The burning money of Vianden

By the castle of Vianden, at the place called the Kahlerplütz, money was said to burn every seven years. It began as a small blue flame. It slowly grew larger, and then went out all at once. Whoever was quick enough and came at the right moment could dig up what lay beneath.

A man of Vianden named Pfeifenschneider once actually reached it. He took his rosary from his pocket to throw it into the fire, for that was the way of it: a blessed object into the flame, and the treasure came free. But before he could, the flame was out.

Money was said to burn on the Pitgesfeld too. There three men tried it together. They found the place, they conjured the devil by the rules, and the devil let the money go. They almost had it in their hands.

Then one said: « Courage, friends! » That was all. The treasure sank away and never came back.

This is the shape such stories take everywhere. The treasure is there, the place is known, the act can be done, and yet it fails at the last moment over something small: one word too many, a hesitation, a glance aside. Folk belief demanded complete silence when lifting a treasure.

So the money stays where it is. And so the place stays interesting, because anyone who knows the story knows exactly where to look in seven years. Gredt recorded it around 1880 in Vianden itself; the castle was a ruin then, long before the restoration that made it what stands there now.