Prague is steeped in legends and myths. You will encounter ghosts and revelations at every turn
Hundreds of legends are told about Prague, which is why we now invite you for a walk through the mysterious corners of the Lesser Town. We will hope that one of the ghosts or ghosts will emerge from the walls, crowded with stories. There are a lot of them. Watermen, skeletons, devils, headless actress, naughty virgins or midnight, who also lost his head. The Gothic Jokers or Baba Čertovka, which gave its name to the famous Vltava canal.
“The former Rožmberk ditch, today Čertovka, came to its infernal name thanks to one slanderous and vicious Lesser Town gossip,” says Filip Jan Zvolský, author of The Secrets of Prague’s Midnight or Ghosts and Legends of Old Prague. “She was sly and evil as a devil, so the youth of Malá Strana called her nothing but the Devil.”
Baba Čertovka lived in Maltézské náměstí in the 19th century. And she was a thorn in the side of all the young people in Malá Strana. She didn’t like the fact that the young men visited beautiful maidens at night, so she fell for them. And so one of the young men once climbed the old gossip house, drew six devils under her windows, and wrote Under the Seven Devils under them. In the morning there was an uproar in the entire Lesser Town, because everyone immediately thought who the seventh devil was. And because the gossip often went to wash the nearby gutter, people named the gutter after her. Devil.
The goblins appeared in two houses on Maltese Square. One of them lived in the house U Malířů. The mischievous goblins reappeared at the old post office, in house no. They changed the contents of the shipments, confused the addresses, or even rewrote the contents of the love letters.
“The postmen did not know about the goblins for a long time, until a citizen did not know the correct address and wrote only the Town Hall on the envelope. That was something for the goblins! Instead of R, they wrote Z and there was already a fire on the roof. The case was also resolved by the post office, and in the end the post office was canceled, “says Filip Jan Zvolský. The goblins had to move. Where, rumors no longer speak, but they may have settled at your home or work.
If you are not lucky enough to have ghosts and apparitions right in the streets of Prague, you will definitely see the Museum of Prague Legends and Ghosts in Mostecká Street, which is open daily from 10 am to 10 pm. They also organize walks with the ghost behind the ghosts and many other events.