Isabella Mueller Baroness of Stainton le Vale
Brunnenmarkt is Vienna’s longest and most affordable street market, located in the 16th district of Ottakring. This district, which was created in 1892 by the incorporation of the suburbs of Ottakring and Neulerchenfeld, is known for its brewery of the same name, the traditional Viennese wine taverns, the lively Yppenplatz with its numerous cafés and restaurants, and the 449-meter-high Wilhelminenberg, on which stands the 31-meter-high Jubliäumswarte with its magnificent panoramic view over Vienna. The legend of the vanished lord of Ottakring Castle is associated with this district. In times long past, some residents of the village of Ottakring witnessed a spooky spectacle that took place on a cold and stormy December night shortly before midnight. A black, four-horse hearse carrying the dead lord of Ottakring, who had recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances, floated through the air. When the church clock struck twelve, the ghostly apparition suddenly came to an end and the funeral procession vanished into thin air. The residents were haunted by this ghostly spectacle and began investigating the disappearance of the lord of the castle. It turned out that the lord of the castle was once a German field colonel who, in 1457, had betrayed the Marienburg Fortress, the largest brick building in Europe, which belonged to the Teutonic Order, to the enemy Poles in exchange for a large sum of gold. He fled to Vienna, where he married a wealthy widow and lived a life of luxury. Everything could have been so wonderful if the people of Marienburg hadn’t tracked down the colonel. They had not forgotten the betrayal, and when they found out that the former colonel was living a life of luxury in Vienna, they wrote a letter to the Vienna City Council. In it, they described in detail the colonel’s shameful betrayal. The explosive contents of the letter soon became public knowledge, with the result that the colonel and his wife were shunned by the Viennese population. The colonel therefore decided to move away from Vienna with his wife and settle in a suburb. This suburb was Ottakring. There, the colonel bought a house, which he had converted into a castle with a garden. He and his wife only left it to attend church on Sundays. His fear of being tracked down again by the Marienburgers was too great. When the colonel and his wife wanted to attend Sunday service again, the unbelievable happened. They were attacked by three men and, to his wife’s horror, the colonel was kidnapped. Despite intensive investigations, the colonel could not be found. Perhaps he was punished for his betrayal. The residents of Ottakring interpreted the spectacle of the funeral procession on that cold December night as a sign that the lord of Ottakring Castle was no longer among the living. Such is the eerily beautiful legend of the vanished lord of Ottakring Castle.
