Legends from a small country

Who doesn't know the legend of the water nymph Melusina? According to Luxembourgish folk tales, the mystical creature is said to have fallen madly in love with Count Siegfried, the first lord of Lucilinburhuc Castle on the Bock promontory, whose remains in the form of the casemates are considered a landmark of the Grand Duchy. Legend has it that the siren from the Alzette valley, however, hid her true self from the count and only revealed her tail fin on Saturdays, hidden from the eyes of her husband. Siegfried, however, broke his vow to Melusina never to meet her on that particular day and caught sight of her mythical nature through the keyhole, whereupon the mermaid disappeared into the Alzette and now only appears every seven years in the Bock promontory to knit a stitch in a garment.

Numerous legends and tales like this exist around little Luxembourg, because even within the old walls and deep forests of the country, plenty of hauntings and superstitions accumulated. In the Facebook group Geheimnisvollt Lëtzebuerg (Mysterious Luxembourg), there are more than 5,000 members at the beginning of 2022, who dig the often long-forgotten "Seechen" (Luxembourgish for legends) out of their dusty existence and share them with others. The group was founded by German and history teacher Robert Grof, who had long had an interest in mysterious things. "The background was the ghost story of a white lady that I came across after a trip to the Gehaansbierg in Dudelange", says Grof.

The mysterious lady of the Gehaansbierg

During the summer of 2016, the history lover passed by the old castle ruins on the hill Mont St. Jean during a walk and was fascinated by the many gravestones surrounding it. "I remembered an old book I have at home about sagas. It is considered a standard work for old folk tales: The Sagenschatz des Luxemburger Landes by Nikolaus Gredt. I wondered who had built the castle and if there were similar legends." The legend of the white-clad lady has several versions, one of which says that the ghostly apparition turns up every seven years in May at the Scherr's "Schenkbur" or in front of the chapel to wash herself in the fountain, comb her hair and lament her unhappy love.

Gredt names the ghost woman Elisabeth von Hunolstein, the last girl of the knightly dynasty who lived in the castle on Johannisberg. According to legend, the damsel followed her husband, the French gentleman von Wendel from Reims, to France, where she gave birth to a son. However, as the marriage turned out to be less happy than planned, Elisabeth fled back to Luxembourg, where she lived in solitude and seclusion in her castle and died there. Her death is considered a bad omen for the region, because in the years that followed, poverty and destruction fell upon the inhabitants of Dudelange.