The castle well of Fels

In the thirteenth century a knight of Fels was at feud with the Templars of Heringen. They watched for the moment of his absence and took the castle by night, with the help of a traitor within.

The second version tells it from inside. On a dark stormy night the lady of the castle sat by the cradle of her sleeping infant. She heard the rattle of the drawbridge coming down and thought: that is my husband come home. In the forecourt a great din broke out. Clashing arms, foul curses and the dull groaning of falling men, and through it all two cries: treachery, and victory. A flash of lightning lit the scene, and she saw that the deadly enemies of her house were masters of the stronghold.

She took her infant in her arms and fled towards the secret exit. In the courtyard another flash betrayed her to her grim pursuers. Then she commended her soul to God and threw herself with her child into the castle well. The golden cradle in which the child had lain went down with them.

Even the brutal victors were checked by such courage. They drew the two bodies out of the water again. And to shift the shame of that death onto other shoulders, they seized the castellan who had sold them the castle and threw him into the same well.

The spirit of the castellan became a dragon. Down in the shaft, in a spacious cave hewn entirely out of the rock, he has guarded the gold ever since, the price of his treachery. There the lords of Fels hid their treasures during sieges. Men have tried more than once to get into that cave and never succeeded. The dragon blows out with his breath the light by which one would lighten the darkness, and whoever groped his way into that underground labyrinth would be devoured.

And every year, on the night before Maundy Thursday, the grand master of the Templars appears at midnight on the ruins of the destroyed castle, surrounded by his knights. A Christian in a state of grace can see them dance a merry round there. The second version sets it on Good Friday and has the dragon himself rise from the depths to lead the dance.