walling up of a child is associated with Dragsholm, as far as is known.
While staying in the hotel, several people claim to smell a stench similar to gunpowder in some of the rooms and passageways. Could this be some phantom remnant from the battles that once raged around the Castle, or from the attempt to blow it up during the war? And of course there are the groans, insane laughter, and far-away screams that others suggest they have heard. What is their origin? Perhaps the terrors of that ancient place are not completely consigned to the past!
Eilean Mor (The Flannan Isles, Scotland)
“Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle,
To keep the lamp alight,
As we steered under the lee we caught,
No glimmer through the night.”
—Wilfred Wilson Gibson, Flannan Isle
Where does our own reality end and another begin? Are there places in the world where the two overlap and where the inhabitants of our own existence might be swept away into another? Or perhaps where beings from somewhere else can cross into our own sphere of existence? If there are, then these locations may be pretty remote and inaccessible to human travellers, and yet they may exist. If they do, then perhaps Eilean Mor in the isolated Flannan Isles could be one such place.
The Flannans, also known as the Seven Hunters, are a group of small islands lying to the west of the Hebridean island of Lewis. Most of them are small and barren, but the largest of them are Eilean Mor (the Big Island), Eilean Taighe (House Island), Soay (Eastward Isle), and Eilean na Gobha (Island of the Blacksmith). Little more than the large crowns of undersea mountains, they have nevertheless acquired something of a mysterious reputation throughout the years. The most persistent story is that there were originally seven men who were turned into islands by the divine wrath for hunting on the Sabbath day (hence their nickname). The islands take their formal name from St. Flannan of Killaloe, a 7th-century Dalcassian prince from County Clare in Ireland whose followers founded a monastery on remote Eilean Mor (with possibly a hermitage on Eilean Taighe). However, at some time during the 9th century, this holy house was mysteriously abandoned. This may have had something to do with the increase of Vikings on the nearby island of Lewis and repeated raids against lonely monasteries by Norse pirates.
In the centuries that followed, the islands changed hands a number of times as rival clans sought to control the area. No clan, however, attempted to colonize them or build fortifications there, so eerie was their reputation. Indeed, the shepherds of Beasclete in Lewis, who occasionally grazed sheep on Eilean Mor, referred to them as “the other country,” an area which was not part of this world. The islands were regarded as a place of fairies and of other supernatural creatures. Strange figures were often seen in the island twilight, and, from time to time, grazing animals disappeared as if they had walked or been lured from one world into another. Fear of the Flannans, and of Eilean Mor in particular, was alm
ost palpable. Indeed arrivals on the island had to perform a certain ritual at the now-ruined monastery, which involved crawling on one’s knees in a counter-clockwise direction or else some ghastly harm might befall them. At certain times of the year, the Islandmen tended to stay away from the place altogether.
The modern age caught up with the lonely Flannans around 1895. The seas around the Seven Hunters were incredibly dangerous due to submerged shoals and low-lying reefs as continual hazards. As shipping between the Firth of Clyde and America increased, so did the wrecks, reaching a deadly peak throughout the 1850s. The situation became so bad that in 1895, the Board of Trade considered it imperative to build a lighthouse on Eilean Mor to ensure the safety of vessels in the area. In 1896, it gave permission for a 1,000-candlepower light to be constructed on the island. The lighthouse was designed by David Alan Stevenson and would rise 70 feet high on the top of a steep cliff that fell away into the sea 150 feet below. It was built by George Lawson of Rutterglen at a cost of £6,914.1s.9d, which included the building of two jetties with a further £3,526.16s. for a station house for the wives and families of the keepers back in Beasclete. There was to be no radio link between Lewis and the islands, and once out on the island, the keepers were pretty much on their own.
Construction stayed on pace between 1896 and 1899. There were a few curious incidents, including the deaths of two builders who inexplicably fell off of the cliff. Even so, some of the men working on the lighthouse complained about the feeling of a brooding presence somewhere nearby watching them as they worked. Some claimed to hear strange voices calling to them, but these were shrugged off as the eerie cries of the gulls that wheeled about the high cliffs. Finally, early in December 1899, the first light was turned on.
