In honor of Halloween, we decided to take a trip around the world to visit the most famous haunted castles. Many of them are shrouded in an ominous halo, and once served as places of torture and witch hunts.
10. Lip Castle, Ireland
One of the most terrifying haunted castles was built in the 15th century on the ritual site of the ancient Celts. He belonged to the O'Carrolls clan, which became famous for their cunning and cruelty.
The "friendly" O'Carrolls often invited their enemies to a conciliatory feast, and then killed them right during the feast or while sleeping. And one of the clan members drove a sword into his brother - the priest - when he was celebrating mass in the castle chapel. This room is now called the "Bloody Chapel," and it is said that the priest often visits it at night.
The O'Carrolls were no better than their allies - mercenary warriors from the O'Neill and McMahon clans. In the corner of the banquet hall was a secret door leading into a room whose floor was studded with stakes. Guess for yourself what payment the mercenaries received.
Now their spirits sometimes appear in the dungeon, and they are accompanied by a terrible creature called the Elemental. Eyewitnesses who saw him claim that it is a sheep-sized creature with a human face and black holes instead of eyes. When it appears, the air is filled with the stench of rotting corpses and sulfur.
9. Tower of London, UK
The famous haunted castle is known for its bloody history. Henry VIII ordered the execution of his two wives here, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. By the way, the ghost of Anne Boleyn is the only one who received an "official registration" and a permit to live in the Tower. He appeared to many people, some of whom were hospitalized with a diagnosis of hallucination. Sometimes Anna's head was on her shoulders, and sometimes the ghost prefers to walk around headless.
Two more famous Tower ghosts are young princes, Richard and Edward V, who were imprisoned after the death of their father, King Edward IV. They disappeared shortly thereafter in 1483, and their remains were not discovered until 1647.
8. Fraser Castle, Scotland
This place is known for its wonderful architecture, beautiful gardens and ... grisly murder.
According to local legend, once a beautiful princess stayed at Fraser Castle. Rather than running all night over a pea or meeting a handsome lord, the girl was brutally murdered in her sleep. Then her body was dragged down a stone staircase and left in the forest.
The inhabitants of the castle tried in vain to wash the blood of the unfortunate princess from the stairs, but could not. Therefore, they covered the stone staircase with wooden panels that have survived to this day.
Some say that in Fraser you can still hear the cry of the princess when she visits the castle halls.
7. Mikhailovsky Castle, Russia
Even though Russia is inferior to Europe in the number of haunted castles, we also have something to please the lovers of mysticism.For example, the Mikhailovsky Castle, in which not some seedy relative of Kasper lives, but the very ghost of the All-Russian Emperor Paul I.
In 1801, the "Russian Hamlet" was strangled by the conspirators in his bedchamber, although the official cause of death was apoplexy. Since then, according to rumors, the ghost of Paul sometimes appears at midnight in the corridors of the Mikhailovsky Castle, carrying a candle in his hands.
6. Dragsholm Castle, Denmark
Built in the late 12th century, Dragsholm Castle was once a prison for Danish nobility and clergy.
Today it is a famous hotel and one of the centers mystical tourism... It is home to three ghosts at once: the Gray Lady, the White Lady and the Earl Bothwell.
- Gray Lady - This is a kind of ghostly maid. At night, she walks through the corridors of the hotel, checking if any of the guests are lost.
- White Lady - the ghost of a noble girl who fell in love with a local. Her father did not approve of the misalliance and locked the girl in her room. Centuries later, builders discovered her skeleton in a small depression in the walls of the eerie castle.
- Earl Bothwell was the third husband of the Queen of Scots Mary Stuart, but their marriage provoked the outrage of the Scottish nobility, and the earl had to flee to Norway. There he fell into the hands of the relatives of a girl whom he had once seduced, and by the verdict of the king of Denmark and Norway he spent the rest of his life in the prison of Dragsholm castle.
5. Castle Musham, Austria
You may have heard of the Salem Witch Trials, which became one of the most famous witch hunts in history. But the massacre of witches and sorcerers in the castle of Musham was one of the bloodiest.
Over a hundred young women and men were accused of witchcraft and brought to Musham Castle between 1675 and 1690. Many of them were under the age of 21, and their only crime was not having a surety. They were tortured with red-hot iron and killed in a local dungeon.
It is not surprising that now in this terrible haunted castle, chilling screams, the noise of footsteps and the creak of doors are often heard. And some visitors claimed that they saw floating white fog.
4. Himeji Castle, Japan
It is one of the best-preserved examples of Japanese castle architecture in the entire country.
Presumably, he is also haunted by a ghost named Okiku. According to local tradition, Okiku was a beautiful young maid who was accused of stealing a precious plate from a set of 10 items.
Trying to get Okiku to confess what she had done, she was hung upside down, beaten and lowered into the water, over and over again, until the unfortunate girl died. Then her body was thrown into the well and covered with a lid.
Since then, the spirit of the unjustly tortured Okiku cries and groans at night near the well, counting the plates in vain.
3. Castle of Good Hope, South Africa
The history of one of Cape Town's main landmarks dates back to 1666, making it the oldest colonial building in South Africa.
The castle was originally used by the Dutch East India Company as a food station for ships, and later served as a military fort and prison during the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902.
Today, you can tour many of the castle's rooms (including the gruesome torture chambers), but you might want to try your hand at ghost hunters.
In 1728, Governor Peter van Nordt condemned several deserters who were hanged. One of the condemned, standing in front of the gallows, cursed the governor, and van Nordt died of a heart attack on the same day. Since then, his ghost has haunted the battlements.
Another famous local ghost is the black dog, which rushes at people and disappears right into the air.
2. Chateau de Brissac, France
This elegant country estate is now a fine hotel. However, its charming exterior hides a dark past.
According to an old story, one of the inhabitants of the castle discovered that his wife was cheating on him with another.To avenge his outraged honor, he imprisoned his wife and her lover, tortured and eventually killed both of them.
Now hotel visitors can get an additional bonus in the form of observing ghostly figures, chilling touches and creepy sounds when checking into a room.
1. Bran Castle, Romania
In a picturesque and inaccessible part of the Carpathians, there is the Bran Castle, the infamous home of Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), also known as Vlad Dracula.
It was this character that served as the inspiration for Bram Stoker's gothic horror novel Dracula. And the dominion of Vlad the Impaler over Transylvania became a dark and terrible legend.
Historians are not sure if Vlad actually killed people at Bran Castle, but nevertheless, this place has become one of the most haunted castles in the world.
Regardless of whether Vlad Tepes actually tortured and killed hundreds of people here, the castle boasts many other frightening features, including a system of secret passageways that permeates the entire building.
Now the castle has a museum, which displays artifacts from previous years - shields, old costumes, armor, etc.