There isn't a single ghost story about the Frick Stairs in Bern, there are plenty of them. It is said that for centuries there have been women walking up the stairs murdering their children and terrible funeral processions that shocked viewers.
Between the Matte district and the cathedral hills, Bern's aged wooden Frick Stairs seem like nothing more than another steep corridor of stone steps, worn by centuries of traces. During the day they are ordinary, a shortcut for residents overlooking the Aare river descending to it from Münsterplatz. But when the city falls hushed and the cathedral clock strikes midnight, the stairs reveal their darker heritage.
Where Munsterplatz turns into Herrengasse, at number 1, is the Fricktreppe, a covered wooden staircase connecting the upper city with the Matte district. The stairs with 183 wooden steps date back to the 14th century. Ghostly processions, murdered children and restless spirits are said to haunt these narrow steps, where Bern's sins of cruelty and bloodshed are played out time and time again.
Funeral procession of the maimed
Perhaps the most commonly told ghost stories from this particular staircase involve the Restless Ghost of Hans Franz Nägela, so learn about the legend about him and who he was in life. However, this is certainly not the only ghost said to linger on the stairs, although others remain nameless and largely forgotten. .
One of the most chilling stories tells of a washerwoman returning home at midnight after ironing. As she climbed the steps of the Frick, a hushed funeral procession suddenly surrounded her. A policeman led the way, followed by six pallbearers carrying a black coffin. Behind them came four children with horribly mutilated heads, followed by an endless line of what she described as twisted dwarves and cripples, limping and staggering forward in silence.
The parade of grotesques seemed to go on forever, filling the stairwell with suffocating terror. The washerwoman screamed and fell, and then fell into a fever that consumed her for months. And while there are stories of strange funeral processions that have been seen around Bern, that's for sure
A woman with a severed head
Another story tells of a destitute musician who was walking down the stairs to his apartment at midnight. There he met a newborn woman in peasant clothes, but her head was missing. Instead, she carried him under her arm as the bats swirled and squawked in the bloody place where her head should have been. The terrified musician fled to the inn on Matte and told his story. A story that, according to these sources, was well known to the locals.
They told him that the woman was the spirit of an executed murderess, convicted of infanticide, doomed to wander forever with the souls of her slain children, who took the form of bats. But as the story goes, she apparently wasn't the only woman haunting the steps for murdering children.
A woman in white murdering her child
On other nights, witnesses reported seeing a pale, slim woman in white walking up the stairs with a child by the hand. It is said that both the child and the mother wear dresses that trail behind them. Could this be the same woman who walks up the stairs with her head under her arms? Both stories certainly share the same reason for haunting.
They move in silence, the hems of their long dresses brushing the stone. They disappear through a door in the wall of an aged monastery, but just before they disappear, the woman stops. He turns to the baby, looks at it for a long, terrible moment, and then twists its head until it snaps. At night you hear a scream followed by silence. As terrified spectators rush to the scene, nothing remains.
Some say the woman was a disgraced nobleman's daughter, cursed to forever repeat her unspeakable crime. Can there be two different spirits accused of dishonesty? Or is this the cause of hauntings based on the same terrible tragedy? Perhaps the truth will never be fully known and we can only speculate on stories and rumors.
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The haunting of Frick's steps: death processions in Bern and the ghosts of murderesses
There isn't a single ghost story about the Frick Stairs in Bern, there are plenty of them. It is said that for centuries there have been women walking up the stairs murdering their children and terrible funeral processions that shocked viewers.
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The restless ghost of Hans Franz Nägeli: The Fricktreppe Ghost
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Hörgsland-Móri Haunted Foss á Síðu as a dog
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A sinful monk haunting a former monastery on Junkerngasse
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Daníelspyttur and the boy who drowned and haunts
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Dream about a bridge over the Rhine in Basel and a buried treasure
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https://www.maerchenstiftung.ch/maerchendatenbank/11865/ein-schauerlicher-leichenzug
https://www.maerchenstiftung.ch/maerchendatenbank/11490/ein-leichenzug
P. Keckeis, M. Waibel, Legends of Switzerland. Bern, Zurich 1986.
Hedwig Correvon, Ghost Stories of Bern, Langnau 1919
Image Source: Pixabay.com
