Rosalie, the wife of the kind and righteous Prince Giletus of Forchtenstein, was a heartless and cruel woman, who considered her liegemen and serfs less worth than pieces of wood. Until her gentle and benevolent husband was alive, she could not fully express her cruelty and despotism; however, once the Prince went to war and the Lady remained the only mistress of her subjects, a time of terror began for the poor peasants. She tormented and oppressed the helpless people in the most heartless way, confining them in the debtor jail, if the tax income were just one Groschen lower or the payments were not made right in due date, and indeed many people disappeared and were kept endlessly wandering in the black tower, where some of them even died of hunger.

Years later, when Giletus came home from war, the repressed peasants complained to him of their suffering and told him how cruelly the Princess behaved with them. Giletus promised to call his wife to account for her behavior. During a feast with many guests, the Prince described the adventures experienced in his war travels and then he came to speak about a heartless woman, who cruelly tormented her subjects, blaming her for every kind of bad actions, like those ascribed to Rosalie by the peasants. Then he asked his guests which punishment such an awful hussy would deserve. “Death!” was the unisonous answer. So the Prince turned to his spouse and asked her how such a woman would deserve to be punished. Without batting an eyelid, she said: “I would tie her to a crossbeam and hang in a deep well, where she should wretchedly die of hunger.” Then Giletus got up and told: “Ah! You've just pronounced your own verdict!”

The cruel Lady was tied with a rope and fastened to a wood beam; then she was let down into the black tower, where she would wretchedly die of hunger, hanging from the rope of her punishment. Every quarter of an hour, the guard approached a tower opening and shouted downward: “Hey, there!” And very time a 

terrific howl came from the depth. After eight days the tower became eventually silent. The Lady of the castle found the fate she deserved.

Ever since then, the ghost of the dead Lady fluctuated at midnight shining spectrally around the black tower of Forchtenstein village. The first time the guard, while presenting arms, called a drawled “Hey, there!” toward the tower, the nocturnal spectral being vanished.

The same apparition reoccurred year after year. Much later, when a Lord of Forchtenstein castle got to build on a near mountain the Rosalie Chapel for expiation, the ghost of the cruel Lady of Forchtenstein castle found the eternal peace.

View of Forchtenstein Castle