The Dalibor Knight

With construction beginning in the year 870, the Prague Castle Complex of the modern-day Czech Republic has served as a home to kings, emperors, and presidents. But who cares about that? This is a haunted blog post! And for my blog posts I only want to talk about the most interesting pieces of lore associated with different haunted objects and locations, so let’s get into it!

Prague Castle is huge, so huge that it holds the Guiness World Record for “Largest Ancient Castle”. The features found within the complex include: four courtyards, five gardens, a vineyard, a horse training school, greenhouses, fountains, and an entire Cathedral. 

But the most interesting structure found within the castle compound’s walls is the Dalibor Tower, also known as Daliborka Tower. Used as a prison in the 15th Century, the cylindrical stone-walled structure is said to still be haunted by the ghost of its very first prisoner: The Dalibor Knight. 

In the 15th Century, Dalibor of Kozojedy was a young Czech knight who lived in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Unlike wealthier nobles who owned multiple villages or vast agricultural lands, Dalibor’s property was limited in size and historical accounts suggest that he was financially strained. Despite his money troubles, he was well-known for his kindness and strong sense of justice. When oppressed serfs from a neighboring estate rebelled against their cruel lord in 1497, Dalibor offered them shelter and protection within the boundaries of his property. In those days, helping revolting peasants was considered treason, so when word got back to the nobles that Dalibor was harboring rebels, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Dalibor Tower at Prague Castle - so-named because he was its first prisoner. 

While awaiting his trial, Dalibor learned to play the violin. Although he had not yet been found guilty, he was confined to Prague Castle’s tower with no visitors allowed. Some versions of the story suggest that a sympathetic guard secretly gave him the violin, while others say the knight fashioned a rudimentary version of the instrument himself out of scraps of wood and matches found in his dirty cell. However he came to acquire it, he soon learned to play the instrument with proficiency. His music was so hauntingly beautiful that people from all over Prague would gather outside the tower to listen as the notes echoed down the walls of the courtyard below. People were moved by his melodies, which conveyed his sorrow, loneliness, and longing for freedom. 

It is said that his playing was so captivating that people would wait below his tower with food and gifts, which they then tossed up through his cell window in appreciation of his story and his music. Eventually, Dalibor would somehow acquire a sack and piece of rope which he would lower from his window so that spectators could place bread and other wares inside for him. As word spread amongst Bohemia’s peasant population about the unjustly prisoned knight, local folklore sprang up suggesting that his music had magical qualities, capable of soothing troubled hearts and even influencing the weather, causing the heavens above to weep with rain whenever he played. However, his melodies were eventually cut short on the day he was finally found guilty of treason.

In 1498, Dalibor was dragged from his cell and made to kneel at the top step of the old castle stairs, or Staré Zámecké Schody. The executioner raised a gleaming sword above the knight’s head and brought it down with such force that the head was cleanly separated from the knight’s body in one powerful slice, a trail of blood splattering down the steps as the head rolled down the stairs. When the head finally rolled to a stop, its mouth hung agape in a silent scream with its eyes rolled up toward the sky. Witnesses claim that rain soon began to fall and the drops formed like tears rolling down the cheeks of the decapitated head.

At first, the absence of his music was mourned by the townsfolk who had grown so accustomed to hearing the melancholic strains of his makeshift violin each evening, but then, something curious happened: although the Dalibor Knight had been executed and his prison cell stood empty, one evening at midnight the ghostly strains of a creaky violin could be heard coming from The Dalibor Tower. When confused guards opened the door to the tower cell, they could plainly hear the music coming from within the room, although it was empty. 

In 1781, a fire mysteriously broke out, burning down and damaging a portion of Daliborka Tower. Witnesses on scene during the fire claimed to have heard a loud cry, followed by wild violin music and maniacal laughing as the fire raged on. Once the flames were finally extinguished, the interior of the cell was so damaged that it could no longer be used as a prison. Might this have been the work of Dalibor’s ghost? One final act of mercy ensuring no others would ever be confined there again?

Legend has it that on quiet, misty nights, the ghostly sound of the knight’s violin can still be heard echoing from Dalibor Tower, as if his spirit remains trapped there, playing a sorrowful song for the rest of eternity. In some darker versions of the tale, it’s said that the violin was cursed to never break and became entwined with the soul of the knight, ensuring that Dalibor could never move on, forced by some cruel cosmic twist of fate  to occupy his cell even in death. Other versions of the tale say that after the knight's execution, King Vladislaus II of Bohemia ordered that the violin be destroyed, but as punishment for the king’s cruelty, the spirit of the violin - not the knight - remained in the tower, still playing on.

While the Dalibor Knight was a real person, there is no historical record confirming that he actually played the violin while imprisoned in Prague Castle. In fact, violins in their modern form didn’t exist until long after the knight was already dead, leading historians to believe he most likely played a different stringed instrument such as a lute or rebec, but with the passage of time storytellers inserted a modern instrument into the tale to enhance its emotional appeal.

After the knight’s death, the story of his music became a symbol of defiance, freedom, and justice for the mistreated serfs living in the Kingdom of Bohemia and, later, for a more global audience whose modern struggles found resonance in the story. For this reason, the story of the Dalabor Knight’s ghostly stringed harmonies has persisted for over half a millennium.