They climbed Elbrus. A small group who decided to conquer one of the most beautiful peaks in the world. The penultimate in the chain was a 28-year-old climber, who had conquered more than one peak. They had already reached the snowfield when the girl suddenly felt an irresistible urge to turn around...

200 meters from her stood a dazzling beauty in a shining white dress. Long hair fluttered slightly in the wind, bare feet and bare arms up to the shoulders seemed to not react in any way to the piercing cold... The girl was overcome by a feeling of incredible, unearthly, stunning happiness “such happiness simply does not exist,” she later recalled. There was, however, a slight feeling of something tricky, but somewhere far away, on the periphery of consciousness, it flashed like a light haze and disappeared, as if it had never happened... Meanwhile, the woman raised her right hand and beckoned her to her.

And she went. She went, like a somnambulist, straight into the abyss. And she stopped only after calling out to her husband, who realized that his half was wandering somewhere clearly in the wrong direction. Waking up from the eclipse on the edge of the abyss, into which her legs had already begun to slide, the climber fell on her back and slowly crawled away from the edge... The moment she woke up, the girl heard her own broken cry at the bottom of the hole.

The climber was immediately expelled from the group and taken down, accompanied by a guy: the one who was dating White Woman, should no longer go to the mountains, the next ascent will result in death for him, says the unwritten law of the mountains.

...An experienced 30-year-old climber was descending from the mountain. A blizzard began, and in the clearing of the snowy swirl he suddenly saw a blond woman in white dress, sitting, hugging her knees, right in the snow. She was young and beautiful, and at the same time old and decrepit, she gave off a feeling of unearthly happiness and at the same time menacing danger... Not for a moment, according to the climber, did he lose control over himself, all the time, analyzing what was happening. True, this analysis, as it turned out, was in itself, and reality in itself. His climbing comrades suddenly saw that he had deviated from the route and went somewhere in a snowstorm... Only after a loud call from the climbers did he wake up and return to the “bosom of the detachment.”

According to researcher Dmitry Gromov, who collected many cases of observation White Woman, their plot does not shine with variety. The woman is clearly acting according to a well-worn pattern: she attracts attention, evokes a state of unearthly bliss, and then lures her into the abyss. The Two-Faced Woman of Speleologists operates according to a similar plan: upon meeting, she turns to the explorer with her young and beautiful face, leads him into some trap and immediately turns old and ugly. Some of her colleagues, however, act more honestly: scary old women took upon themselves the responsibility of leading speleologists out of traps, and young and beautiful maidens, on the contrary, lure them there. So to speak, division of labor...

There are a lot of similar characters in hiking folklore: Black and White climbers, Crying Boy, Calling Old Man... And in the mythology of different nations they are found with suspicious frequency. These are Greek sirens, who with their own voices deprive sailors of a sense of reality and direct their ships to the rocks, and Russian mermaids, luring swimmers to the bottom, and Romanesque vampires who bewitch their victim, and she goes under his fangs with great pleasure...

In my opinion, the most important thing in these descriptions, says Dmitry Vyacheslavovich, is that the phenomenon simultaneously occurs both in reality and, so to speak, in the observer’s head. In reality, apparently, there is a certain object that is the source of the event, but it also feels quite comfortable in the human mind, manipulating it in strict accordance with its script. Which is very significantly different from the description of “ordinary” anomalous phenomena: most descriptions boil down to the fact that someone is observing something, while experiencing some feelings that do not at all dominate the consciousness of the observer... That is, we are talking about some kind of a phenomenon that goes beyond our picture of the world.

However, it fit very organically into the picture of the world of our ancestors. From the point of view of Russian old witches, we live in a certain field that is made of the same “substrate” as the human soul. And many of the phenomena that we observe do not just occur in the material world or in our consciousness, they must be considered as a consequence of some (subjective and objective) complex within the framework of this special field.

We know that in rural areas they are mermen, mermaids, goblins, kikimoras and other evil spirits. City ghosts have no folklore analogues; they are products of an artificial environment created by man himself, and therefore have their own specificity and uniqueness. Some urban myths have served as the basis for many horror films, for example, the ghost called Bloody Mary or the well-known Woman in White, which, according to legends, had their real-life prototypes. Here's a modern urban legend. One night a telephone rang in the apartment of an elderly woman. She picked up the phone and, to her great horror, heard the voice of her late husband, who was groaning in pain. The woman hung up, but the phone immediately rang again. She never managed to close her eyes. The next morning she goes to the cemetery and sees that on her husband’s grave there are some boards and pieces of telephone wires (there was a strong wind the day before). Or this is the story. A young man returns late at night from a party and picks up a young woman in a white dress who is shivering from the cold. He gives her his jacket. In the morning, he remembers that the stranger did not give him his jacket (or maybe he just wants to continue acquaintance), and goes to her house (he remembers the address). But, to his surprise, he learns from the girl’s parents that their daughter died in a car accident several years ago. He goes to the cemetery and finds his jacket on her grave.

Probably, such legends reflected the subconscious fears of city residents of an unknown infernal force. Each city has its own history and its own horrors.
Our city also has its own history and its own urban legends, which are passed on to future generations by word of mouth. They have their own haunted and haunted houses. In the previous issue, in the article “Legends of the City,” I cited the fact that for some reason ghosts love cultural institutions. I remember several years ago there was a legend about the local history museum going around the city. They said that it was restless there at night: from the hall where the mummified corpse of a woman lay, found by archaeologists in one of the uluses and for some reason handed over to the museum, screams, lamentations, threats, and crying were heard. The guards refused to work, and only after the woman was taken back to her homeland and re-buried did the museum become calm. Although who knows, because there are still a lot of things brought from excavations there, they, according to rumors, can also affect the aura of the premises. Another cultural institution has its own, so to speak, stationary ghost. By the way, more than ten years ago I worked for some time in this institution. And one day I stayed up late because I was waiting for a girl who was supposed to come to me on business. Busy reading, I didn’t notice that it was already getting dark, and my girlfriend wasn’t there. Having decided that it was no longer worth waiting, I got ready to go out and saw that the doors were locked from the outside. The watchman, apparently believing that no one was there, locked the doors and went away somewhere. So, I was locked up, alone, in a building where there were ghosts, and many employees claimed to have seen the ghost of a girl in a white national dress. And my girlfriend, apparently, came and stumbled upon the castle. To my great joy, the watchman soon came and was very surprised to find that he had locked someone out. According to stories, the ghost girl used to study in this building in the 60s of the last century and even lived here in the student dormitory. One day, on some holiday, the girls decided to play a joke and pushed the most modest fellow student - after giving her some wine - into the guys’ room, naked or half-naked. History is silent about what happened there, in that room, but then this girl was subjected to general ostracism, and the poor thing, unable to bear the shame, hanged herself. Since then, her ghost has occasionally appeared in the corridors of this building. To some, she smiles - in this case, good luck awaits the person; to others, she appears angry - then, on the contrary, expect something bad. Sometimes employees hear her light steps along the corridor, look out - no one is there.

In general, ghosts often take root in hostels. This is most likely due to the fact that the inhabitants are constantly changing, and therefore the keeper of the house - the brownie - does not take root in such buildings. In addition, young people living away from their parents do not always lead an exemplary life; it also happens that out of unrequited love or other stupidity they commit suicide. There are also such ghosts in university dormitories. I lived in one of them during my first year. There they also saw a girl in a light nightgown who hanged herself in the common washroom, also in the late 60s of the last century. According to legend, she became pregnant without a husband, and her boyfriend refused to marry her... Returning home with a child and without a husband in those years was a great shame. And there was no one nearby to help her... Her ghost was seen at a certain time, usually early in the morning, when most students were still fast asleep and dreaming. In our time, the ghost almost scared to death one senior student, who that day early in the morning was flying somewhere and, in order to be on time for the flight, got up very early. She, trying not to make noise, got dressed and headed to the washroom. A few minutes later her terrible scream was heard from there. They brought her from there almost insane and took a long time to bring her to her senses. But in reality this is what happened. There was only one light on in the washroom; it was a little dark when she entered there and began to wash herself. Suddenly, in the mirror, she saw something white floating in the air behind her. She froze in horror. The ghost stood next to her and also began to wash himself. The girl screamed and lost consciousness. After this incident, only a crowd began to go to the washroom and forced the guys to screw in the light bulbs to make it brighter...
Next to this dormitory there was another one, where I lived already in my senior year. Another girl once hanged herself in the attic of this house. Smart and beautiful, five minutes to graduate. She was not pregnant, and the guy did not leave her; on the contrary, he counted the days when his beloved, having received a diploma, would come to work in his village. But it never happened... She, this girl, the head of the group, smart and beautiful, suddenly, out of nowhere, was accused of theft, and not by anyone, but by her best friends, with whom she lived all five years of study in the same room. They held a trial and even managed to arrange it so that none other than the head of the faculty himself would be present at this trial. Apparently, a leader of this level had nothing to do but walk around the dormitories and personally attend girls’ showdowns - who, when and why took someone’s leggings or something like that. After the trial, she walked for a long time, almost all night, along the corridors of the hostel, and no one came out after her to see how she was doing, no one inquired about her condition. No one took your hand and said: “Never mind, this is all nothing, an everyday matter, they are just jealous of you, and your boyfriend, if he really loves you, will never believe them!” Or some other words that she needed so much that night. She sat for a long time in the common kitchen on another floor, and in the morning she climbed into the attic and hung herself with the belt of her country-style dress.

A lot of time has passed since then, but for some reason I often think about her, maybe because I remember her well, she was a very memorable girl. Sometimes I think about those girls: what did they achieve and how did they live all this time? Are they really not tormented by remorse? By the way, they live and rejoice, some even prosper, have all possible and impossible regalia, titles, have families, children, grateful students... In general, as they say, “they sow the reasonable, the good, the eternal...” And, perhaps, they don’t even remember the incident or pretend not to remember. And this girl, who forever remained twenty-two years old, who did not marry the person she loved, did not give birth to children, did not teach anyone, through their fault, committed suicide, is forever chained to that attic where her young life was once so insultingly and absurdly cut short. Sometimes, who knows, maybe her soul comes down from the attic and walks like an inaudible shadow along the corridors, where she once dreamed of something, loved someone, hoped for something... The head of the department, not yet an old man , died unexpectedly from a heart attack, or simply from a broken heart.

The building, which in my time was the Faculty of History and Philology, was also known as a haunted house. It still stands, gaping with empty windows and frightening late passers-by who, having read various fables and tales (like mine), are in a hurry to quickly pass by this, so to speak, urban tech. In our time, a teenage girl unexpectedly died there from a broken heart, who stayed for two hours in front of the school to replace her mother, who was guarding this building. On this day, I remember, our lectures were canceled. In general, they told different things. One day, students from one group lingered in the building, preparing for some kind of holiday. There was a dim light on the stage of the lecture hall, and the hall itself was dark. Gradually everyone dispersed, the most active remained, three or maybe four people. And then one of the girls, looking into the hall, saw something black, large and swirling crawling towards the stage. And, of course, he screamed in fear. Then everyone rushed out of there and then had difficulty remembering how they ended up on the street. People walked past them, laughing carelessly, and it was not that dark yet, just spring twilight. "What was it?" - they asked each other, but no one could give a clear answer to this question. At the very least, it was something VERY SCARY and irrational, and IT was creeping towards them. The next day, of course, they told the rest of their classmates about this incident that frightened them, but no one attached much importance to their words, in the end they even thought themselves that perhaps it was just their imagination. The bright spring sun was peeping through the windows, the group leaders were doing roll call, waiting for scholarships, and everyone had no time for any horror stories. Although it is strange that until now no one has particularly laid claim to this building, which stands in the very center of the city, to build another shopping center. According to rumors, this place, along with the skeleton of a dilapidated building, seems to have been given to the Museum of Music and Folklore, but, as always, apparently, no funds have been allocated for the construction of this cultural institution.

WHITE LADY is the collective name of one of the most famous ghosts in the world.

As a rule, eyewitnesses describe long-haired women in a white dress, with dark sad eyes and a thin, pointed face. Sometimes they also talk about bloody hands and face.

Unlike most other ghosts, the Czech White Lady has a real prototype: Perchta Rožemberk (life around 1429 - 1476), her letters to her father and brothers are kept in Czech archives to this day, and lifetime portraits of Perchta are kept in South Bohemian castles.

Castle "Rožnberk nad Voltavou", where the ghost of the White Lady appears. 19th century drawing

Her story could have happened to any noble young woman who lived in the Middle Ages: young Perchta was forcibly married to a man much older than herself, the aristocrat Jan Lichtenstein. Jan Perkhta did not like him and kept reproaching him that the dowry was paid in “small portions.” The unfortunate woman was mocked with pleasure by her husband's mother-in-law and sisters. The entire Czech kingdom knew about Liechtenstein’s bad attitude towards his wife. The unfortunate woman endured bullying for 20 years, because the morals of that era did not allow her to leave her despot husband and return to her family, and the church would not give permission for a divorce.

They say that before his death, Count Liechtenstein asked his wife for forgiveness, but she could not forgive him. Then the count cursed his wife with the words: “May you have no peace after death!”
Since then, Perchta has appeared in the former possessions of the Rožmberks: the old castle of Sovinec and the nearby town of Cesky Krumlov. The family lost the protection of the White Lady almost by accident. When one of the Rožemberks, Peter Vok, was still a baby, Perkhta often appeared near his cradle. The nurses were used to this, and were even glad: they knew that the baby was safe. But then a new one was on duty at the cradle, still not knowing anything - having woken up at night and seeing a white female figure bending over the baby, she began to scream in fear, cross herself, and angrily drive away the ghost. And she couldn’t stand it: “Who will take care of him better than me? If you drive me away, then raise him yourself from now on!” - and offendedly walking through the thick wall of the castle, she left it forever. Years later, Peter Vok discovered a treasure at the site of her disappearance. However, even the treasures did not help Peter Vok: he turned out to be the last of the Rožemberks - he did not leave an heir, and the noble medieval family died out.

A portrait of Perkhta with a signature in an unknown language has survived to this day. There is a legend that the White Lady in person will appear to anyone who can decipher the signature and tell where the huge treasure is hidden.

Rolf MEISINGER, Germany

“...Do you hear someone’s cautious tread? And the rustle of a silk dress? Isn't this the ghost of the White Lady?! The world's first White Lady coin was released at the Royal Canadian Mint in early June. This is the famous ghost of the tragically deceased bride from the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. But this is not the most interesting thing!..”

A real medieval castle without its own ghost causes me sincere regret. And neither tapestries darkened by time, nor dusty hunting trophies, nor dimly shimmering knightly armor will change the situation. Well, seriously, it is the thought of the presence under the echoing arches of halls and corridors, in the creaking twilight of stairs and passages, in the musty emptiness of dungeons and dungeons of something mysterious, perhaps even sinister, that gives the family nests of the European nobility a thrilling human imagination charm.

Shhh... Do you hear someone's careful steps? And the rustle of a silk dress? Isn't this the ghost of the White Lady?!

Coin "Ghost Bride"

It can be called the numismatic event of 2014! The world's first White Lady coin was released at the Royal Canadian Mint in early June. Its reverse features a holographic image of a girl in a wedding dress. This is the famous ghost of the tragically deceased bride from the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. But that's not the most interesting part! Thanks to the lenses used in its manufacture, the phantom... “comes to life”! When the coin is tilted, the girl either opens or closes her eyes. It looks creepy, but very impressive!

They say that in the 1930s, in a hotel located in the mountains of Canada's Banff National Park, a young bride died during a wedding ceremony. She stumbled on the stairs. Since then, the ghost of the unfortunate woman has been shown to guests and hotel employees every now and then. A girl in a wedding dress is seen either dancing alone in the corridors of the hotel, or thoughtfully going down the ill-fated steps. True, the hotel administration does its best to deny rumors of visions. By the way, you don’t have to go to Canada to admire Fairmont Banff Springs, which looks like a medieval castle. The moment the phantom on the coin opens its eyes, the mysterious hotel appears beneath it in all its glory.

The Ghost Bride coin opens the Ghosts of Canada series. There will be five coins in total. These coins are presented as postage stamps on the souvenir booklet for the first 25 cents in the series.

Restless souls from the German notgelds

European legends are replete with references to ghosts. And the White Lady plays an important role in them. She was often found where someone's life was unnaturally cut short. Something similar happened at Dreifels Castle in the German town of Berg...

The structure, founded in the 12th century on the tops of three rocks, could be admired at the end of the 20th century. Until a terrible fire happened on March 8, 1994. The castle was badly damaged, and most of it was demolished during restoration work in 2012. It was then that they remembered the ghost of a woman in white, which had terrified the inhabitants of Dreifels for centuries. It seems that it was his fault that the castle burned down several times before. According to eyewitnesses, the ghost was enormous. As shown on one of the town’s notgelds, printed back in 1921.

It should be mentioned that German ghosts do not wear wedding dresses, but funeral attire. In the old days, noble women were buried in white clothes.

An extremely rare image in the world of money on 75 pfennigs is accompanied by the quatrain:

Seeing a ghost in the castle,

Everyone lives in fear and confusion.

Know that someone will die there soon...

This is how it has been done since time immemorial.

All night long the ghost of the White Lady wandered around Drifels, slamming doors and sighing sadly. Knowledgeable people claimed that her baby was stolen from her and sacrificed, walled up in the base of the main tower. Dying, the unfortunate woman cursed the owners of the castle and vowed to visit them after death.

By the way, on the notgeld you can also see the silhouette of the murdered man. The artist depicted him as a ghostly man. Matches our brownie. That is, we can assume that a poltergeist was also playing pranks in the castle chambers...

An equally interesting picture adorns 25 pfennigs of the same series. Where another ghost of Berga is presented - the Headless Horseman.

And the corresponding poem on the boom:

Headless at a crossroads.

From dark night to dark night,

He guards the milestone stone,

It’s impossible to remove the curse from yourself.

Here he fell in battle when he tried

He will take the castle by force,

He remained on the battlefield,

We don't know his name.

Legends involving a beheaded man have been known in Germany for centuries. This creepy character played the role of a kind of omen, appearing to someone who intended to commit a crime. They say, don’t even try to sin, otherwise they will not treat you well! It is interesting that the milestone stone immortalized on the notgeld and mentioned in the poems has survived to this day. It is located at the base of the mountain. On the road leading to Dreifels Castle.

Poor, poor Countess Orlamünde

Today, at least six paper coupons are known, the drawings on which illustrate one or another story about the adventures of the White Lady. All of them were printed in Germany in the 1920s, during a time of severe inflation. Hence their name - notgelds. That is emergency money. This circumstance is unique. For nowhere else in the world were banknotes dedicated to people from the other world issued.

The most famous are the Notgelds of the town of Orlamünde in Thuringia, who tell the most popular of the legends about female ghosts in Germany. The widowed Countess Cunegonde von Orlamünde fell in love with Count Albrecht von Nuremberg, nicknamed the Handsome. Marriage to one of the Hohenzollerns would solve many of her problems. But Albrecht hinted that “two pairs of eyes interfere with this.” The Count had in mind his parents, who would not be very happy with such a daughter-in-law. However, Cunegonde decided that her two children were to blame. Desperate, she killed both of them. When the monstrous crime was revealed, Albrecht the Handsome turned away from Cunegonde forever. And then the Countess cursed the Hohenzollerns, turning into a fatal omen after her death. Since then, she allegedly more than once foreshadowed the death of the offspring of this dynasty of German electors, kings and emperors.

On one of the bonds with a face value of 50 pfennigs, the ghost of the countess is depicted hovering over the outskirts of the family estate of the Frankish Hohenzollerns - Lauenburg Castle.

But several inaccuracies crept into the image of the next notgeld! The inscription on it tells that the ghost of Countess von Orlamünde appeared to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia - (1772-1806) before the famous battle of Saalfeld on October 10, 1806. As you know, he was killed in that battle with the French. But, firstly, eyewitness accounts do not report that the White Lady was the harbinger of the death of the son of the last German emperor. Many saw a strange woman in white, along with others, accompanying Prussian soldiers to the war. Her face was hidden by a veil, from under which sobs could be heard. The prince was the first to notice her and pointed her out to his adjutant. And, secondly, the evening before, the ghost of the White Lady had already visited Louis Ferdinand at his residence. Lieutenant Nostitz (depicted immediately behind Ferdinand on the notgeld) pursued the ghost along with the prince through the corridors of the palace until the phantom disappeared into the wall. “So, this is not a dream! - said the pale Ferdinand. “I really saw her... A white woman!” And, having taken the adjutant’s word to remain silent, he returned to the interrupted party.

Nowadays, the ghost of a White woman is mainly present in the stories of truck drivers and car enthusiasts who spend a lot of time behind the wheel. Almost always in such stories events unfold in the dark. An eerie phantom suddenly throws itself under the wheels or onto the windshield, voices on deserted stretches of roads, or floats like a foggy silhouette in the headlights. At the same time, drivers all over the world are complaining about frightening road mirages!

In the meantime, while ghost hunters and scientists are breaking spears in an irreconcilable dispute about whether paranormal phenomena and phenomena should be considered something real, let's once again admire the ghostly creatures that have firmly settled in the world of money.

Rolf MEISINGER, Germany

Show maximum care for everything that concerns you, because your life and your property are in great danger;
to see a ghost or angel suddenly appearing in heaven - the loss of a close relative or some other misfortune;
a female ghost appears in the sky to your right, and a male one to your left, and both look joyful - a rapid rise from obscurity to glory, but your star will not shine for long, for death will come and take you away;
the ghost of a woman in long robes moves calmly in the skies - you will achieve progress in scientific pursuits and become rich, but nevertheless there will be a tinge of sadness in your life;
the ghost of a living relative - your friends are planning something evil, be careful in concluding business contracts;
the ghost looks exhausted - this person will die soon;
a ghost haunts you - strange, unpleasant events;
runs away from you - there will be little concern;
for young people - be careful in relationships with representatives of the opposite sex.
Also see Clothing.

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