Legend? True story?
It was a long time ago. So long ago that this story turned into a beautiful legend about love and fidelity, about revenge on people for the death of a loved one.
A long time ago, in the Elbrus region, at the foot of a beautiful white mountain, which was called Mingi-tau (a mountain consisting of a thousand mountains, this name of the mountain has been preserved to this day), only a few clans lived. At that time there was no mountain climbing involved. Everyone was mainly concerned about getting their daily bread. And, besides, according to ancient legends, on the top of the white mountain there lived evil spirits who could become angry with the disobedient and take cruel revenge on them. People, like their ancestors, were engaged in cattle breeding. They lived a simple, natural life: grazed livestock, cut hay, collected stones to clear the land for building houses and cultivating vegetable gardens. To acquire the necessary things, they rode oxen and horses to the plain, where they exchanged their modest products for fabrics and products made of bronze and iron. So their life flowed monotonously from year to year, from century to century. They lived - they didn’t grieve, they didn’t complain about their health. And who can you complain to, only your family chiropractor.
One day the measured routine was disrupted: people completely different from them arrived from below, from the plain. And they were not talking in some incomprehensible language. They had an interpreter through whom they communicated with local residents. They were able to explain why they climbed so far into the mountains. Their goal was to climb a high white mountain, which they saw towering above all the mountains of the Caucasus. They needed a guide who would take them along the shortest, fastest and safest route. They promised to pay well to anyone who would undertake to do this.
At this time, the local residents had already begun the “balcariad” - that’s what they now call the haymaking season. During the “balcariad” the day feeds the year, and all the men spent their days and nights in the alpine meadows. Naturally, no one wanted to go down and help the visitors fulfill their strange request.
Lovers lived in this village. They couldn't live a day without each other. When the guy went to the hayfield, the girl kept her eyes open, waiting for him to return. But when the guy appeared, the foreigners were the first to meet him and were closer. They started talking to him, and the girl was embarrassed to approach. The aliens persuaded the guy to take them to the top.
The girl met her beloved, kissed and hugged him. He said that the newcomers persuaded him to take them to the snow-white Mingi-tau. For this he will receive a lot of money, they will get married, build their own house and live together.
The girl really didn’t like the first part of the sentence. She began to persuade her sweetheart to refuse this offer and stay with her. Like, she has a bad feeling. But youth is always honest and irreconcilable. The guy explained to her that he had already given his word and received a deposit.
- How can I refuse the word I gave!? I will be covered in eternal shame in front of foreigners and fellow villagers!
The girl in love could not object to anything. And although there were tears in her eyes and her heart was beating anxiously, she, without saying a word, saw off her dear one on his way.
The group, led by a young guide, walked for a long time. Step by step, day by day they moved upward. We passed alpine meadows, passed lifeless rocks, stepped onto snow, and then onto ice. We spent the night on the road several times. It was getting colder. The air whistled out of his open mouth, his strength diminished every day. But the young man did not notice the difficulties, he thought about the bride, about his new home, about the future wedding.
The group rose to such a height that the entire Caucasus became visible for hundreds of kilometers from sea to sea. The peaks of the two-headed Mingi-tau seemed very close.
At that moment, terrible bad weather broke out: the wind knocked down and carried snow pellets, which painfully cut open areas of the body, visibility dropped to several meters, people began to get lost in the whirlwind of snow. It seemed that the evil spirits of the mountain had called upon all the forces of nature to oppose the daredevils. Foreigners, experienced climbers, knew that when an old woman with a scythe was standing behind her and breathing down her neck, they needed to quickly move away. They gathered in a circle, consulted and decided to go down. They warned the young man about their decision. He answered them:
- I promised to climb to the top of the mountain, and I will do it. Nothing can stop me.
The climbers went down, the young man went up. No one has seen him since then.
The foreigners came down and told the girl in love how and where they parted with her beloved.
In desperation, the girl, dressed in a white homespun dress and light shoes, ran along the path of the climbers. She quickly reached the place where her lover alone went upstairs and here her strength left her. She began to crawl up on all fours, then fell and became quiet.
Since then, climbers to Elbrus have often seen a brunette girl in a long white dress with flowing thick black hair on the snow-ice slopes of the mountain. A ghost wandered along the slopes of Elbrus: at night he appeared in a dream, during the day - in reality. A sign has appeared: the appearance of the Elbrus maiden is not good.
Anyone who saw a beauty appear in a dream was protected by the whole group. Many saw her during the ascent:
- I’m walking, and she beckons me with her hand, calling me to her. As if under hypnosis I walked towards it, not paying attention to the fact that I was leaving the path and moving towards the cracks, the climbers said.
Friends saw strange behavior, intervened in the situation, and returned the hypnotized person to duty. When he told what really happened, everyone was surprised. Many didn't believe it.
Did I see? To be honest, yes, I saw it. But I didn’t tell anyone about this, so that they wouldn’t think that I was really going crazy. I didn’t tell a single person in the group I led from Shelter 11. I was prompted to break my vow of silence by my speech on republican television in August 2011 on the topic “Maiden of Elbrus” and the September publication in Moskovsky Komsomolets of Kotlyarov’s article “Maiden of Elbrus.”
I forgot the year. It was about thirty years ago. I remember that I worked at the Elbrus tourist base. It was autumn, snow had just fallen and covered the mountains with a soft fluffy blanket. During the day the snow melted, but the frosty days did not allow the sun to quickly melt it. It smelled like winter.
At the camp site I had already been working with the group for several days. It was a little cold, especially in the morning. But we still walked through the surrounding gorges of the autumn Elbrus region. And this first snow awakened the sleeping winter instincts, and I really wanted to go skiing. Well, impossible! I talked to the group and advocated for about twenty people. The director of the base, Dahir Sogaev, gave his blessing: “Come on! Just be careful."
We went up to the Mir training base for alpine skiing, or better yet, to the “barrels”. The height is 3700 m. The sun is blinding, the bright, pure, pure white snow adds ultraviolet radiation. In order not to relax, we immediately put glasses on our skis. The snow covered all the unevenness of the ice and the trampled track turned out to be wide and smooth. For beginners this is what you need. We worked out for a couple of hours, had lunch and went back to skiing. We were tired on the first day from the workload, and the lack of oxygen took its toll. Everyone slept very well, despite the unusual conditions.
In the morning after an early breakfast it’s back to skiing. We worked out for a couple of hours and decided to rest. The head of the group approaches me.
- Eduard Aleksandrovich, the weather is getting worse, but we would like to go to Shelter 11.
I looked at the sky, at Donguz, at Elbrus and I saw that, according to local signs, bad weather was coming. But not soon. We have two or three hours.
- Let's get ready quickly. Skis in “barrels”. Lock all rooms.
Ten minutes later the group gathered and we left. No cats needed. Nobody takes a rope on such a simple route, and I didn’t take it. Why carry extra weight? The path is known. A packed path. It's impossible to get lost. Slowly, step by step we rise up. The bad weather seems to be stubbornly getting to us: the wind is getting stronger. We climb to Shelter 11 for about an hour. The elements are also not asleep. The wind has picked up in earnest, blowing snow pellets that painfully cut open areas of the body. Visibility deteriorates. But I remain optimistic. I make sure that no one lags behind, everyone must stick together.
We approach the shelter and crowd into the vestibule. There's already a damn carousel outside the door. I'm afraid it will cover the path, and I will be severely punished for my self-confidence. A couple of minutes of rest and out. Again I go, slowly, first. Both up and down I put the leader at the back, explaining to him what he should do if someone lags behind or feels unwell.
I’m walking along the path, it’s barely visible. Suddenly I fall waist deep. A loud sob of horror rang like a funeral bell for me. “Well, there you go!” The group stands still, with tension, fear and question in their eyes. I get out on my own and calm the group down.
- It's OK. Happens. There are cracks everywhere on the glacier.
I feel it myself: I’ve gone to the left. The rule of the right leg applies, it is stronger. I turn a little to the right and move on. The group is on edge. Although I try to calm them down, I feel that they are tense and scared. I walk about thirty meters and again fall more than waist-deep. Stops at the edge of an ice crack - a backpack, I always walk and ride with a backpack: warm clothes, a snack.
Everyone understands that we are lost. The path is not visible, the storm is raging. They help me get out. I looked down: the crack was widening, it was dark below. I calmly explain: yes, we got lost, but it’s okay, worse things have happened. Everyone behaves courageously. Only one girl asks in a trembling voice: “Eduard Alexandrovich, will we get out?” At another time, such a question would have brought a smile, but not now.
I make changes in the group: “Everyone should walk ten meters behind me. If I fall through and it’s not possible to pull me out, continue moving slowly and carefully, immediately go to the rescuers below.” We’ve been walking for about an hour, I feel the “barrels” close. Suddenly I see in the white silence a man moving in front of me. Every now and then some unsteady, ghostly white figure flashes through the horizontally flying snow. Who is this? I'm going after her. Suddenly, a loud female scream from behind in the group sobers me up. Ten meters behind me, as I instructed, was a thin girl, followed by a large young man - the head of the group. The girl is there, the headman is missing. There is a black hole in the snow; most likely, he fell into an ice crack. The Elbrus Maiden stands next to the crack and looks piercingly at me, seemingly with tension and mockery. I recognized her immediately. The winterer at Shelter 11, Orest Dubinyak, told me about her: a long white dress on a slender, thin body, without a headdress, long black hair fluttering in the wind. On weak legs, having overcome the attack of mystical horror, I go to the hole. "Here you go. This is my first corpse. For several years of a high-level sports career - one fracture away, everyone is alive and well, and here on a simple route... Eh... And all this girl. Damn it." I approach, raise my head, the Elbrus Virgin is not there. Disappeared. I look into this damn hole, and there, on a snow cushion, half a meter from the edge of the crack, our elder stands alive and well and smiles. I have no words. Instant relief, joy fills me. I give him my hand and pull him out. I concentrate once again, remembering the slopes of the mountain. Yes, we went left. Further to the left is the bend of the glacier and, accordingly, there is a zone of cracks that can be deep.
- Well, comrades, let's crawl.
I still remember the situation and smile. We lie down and crawl on our bellies, not on our knees and palms, but on our bellies, pressing our whole body against the hard crust. This way the specific load on the snow is less. I can imagine if someone saw us crawling along the glacier, what would they think. I no longer remember about the Elbrus Maiden. You need to save yourself, and not think about ghosts. We crawled thirty meters. A gust of wind mixed up the clouds, a little relief opened up, and I quickly made up my mind. "Barrels" are very close. There should be no cracks in front and down to the left. We get up and after 10-15 minutes our adventure ends happily. They didn’t skimp on the tea leaves. After hot sweet tea, everyone relaxed and memories of our extreme, successfully ending adventure began to flow: “And I... And you... And we...”. But everything could have been completely different.
So, based on the tragic history that actually happened in distant years and constantly occurring incidents, a true legend was born, which climbers, willy-nilly, had to reckon with.
For about 30 years now, no one has met the Elbrus Maiden. Maybe she was forbidden to appear in the other world in her former life and destroy people, maybe the portal through which she got into our reality disappeared. One way or another, people have not stopped dying, but the reasons are completely different, they fit into the laws of our reality.

Eduard Ionikh
Guide, International class instructor in sports tourism

Legends of the mountains

You can hear so many horror stories from experienced climbers! At night, the Black Mountaineer, the Mountain Maiden and other mysterious characters come to life near the fire. The most amazing thing is that many legends of the Trans-Ili Alatau are not fiction at all! They are based on real facts!

BLACK CLIMBER

Oh, this is perhaps the most famous legend that was born in our mountains. Climbers tell it around the campfire, even on Everest!

Allegedly, the spirit of the Black Mountaineer lives in the gorges of impassable mountains, who takes revenge on people for the fact that at one time he was not saved from a terrible death. The spirit not only instills fear by howling in alarm, but can also cut the rope that insures the life of climbers. But few people know where this legend came from and that it has an author - a Kazakh climber.

It all started almost half a century ago, in post-war times. A group of Almaty teenagers were climbing mountains. There were no organized climbs then, old climbers told us, so young people conquered the peaks themselves, climbing along uncharted paths and often risking their lives. In one such group of teenagers were the today famous climber Alexei Maryashev and Sarym Kuderin (who later became a famous poet).

Teenagers with heavy backpacks filled with provisions had been walking to the top for several days. They settled down for the night on a small, gentle slope of the mountain. The night was terrible, moonless, very dark. The voices of wild animals that went hunting were heard - in those days, wild boars, bears, wolves and snow leopards were found in abundance in our mountains. The guys burned the fire all night and couldn’t sleep a wink out of fear. To cheer up his friends, Sarym picked up the guitar and composed a song about the Black Climber as he went. He heard that somewhere in the Caucasus one climber died - he almost reached the top, there was just a little left... But his leg turned upside down and he fell down. His body hung over a terrible abyss, and no one could get to the dead climber to bury his body, as it should be, to the ground.

In general, Sarym Kuderin’s song turned out to be sad. Even scary. But it became very popular; many climbers sang it around the fire. And the disturbed spirit of the Black Climber did not forgive the teenagers for such liberties. Rumor has it that all the guys who were sitting around the fire that night when the song was born died in the mountains under ridiculous circumstances. The curse of the Black Climber spared only the author of the book that describes the history of the legend, climber Alexei Maryashev.

WHITE OLD MAN

The story of a mysterious old man was told to us by shepherd Asylbek, who grazes a herd on the Asy plateau. Allegedly, a strange ghost is walking through the mountains - an old man two meters tall with a gray beard reaching to his knees. He always has... a chessboard with him. He appears suddenly and disappears just as suddenly. He comes to the shepherds and invites them to play chess. If someone plays with him and gives him tea, then after the old man thanks him and leaves, even more amazing things begin to happen. The flock becomes as if bewitched; not a single wolf will touch the animals. The hospitable shepherd begins to be lucky in everything. The herd is growing and multiplying.

But if you refuse the Old White Man a game, you will face misfortune.

This intriguing legend also did not appear out of nowhere. The white-bearded old man is not a ghost at all. He is a lover of mountains and often joins expeditions. A participant in one of them, Stanislav Potapov, who was lucky enough not only to play chess with the old man, but also to ask about his life, revealed to us the history of the legend.

“We got ready for the next expedition, and a stately old man went with us, his name was Dadon, he was a topographer. It turned out that he is a jack of all trades and knows so much that we nicknamed him a “walking encyclopedia.” But most of all he loved to play chess; he always carried it with him in his backpack. The old man had truly fabulous strength, both physical and spiritual, says Stanislav Potapov. “I remember we were climbing the Turgen Gorge by car. After 40 kilometers, the old man asked to stop the car and unloaded his heavy backpack. And he went on foot. On the way to the top, he managed to go to the observatory and play chess with the old-timers, walk through the shepherds’ camps and play with everyone, and drink tea. Having made a huge detour through the forests and valleys, by nightfall he reached the camp that we had set up on the top of the mountain. The elder moved with great speed, no wonder that the shepherds later said that they saw him in different places at the same time. And so the legend of the White Old Man was born. He truly was a legendary figure.

WHO LIVES IN THE ROYAL HOUSE?

Experienced climbers admit that legends are an integral part of life. This is a kind of initiation into mountaineering. When a newcomer comes to the mountains, they start to scare him with different stories. True, modern youth cannot be frightened by “old” ghosts. But there is a story that makes even the most fearless teenagers tremble - the legend of the royal house, which stands high in the mountains.

They built a house for the nobility, but a terrible misfortune happened there, and since then the house has been empty. Allegedly its walls are cursed, and everyone who crosses the threshold of this house disappears. We heard other versions of the legend from climbers. Allegedly, the royal house is guarded by strange creatures that look like monkeys. They attack those who dare to disturb the peace of the royal walls. People are dying of fear.

“I heard that once a group of climbers found this house and, upon entering it, they saw something so terrible that they died on the spot,” says mountain lover Alexander Nemov. – And even a rescue operation seemed to be organized. Once my friends and I were climbing the mountains, and two rescuers, completely gray-haired, walked towards us. My friend said that it was these guys who allegedly took part in the rescue; they survived after they entered the house, but immediately turned gray from what they saw.

Unfortunately, we were never able to establish exactly when the legend was born and who its author was. But we know why this horror story could have appeared. There are a lot of houses in the mountains where climbers stay. The doors are never closed so that anyone can stay there. But there are cases when houses are stolen and broken.

Of course, this is not done by mountain lovers, but by tipsy youth, untrained teenagers who do not know the basic rules of behavior in the mountains. These are the kind of newcomers that the legend about the royal house is meant to scare away.

MOUNTAIN MAIDEN

The silhouette of the Mountain Maiden appears on the most difficult passes. If you see her, don’t expect anything good, it’s better to avoid the pass. So says the legend. And there will be more than a dozen people who will claim that they really saw with their own eyes a white silhouette among the dark outlines of the rocks. In the mountains, people become especially superstitious and love to tell creepy stories that they themselves heard around a mountaineering campfire. Allegedly, tourists were walking along the paths, there was a pass ahead, and it was already getting dark. We decided to quickly move and spend the night higher in the mountains. The Mountain Maiden, a light, barely visible ghost of a girl, stood in the way of the walkers. But the tourists dismissed what they saw and thought that it was their imagination. And they boldly stepped onto a difficult section of the road. Since then no one has seen them.

The legend of the Mountain Maiden has very rich historical roots. The white ghost of a girl was mentioned back in the time of Peter I. Then the White Maiden guarded the richest bowels of the earth. Land development was underway, ore mining began actively. The legend said that if the Virgin appears at the place where they are going to drill a well, the earth should not be disturbed. A terrible curse will fall on anyone who does not heed the warning. Since ancient times, miners have told how people who violated the ban died under ridiculous circumstances. Someone was crushed by a falling tree, someone drowned in a shallow river...

Cossacks guarded ore mining enterprises. Rumor has it that they composed the legend to make it easier to guard the underground riches. Together with the Cossacks, the legend ended up in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau. At first it spread among shepherds, who also quickly realized how to practically use this horror story. To prevent the novice shepherd from falling asleep at night and missing his cattle, he was told the legend of the Mountain Maiden at night.

In secret, one instructor told us that he often uses the famous story in his work. When inexperienced walkers are going to the mountains, so as not to take risks, the instructor, before a difficult pass, sits people down to rest and casually talks about Virgo. A particularly impressionable tourist will definitely see something in the multi-colored pattern of the mountains. And the group will go around the difficult pass, so as not to take risks.

BEAR TRAIL

When going up the road from Prosveshchenets, don’t go astray! To the left of the main road, in the thickets of bushes, there is a narrow path, which is called the bear path. Walking on it is dangerous! At least, this is the legend told to us by another mountain lover, Vladimir Komarov.

– In the last century, bears lived in this place. There was a lot of food for them here, and the people did not crowd the animals then. But one day the hunters came across this path. They saw a bear eating raspberries, and a little bear cub was sitting next to her. The hunters killed the mother and took the clubfooted cub with them. Since then, the spirit of the mother bear has been wandering along the path, looking for the cub and those who took her cub. Therefore, accidents can await those who dare to follow a bear's path. And it’s better not to tempt fate.

SHADOWS OF KILLED MONKS

In the Kyzyl-Zharsky gorge, whose name translates as “red cliff,” among the evergreen fir trees there is a grave cross in memory of the monks Seraphim and Theognostus who died as martyrs here. This terrible story happened in 1921. The blood of martyrs was shed in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau. This is how the legend arose about the shadows of murdered monks roaming the mountains.

It is reliably known that in 1909 the monk Seraphim was called to serve in the city of Verny. But the bustle of the city weighed heavily on the monk, and in his free time from service he retired to the mountain tract of Medeu, where he built a monastery on the Mokhnataya hill. Afterwards the monk Theognostus joined Seraphim. This fact is described in the book "The Cross on the Red Cliff."

It is also known from historical sources that the monks dug an underground church in the Medeu tract. According to one of the nuns, who left written memories, there were about 20 steps leading down, and everything inside was lined with wood. There were three separate rooms in the dungeon, icons hung everywhere. Many people came to the underground church; those who could not fit inside prayed on the surface.

After the unrest in the city monasteries, some monks went to the mountains. There was not enough space for everyone in the underground church, and they began to look for a convenient gorge for the construction of a solid monastery. The monks liked the Aksai Gorge - quiet and amazingly beautiful. Soon the monks set up cells and dug caves for prayer. According to legend, one of the monks had a prophetic dream before the terrible massacre. The killers came at night, they found the monks in prayer and did not hesitate to kill them with a shot in the back. So the monks froze with rosary in hand, kneeling. But since their bodies were never properly buried, there is no peace for them, and the souls of the monks wander around the hill, frightening travelers.

MIRACLE TREE

In a sunny clearing not far from the main path that leads to Kok-Zhailau, there is a pine tree. But not simple. There are two green crowns on one trunk. One is ordinary, stretching towards the sun, and the other is lower, with an incomprehensible, very thick structure. It is difficult to determine what species this second “top of the head” belongs to. It grows like the famous burning bush. The roots of the tree are hanging right in the air! And this is not a dried-up miracle, but a completely blooming tree. How it gets nutrients and moisture is anyone's guess...

There are different and even contradictory legends around this unique tree. We heard from some climbers that it is impossible to stand under a tree, supposedly it brings misfortune. And other mountain lovers, on the contrary, assure that you need to make your most cherished wish while standing under the roots of the miracle tree, and it will definitely come true...

SOURCE OF ETERNAL LIFE

The Chemolgan River flows in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau. It originates high in the mountains. Dozens of springs flow from the glaciers, which merge into one stream and feed the river. According to legend, one of these springs is nothing less than the source of eternal life. By drinking water from this spring, a person will gain immortality and invulnerability.

This legend, unlike others, is several centuries old. According to an old legend, the Dzungarian warrior Chemolgan received a mortal wound in battle. He tried to find the spring, began to climb the mountains with his army, but did not reach it and died.

“The Kazakhs had an amazing tradition of naming rivers after batyrs from the enemy army,” says Stanislav Potapov. - And this is very wise. Thus, people said that there was such an invincible hero, who conquered many tribes and peoples, but bowed his head on this land that did not submit to him...

MONSTER!

Many experienced climbers claim that they have met mysterious creatures more than once in their lives. But everyone calls them differently.

– When you see something incomprehensible, the first thought that comes to mind is: it’s Bigfoot! – says Stanislav Potapov. “I really believe that there can’t be a Bigfoot in our foothills.” But there are other creatures not described by zoologists! I personally saw three creatures that came to drink. It was in a very wild place, where a person rarely sets foot.

Many are skeptical about such stories. But there is one story about an unknown animal, which was told not by teenagers, but by experienced adults. Many of them are difficult to scare with anything. It happened twenty years ago behind the Bortogai reservoir, where there is an arid gorge. In Soviet times, ephedra was harvested here - medicines that had a narcotic effect were obtained from it. Therefore, the place where the ephedra grew was under strict government control. The work was very hard, and therefore criminals were brought here.

They lived in stone dugouts with heavy iron bars on the windows. One of the climbers asked the local workers why they put rods on the windows? And I heard a strange story. It’s as if as soon as autumn comes, a wild animal descends into the gorge at night. And he runs between houses, prowls, scratching at doors. An incomprehensible animal makes a terrible howl.

“I’ve been to this gorge more than once, the place is really very creepy,” says Stanislav Potapov. “Scientists came to investigate this mystery; they thought that the terrible howl was created by the wind that walked between the rocks. But observations did not confirm this hypothesis. According to the prisoners who worked here, the howl of the animal could be heard within a radius of five kilometers, which means that the animal must have very powerful lungs, which means that it itself is of impressive size. When I explored the area, I noticed many rodent holes. And some of the holes were excavated in a strange way - the earth was scattered to the sides and traces of powerful claws were visible. It’s no wonder that the people who told this story changed their faces with fear.

“You can hear a fierce melancholy in the terrible howl, we are sure that this is an intelligent creature,” the prisoners said then.

Today this place is abandoned; work has not been carried out there for a long time. Stanislav Potapov assembles an expedition to search for an unknown creature. He intends to record the eerie howl on tape and solve this mystery.

A fertile topic is ghosts; everyone who “saw” can contribute to an already existing story. The author of the site, Alexandra Mikhailidi, chose the five most common legends

Location: Ireland, Gripmain Castle
According to an old legend, the wealthy Earl of Northmebry had no children, except for one adopted child. When the count died, his entire fortune was supposed to go to this child, but the guardian, the count’s closest relative, did not like the fact that the heir to a substantial estate was some rootless boy.

The boy was taken into the forest, where he died of hunger and cold

He starved the unfortunate man for several days, and then took him to the forest, where he died of hunger and cold. However, the story did not end there: the boy “returned” the very next night after his burial and began to take revenge on his relative for the rest of his life.
At night, many tourists still notice the ghost in the castle, and especially impressionable ones “feel an icy shiver” even in broad daylight.

Place: USA, Pennsylvania.
No one knows exactly when this story happened, but many years ago, a woman named Mary lived in one of the villages. Local residents considered her a witch: young girls disappeared when they visited her shop with medicinal herbs, and Mary herself remained young and attractive. This is how she received the nickname Bloody Mary.

Local residents considered Mary a witch

One day, the daughter of a very influential peasant disappeared: the whole village rushed to search, she was found during a ceremony performed by Mary. Seeing the crowd, the sorceress started to run, but was captured and burned. According to legend, during her execution she cast a spell, and now anyone who says her name three times while looking in the mirror will be brutally killed by her ghost.

Place: France, Brittany
Mention of the ghost Anku is found in folklore. There are several versions of its origin, according to one of them - it is the ghost of a person who died last of the year in a city or village, according to another - the first one buried in a cemetery.

The ghost of Anku foreshadowed imminent death

According to legends, he appears in the guise of a tall, thin man with long silver hair in black clothes. His face consists of only cheekbones and empty eye sockets; he usually wears a black hat with wide brims on his head. He has a scythe over his shoulder and is driving a funeral cart drawn by horses.
Meeting Anka is a bad sign. It foretells the imminent death of the person he met or someone close to him.

Place: Estonia, Haapsalu
Many years ago, in the episcopal castle of Haapsalu, all monks were required to observe a strict chaste rule. According to legend, one of the canons fell in love with a girl, but the lovers could not see each other often, so the girl disguised herself as a singer and secretly made her way into the castle. However, the happiness did not last long: the young “chorister” attracted the attention of the bishop, and the secret was revealed. The girl was walled up alive within the castle walls, and the monk died of starvation in prison.

Seeing the White Lady is a good sign

In August, during the full moon, you can see the shadow of a white lady in the window of the castle tower. Locals believe that this is a good omen that foretells true love. This day is considered a holiday, the culmination of which is the staging of the legend of the White Lady in the open air.

Place: Moscow, “Tea and Coffee” store on Myasnitskaya
According to an old urban legend, at the end of the 19th century, the Kusovnikov couple lived on Myasnitskaya: rich and incredibly stingy. They hid all their savings in a wooden box, left the house and drove around Moscow all night, hiding from thieves. One day the couple felt unwell and stayed at home, and decided to hide the box with money in the fireplace.

The Kusovnikov couple were incredibly stingy

The servant decided to light a fire in the fireplace so that the owners would not get cold: all their savings had burned. Kusovnikova could not withstand such a blow and died instantly, and her husband then tried for a long time to obtain compensation from the authorities, but in vain, and followed his wife.
So, Muscovites can meet Kusovnikov on Myasnitskaya after seven in the evening, but this meeting does not bode well - it portends financial difficulties.

Surely in every city, local residents can remember at least one creepy legend associated with this locality. Many of these legends turn out to be fiction, but there are also quite true stories based on real cases.

The girl who was killed in the library without anyone noticing

Legend:

Libraries, with their unnerving silence and musty, forgotten corners, are often the setting for urban legends. Of course, most of these stories are dark and scary. Have you ever heard the creepy legend about the ghost of a dead woman who allegedly haunted the New York Public Library in the 1980s?

Reality:

Pennsylvania State University student Betsy Aardsma was a beautiful, bright, popular and outgoing girl. On November 28, 1969, Betsy went to the library to find information for a report. Instead, the girl received a fatal stab wound in the chest. The strangest thing is that no one saw when and by whom the crime was committed. Even though there were many students in the library, none of them heard the sounds of fighting.
Betsy was found a few minutes after the incident. At first, no one could understand what happened to her, since there were no traces of blood on her red dress. To this day, the circumstances of Betsy Aardsma's death remain a mystery.

Cause of death – “atomic cowards”

Legend:

There are a lot of urban legends that describe the dangers that seem to be hidden in seemingly innocent jokes and pranks. A potato in the exhaust pipe can cause your car to explode. For such a prank as throwing toilet paper at home, you risk paying with your life. And once a child died from “atomic panties” (approx. a joke, the essence of which is to grab the back of your pants or panties and with a sharp movement pull them up so that they crash between the buttocks)!

Reality:

The latter is not entirely true, since the victim of this stupid joke was not a child. One day, a thirty-four-year-old man, who was intoxicated, quarreled with his fifty-eight-year-old stepfather and decided to make him “atomic underpants.” He pulled his stepfather's underwear over his head, unaware that his prank would end fatally. The elastic band cut into the stepfather's throat, and the man died from suffocation. After the “joker” was arrested, he said that he did not regret what happened. This was a kind of revenge for all those years of abuse that he suffered from his stepfather.

The killer lived secretly in the house of his future victims for several weeks

Legend:

The family begins to notice that something strange is happening in their house: things are disappearing, various objects appear out of nowhere, and creepy steps are heard at night... And then all its members are found dead, and this is where the legend ends.

Reality:

A similar terrible story happened almost a hundred years ago on the small farm Heeterkaifeck, located between the cities of Ingolstadt and Schrobenhausen (Germany). In mid-March 1922, the owner of the farm, Andreas Gruber, began to notice that many strange things were happening on his farm. He constantly found unfamiliar tracks, his keys disappeared, unknown objects mysteriously appeared, and at night someone’s footsteps were heard in the attic. Despite this, the Grubers took no action and continued to go about their daily business.
On the evening of March 31, 1922, Andreas, his wife, daughter, two grandchildren and a maid were brutally murdered with a hoe. Whoever did this was no accidental guest, as the animals were well-fed when the bodies of the Gruber family members were discovered four days after the murders. The identity of the criminal has not yet been established. The suspect in the case was German John McClain, but his guilt was not proven.

Man trapped by faulty furnace

Legend:

There are many stories of unfortunate people caught in the fatal trap of switched on furnaces; they serve as a reminder to children that fire is not to be trifled with. However, this never happened outside of the plot of the cartoon "Merrie Melodies", right?

Reality:

A large industrial furnace broke down at a British kayak factory. One of the workers decided to look inside it to see what the problem was, but did not warn anyone about it. While he was inside the oven, another worker was able to fix the problem. He, unaware that someone might be inside the oven, simply turned it on. The oven door then slammed shut automatically. The trapped worker screamed as loud as he could, but no one heard him. He tried to open the door with a crowbar, but in vain. His body was only discovered when people noticed smoke rising from the oven.

Pig sty of death

Legend:

Horror movie thugs and killers like to tie their victims to a chair and threaten to feed them to pigs. But pigs don't eat people, right?

Reality:

It turns out that pigs eat us, just as we eat them. A Vietnam War veteran from Oregon started raising pigs to help cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. His family called the farm a "life saver," but it's not a good idea to use animals that like to roll around in mud and their own waste as therapy.
In 2012, the veteran went to feed his pigs and was never seen again. It is unclear what exactly happened in the pigsty. Apparently, the pigs ate it entirely, leaving only dentures and scraps of clothing.

A woman who suffered from constant headaches discovered uninvited guests in her brain.

Legend:

According to this urban legend, a man returns from a vacation on some tropical island to find his brain infested with terrible worms. Lesson: Never leave home without a hat. Or don't leave the house at all.

Reality:

Never let your ex cook dinner for you.

Legend:

After the release of the movie “Fatal Attraction,” a whole generation of guys appeared who took revenge on their exes in a very strange and cruel way: they killed their pet rabbits and prepared dinner from them, which they then treated to their ex-girlfriends, who did not suspect anything.

Reality:

After Ryan's girlfriend Eddie Watenpaugh of Palo Sedro, California, broke up with him, the young man took her Pomeranian and left the house, saying the dog was lost. A month later, they got back together, and Ryan, as a sign of reconciliation, arranged a romantic dinner for his beloved, after which he told where the Pomeranian actually went. As proof, the next day he sent the girl the severed paws of her beloved pet.

SMS from under the bed

Legend:

A teenage girl becomes terribly scared when she starts receiving threats and strange phone calls. However, she manages to convince herself that there is nothing to worry about. As usually happens, her teenage intuition fails her, and the one who scares her is much closer than she thinks...

Reality:

In July 2014, a sixteen-year-old girl from Chester, England, began receiving strange messages from eighteen-year-old Kyle Ravenscroft. He wrote that he was watching her every minute. The girl did not take his words seriously. One night at midnight, Kyle sent her a text saying, “I’m at your house.”
The girl thought it was a joke and did not call the police. That night she slept in her mother's bed. In the morning, when the girl returned to her room, she noticed that the shoe boxes that were neatly lying next to her bed were scattered and dented. She looked under the bed and found Kyle underneath it. Fortunately, he didn’t do anything bad to her, but now every time she goes to bed, she looks under her bed with a flashlight.

Faceless Charlie

Legend:

If you grew up in Pittsburgh, you've probably heard the story of the Green Man (or Faceless Charlie) who wanders the dark alleys and lonely country roads at night, scaring belated passers-by and drivers.

Reality:

Faceless Charlie really existed. His name was Raymond Robinson. His face was horribly disfigured. The fact is that in the summer of 1919, at the request of friends, he climbed a high-voltage pole behind a bird's nest. He accidentally touched the wires and was electrocuted. The boy survived, but suffered serious burns to his face and left arm.
After this incident, Raymond distanced himself from people, because his disfigured appearance frightened both children and adults. He left the house only at night.

09.09.2016 17:30

According to traditional ideas about the nature of ghosts, it is generally accepted that ghosts are the souls of people who have not found peace. The reasons for this can be different: violent death, unfinished business on earth, storage of human remains in the wrong place - in general, events that force a person to worry even after death.

Here we will look at several ancient legends about restless souls left to wander the earth.

Legend of the ghost of an Athens villa

Stories about haunted houses have always been popular.
a popular topic for people to talk about. One of the first mentions of a haunted house was made back in the 1st century. BC This legend came to us from Ancient Greece.

At that time, there were rumors that a sad ghost began to appear in one of the Athenian villas. According to legend, every night a ghost wandered alone through the villa and rattled the prison shackles and chains. No one could live in this villa - the residents did not stay long, because fear forced them to leave this place. And one of the temporary residents even died, unable to bear the horror.

The owner of the villa was confused. He did not know what to do with this unhappy and terrible house, and was ready to rent it out to anyone for any price. In the end, this villa became interested in a philosopher named Athenodorus, and he agreed to rent a home. The story about the ghost did not frighten him - on the contrary, it aroused his interest.

On the very first evening after moving, Athenodorus happened to see a ghost. He was working in one of the rooms when he heard the grinding of rusty chains. The door opened and the ghost of a gray-haired old man entered the room. However, the philosopher pretended not to notice him and continued to do his work. Then the ghost came straight to him, gesticulating desperately, trying to persuade the philosopher to follow him. However, Athenodorus did not react to the behavior of the ghost, and the ghost walked away.

Athenodorus followed and saw that the ghost had disappeared in the middle of the courtyard. The next day the philosopher brought the magistrate and workers to this place.

People dug up the indicated place and discovered a terrible discovery in the ground - a human skeleton, chained. The remains were properly buried in the cemetery, after which the ghost of the old man no longer disturbed anyone.

Tom Colley's Story

This creepy ghost story happened in 1751 in England.near the town of Tring.

An elderly couple was suspected of witchcraft, and one day a crowd of people attacked the unfortunate old people, inflicting cruel reprisals on them. The couple was beaten and drowned in the river.

The initiator of this barbaric crime was a man named Tom Colley. The man was captured and convicted - the criminal was sentenced to death. Tom Colley was hanged, and after his execution his body was left dangling from a tree, enclosed in an iron cage - this should have served as a lesson for others.

At all times, people believed that if the body is not buried, then the human soul will remain restless. In addition, it is believed that souls remain to wander the earth in cases where a person died a sudden or violent death. Therefore, after the execution of Tom Colley, people were seriously frightened by the thought that the restless soul of the villain would remain on earth to take revenge on his offenders.

For this reason, the gallows were installed at a crossroads. In those days, this was done whenever they feared evil deeds on the part of the villain’s soul - it was believed that a ghost that found itself at a crossroads would not be able to find the right path that would lead it to the offenders.

Legend has it that the soul of Tom Colley actually remained at this crossroads, and his ghost appears there to this day. Previously, the restless soul of the criminal wandered at the place of execution in human form, but now, according to an old legend, it began to come in the form of a large black dog.

The Story of the Ghost of the Pirate Kidd

This ghost story took place in the early 18th century.

In 1701, the famous pirate Captain Kidd was sentenced to death by hanging. After the execution, his body was not buried, but was left hanging on the gallows, which was supposed to serve as a terrible lesson for other pirates so that they would be discouraged from engaging in atrocities.

According to an old legend, Captain Kidd accumulated a lot of treasure during his lifetime. He hid the chest with the loot well, and killed everyone who helped him in this. Thus, the pirate put protection on his treasure - the souls of people who died near the chest had to remain restless in order to protect the treasure.

They say that many years later, treasure hunters finally managed to find the place where Captain Kidd hid his jewelry. Whether this is true or not, the treasure hunters still failed to seize the loot. Before they had time to get the chest out of the hole, the treasure immediately fell into the ground, and the angry ghost of Captain Kidd jumped out of the hole. The frightened treasure hunters ran away, and the pirate's treasure remained in the ground.

Recurring Battle of Tennessee (USA)

The targets of ghost legends are often places where large numbers of people have died. Places of battles, major disasters, natural disasters - all these are places where a huge number of people had to face violent and unexpected death. These places are said to experience a lot of paranormal activity.

One such place is the battlefield of Shiloh, in the US state of Tennessee. During the Civil War, one of the largest battles took place here. The battle took place in April 1862 and lasted two days, as a result of which more than 24,000 people died.

A few months after the battle, this place became notorious. Stories about ghosts began to spread among local residents - they said that strange sounds were coming from this place.

As time passed, these rumors did not go away. It is said that on the battlefield of Shiloh a ghostly scene is still periodically played out, replicating the battle that took place many years ago, which is accompanied by the eerie sounds of war: the volleys of guns, the ringing of crossing bayonets and sabers, the cries of soldiers and the groans of the dying. Have the souls of the people who died here found no peace, and now the battle of a bygone civil war will last forever?

The article was prepared for "100 Worlds" by Anastasia Cherkasova