Today we return to the gates to Hell to discuss Houska Castle. But before that we discuss a Pennsylvania Grave Robber, how NHS has exorcists on call, and troubling signs that Leviathan is awakening.

THE NEWS:

-Pennsylvania Grave Robber

-NHS On-Call Exorcist

-Leviathon Awakes!

TRANSCRIPT:

Sheryl: Hello, Probably Cursed listeners. Today we bring you back to the gates of hell to discuss Houska Castle. But before that, we discuss a Pennsylvanian grave robber. How the NHS has on-call exorcists, and the troubling signs that Leviathan is awakening. I’m your Probably Cursed host, Sheryl.

Chris: And I’m your Probably Cursed host, Chris.

Sheryl: Words seemed hard today, I don’t know why.

Chris: As we do with every episode, we calibrate our Lord Carnarvon Curse-O-Meter, our incredible technological invention that tells us the cursedness of all things. In order to calibrate it, we preload it with three articles from recent news stories to have it tell us the cursedness of these stories and therefore be properly calibrated for the main topic. Sheryl will give it the first news story now.

Sheryl: So this article is titled, 100 Skulls in Mummified Body Parts Found in a Pennsylvanian Grave Robbery Case. This is from January 9th by Mark Skolforo for the Associated Press. After a month’s long investigation into break-ins at the Mount Moriah Sanitary, where at least 26 mausoleums and vaults were forced open since early November, police have finally arrested a suspect. The break-ins targeted sealed vaults and mausoleums containing older burials, and they had been smashed open to reach the remains inside.

Chris: That was a crime spree. Uh-huh. On the dead.

Sheryl: I have a story for you when this is done about my own encounter with grave robbing.

Chris: Back when you robbed graves for college tuition money?

Sheryl: After investigators spotted bones and skulls visible in the backseat of a car near the cemetery, they realized the car was in the area repeatedly during the period the robberies occurred.

Chris: I like how they just had them scattered all over the backseat, clearly visible from the street.

Sheryl: Yeah, like, aren’t you worried driving around with skulls in the back of your car?

Chris: I guess like after, what did it say here, 26 mausoleums he had robbed? He was just probably getting lazy.

Sheryl: Yeah, cocky maybe. The car belonged to Jonathan Christ Gerlach, 34, who was arrested returning to his car carrying a crowbar, a burlap sack, and the mummified remains of two small children, three skulls, and various other bones.

Chris: You know how they say the name that your parents give you can sort of dictate how the rest of your life goes? It did not go that way for Christ.

Sheryl: But how do you know he wasn’t trying to bring those children back from the dead?

Chris: Oh yeah, I don’t know. I think flashback to our St. Nicholas episode. Only he can bring children back from the dead.

Sheryl: Not true. Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead. What was he, a child? No, but doesn’t have to be a child.

Chris: He only did it at the one time. That we know of. I guess so. He could have been bringing people back from the dead all over. Like he probably practiced before he did it for…

Sheryl: For the first time, 100% or for the Lazarus time. Gerlach admitted to taking 30 sets of human remains and showed officers the graves they were taken from. But when investigators later searched Gerlach’s home and storage unit, they found more than 100 human skulls, long bones, mummified hands, feet, two decomposing torsos, and other skeletal remains.

Chris: I just had the tune to the 12 days of Christmas playing in my head.

Sheryl: Oh, sorry about that. It’s my fault.

Chris: Two decomposing torsos and other skeletal items.

Sheryl: Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said they were in various states. Some of them were hanging, as it were, and some were pieced together. Some were just skulls on a shelf. I guess like a collection. Yep. Most were in the basement, and jewelry was also recovered, believed to have been linked to the graves. In one case, a pacemaker was still attached to…

Chris: This is how it was written in the article. I don’t know what they’re attached to. I always thought it was the heart. Maybe he’s got the heart. It wouldn’t be glued to a rib cage, would it?

Sheryl: Might be. Yeah, I don’t know enough about pacemakers, but…

Chris: Yeah. If any of you listening have a pacemaker, please comment on what it’s currently attached to. Yes, that’s correct. We want firsthand sources. None of this chat GPT nonsense.

Sheryl: That’s right. Given the enormity of what we are looking at, and the sheer and utter lack of reasonable explanation, it is difficult to say right now, at this juncture, exactly what took place. That is quite wordy. Rouse is a wordy guy. Yeah. He ends by saying we’re trying to figure it out. You should also try to figure out how to make your sentences more coherent.

Chris: That string of sentences, it just sounds like he got the question, ‘what do you think he was up to?’ and he was like, I have no idea.

Sheryl: Uh-huh. Gerlach is charged with 100 counts of abuse of a corpse and receiving stolen property, along with multiple counts of desecrating a public monument, desecrating a venerated object, desecrating a historical burial place, burglary, trespassing, and theft.

Chris: He’s going to jail for a long, long, long time. Unless he pleads insanity, which, after 10 skulls in your basement, I think you have a good chance of people believing you’re crazy.

Sheryl: It said more than 100 human skulls, so I don’t know. What was he thinking of doing? Anyway, we’ll never know.

Chris: Here, I will quickly show you something. Sure. There’s a photo of the guy.

Sheryl: He may have been on drugs.

Chris: He’s a long-haired white guy with many tattoos up around his neck, and he’s got a nose ring.

Sheryl: He also looks severely underweight.

Chris: That’s true. He wanted to become a skeleton.

Sheryl: Maybe that’s what was happening. Yeah. He was bringing his role models home. Right. Well, Sheryl has given the Curse-O-Meter the first new story. I will input the second titled, NHS Contacted Exorcist After Staff Reported Seeing Ghosts at Norwich Hospital.

Chris: This is from February 2nd by Harry Cockburn for The Independent. According to emails revealed in a Freedom of Information request, the NHS Hospice staff at Priscilla Bacon Lodge reported a string of ghostly encounters and requested help from the Church of England after the incidents unsettled workers in 2023. The Hospice Chaplain contacted the Diocese of Norwich for advice from the Deliverance Team, aka Exorcists, and reported paranormal incidents that had been really upsetting staff.

Sheryl: Speaking of paranormal incidences, you may have heard the jingling there while Chris was talking. That’s just the dog.

Chris: Yeah. But he also groaned at the same time.

Sheryl: Uh-huh. So not ghost, promise.

Chris: He is not from Norwich.

Sheryl: Although he does like when we joke that he needs an exorcism.

Chris: That’s true. The Hospice sits on the old grounds of the former Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital, which operated until 1975, which some suggest explains the spirits haunting the building. A source stated employees had reported repeatedly seeing the figure of a small child in a red dress.

Sheryl: Uh, we should ask your sister if we can borrow one of the nieces and dress them in a red dress and bring them to that hospital. Exactly.

Chris: Yeah. Okay. It’s like we’re taking you to England for a very specific prank. Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust told journalists from the Independent that despite the concerns among staff and the interaction with the deliverance team, a specific exorcism had not eventually taken place. Which is a weird way of phrasing it.

Sheryl: The Church of England does not want to get involved in those shenanigans.

Chris: I guess so. Uh-huh. They don’t want it on the news. Nope. A spokesperson said, Deliverance ministry is a specialist form of pastoral care within the Church of England, rooted in the Church’s commitment to healing, wholeness, and peace for those experiencing distress, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. It is offered in the context of prayer, sacrament, and scripture, and embedded within the wider ministry of healing.

Sheryl: It sounds like they’re just trying to avoid other people calling them for exorcisms.

Chris: Sounds like they’re just trying to make it sound boring, so people stop asking them about it. Yeah, that’s correct. Also in answer to questions from the Independent, the Diocese of Norwich told the Independent, an exorcism was not carried out at the Priscilla Bacon Lodge. Deliverance ministry team were not at the site. Move along. Nothing happening here.

Sheryl: I feel like either an exorcism actually took place and they’re just being like, look, nothing happened. Don’t worry about it. Or nothing did happen and they’re tired of people hounding them and being like, did something happen? Did something happen? And they’re like, enough already.

Chris: Everybody keeps saying there was an exorcism.

Sheryl: Nothing happened. Okay, well, that was our second story. Now I’m going to feed the third and final story for this episode. It’s titled, An unexpected side effect of the last month’s huge winter storm that hit the US, where the claims on Facebook that the stormy weather had been artificially created to hide the leviathan.

Chris: Storm’s pretty big. Leviathan’s pretty big.

Sheryl: For those of you who don’t know, the Leviathan is a fearsome sea monster from the Hebrew Bible, described to be like a dragon or serpent or a multi-headed entity. Traditionally, the monster is interpreted as a metaphor representing chaos and sin.

Chris: Yep, but not in this story. A literal sea monster.

Sheryl: The theory began when some saw a shape that resembled a great sea serpent on a weather map, believing it to be the creature. They claim the gargantuan sea monster has been awakened from its long slumber. Inspiring wave of online posts repeating the phrase, the leviathan is waking up near Virginia.

Chris: There are some conclusions that you just got to jump to because they’re so fun.

Sheryl: One post outlining the conspiracy theory states, Have y’all seen the leviathan is waking up theory? They’re saying it’s the reason for the there’s a big snowstorm. Saying the weather is being manipulated to freeze the creature in its tracks. The military are in the area, so they are doing what they have to to keep them safe.

Chris: Can you believe that the US government is attempting to dismantle the Department of Education?

Sheryl: Also, I think it’s funny that the military is being called in. It’s like, yeah, every time it snows in Toronto, they’re like, hey, military is coming in. So I don’t see an issue with this. That’s just what happens when there’s a snowstorm.

They come in, they help out. This isn’t the first time that Facebook users have spotted the leviathan hiding in maps. But the theory has been given a dramatic boost by the ice storm. In recent years, fantastical conspiracy theories have spread through the internet, cross pollinating with strands of mythology, theology, digital folklore, and ironic memes, resulting in increasingly unreal narratives. That’s just what the internet is for.

Chris: That’s true. Alright, we have our three news stories input into the Curse-O-Meter. We are going to get it to calculate the cursedness now. Please stand by. And the results for the first news story about the man who had basically every part of over 100 people in his basement. The Curses people. The Curses people. This guy needs help. Or he just might need to be locked away to help the rest of us.

Sheryl: Yeah, I don’t need, I don’t know why you need that many skulls. If you’re not selling them and you’re just hoarding them in your basement, what is the point?

Chris: Yeah, after like one or two. You’re not, yeah. It’s not like Pokemon. There’s not a hundred different kinds of people.

Sheryl: What if he turns out to be an interior designer for like a spookiest house in America or something, and he’s trying to cover his walls and skulls.

Chris: Oh, maybe. Oh, like, what was that meme that got really popular about the kitchen backsplash that was just bones and skulls on the wall? He thought, I could make this for real. Real bones are not kitchen safe people. They do not make for good decor. And the Curse-O-Meter results for the second story about the hospice in Norwich having to call in the exorcists to deal with their little girl ghost. The Curse-O-Meter says Probably Cursed.

Sheryl: Yeah, having a hospice that’s got people that are passing away and then compounding that with a old hospital that had sick children in it that died, maybe just isn’t the right combination of what you want.

Chris: It doesn’t really say what the children were doing, the ghost children. Were they jumping out of closets and then disappearing or bothering the patients?

Sheryl: I mean, they’re probably just hanging out doing ghost things.

Chris: Yeah, whatever we would have done as kids. And the results for the third news story about Leviathan potentially waking up off the American coast. The Curse-O-Meter says… The curses people. The news article that I will link to in our show notes, kind of, they took pictures from Google Earth, which shows the geological formations in the ocean. So they’re just looking at the shape of rocks and the topology under the ocean and calling it a sea monster.

Sheryl: I’m going to argue that the curses actually AI bots.

Chris: Oh, you think this was driven by AI? Do you think AI saw a sea monster in there and is trying to warn everyone?

Sheryl: I don’t think it saw a sea monster necessarily because I more think that the people that are making it a bigger news story than it used to be. I bet you it was like two or three people who were like, yeah, I think I see a sea monster. And then AI was like, yes, people are seeing a sea monster.

Chris: The robots are goosing it up. I think you’ve added a new category to the Curse-O-Meter, the real curses robots.

Sheryl: Yes, the real curses robots.

Chris: Well, that has completed the calibration phase. Before we get to the main topic and before we head over to the Probably Cursed Museum for today’s artifact, there is something I’d like to bring up. So it seems that A24, the movie studio that’s brought us so many amazing horror movies, is coming out with a new movie that parallels quite nicely with our work here on Probably Cursed.

Sheryl: Excellent. Free passes, please.

Chris: Yes, we would gladly do a partnership with you. Promotional. The film is called Undertone and the main characters produce a paranormal podcast and it looks like in some point in the plot, they download some strange MP3s. They go exploring into things that man was not meant to know and paranormal mayhem ensues.

Sheryl: We haven’t really delved into anything yet that man isn’t supposed to know, so we’re good.

Chris: We’re digging though. Yeah, we are. We’ll find it. This movie is made by fellow Canadians, so if you’re taking part in the whole by Canadian movement, this movie is the right one for you. It’s getting fully released to theaters this month, but made its debut last July at the Fantasia Film Fest, winning the Gold Audience Award. So it already sounds pretty great.

Sheryl: Nice. That’s exciting.

Chris: When I was looking for new stories, this came up and I’m like, ah, this is us.

Sheryl: Uh-huh. Ah, nice. Sounds like a future date night. It does.

Chris: Alright, so we will now head over to the Probably Cursed Museum and gift shop for the release of today’s artifact.

Sheryl: So we’re shaking things up a little bit with our Probably Cursed Museum and gift shop. Originally Chris and I were releasing one item per month, but we’re kind of running out of room in our den for new objects. Yep. And so we’ve decided to release the items as we find them.

Chris: We don’t have the abandoned church we want to eventually use for our future museum. Not yet. So space is at a premium in our haunted storage.

Sheryl: This means that the numbers that we quote on the podcast going forward probably gonna be out of order. And it also means if you pop down to Probably Cursed.etzy .com, you might find items that we haven’t even talked about on the show yet. Yep.

Chris: In fact, you will. Yes. We’ve been busy beavers uploading things. Yes.

Sheryl: And as a bonus, if you head to our shop on March 13th, we’re having another Friday the 13th sale.

Chris: It’s true. And we already see some of you have items in your baskets.

Sheryl: You guys better hurry up. That’s scrying mirror. It’s in three people’s baskets.

Chris: You can scry if you want to, but only if you buy this mirror.

Sheryl: We also wanted to announce that we made another sale. Artifact number seven, the creepy baby dolls were sold.

Chris: Yep. To a local person. Yeah.

Sheryl: And actually, we made the delivery in person. So if our fans aren’t Edmonton and you buy an item, you might get the opportunity actually meet us. Also, speaking of getting to meet us in person, Chris and I are doing our first market as the Probably Cursed Museum and gift shop on March 27th at the Edmonton Aviation Museum as part of the Cabinet of Curiosities Market. Yep.

Chris: And we will be bringing a cabinet’s worth of curiosities with us.

Sheryl: Including the stuff that’s on the Probably Cursed Etsy shop right now. So if there’s anything that you saw there that you’re like, oh, you know what? I’d like to see it in person. Welcome to stop by.

Chris: Come and check us out. Or if you see something on our shop that you desperately want, you should get it now because it’ll probably sell at this market.

Sheryl: Yeah, we’re lowering the cost of the items when they come to the market partially because we don’t have to worry about all the extra fees that Etsy charges. But also because we want to encourage people to buy stuff so we don’t have to ship it all home again. Yep. So if there’s something that you wanted, it could go.

Chris: Or it will go. And you will be filled with regret for the rest of your day.

Sheryl: Chris is manifesting it.

Chris: It’s true. I’m a you sitting there. Yes, you. If you think I’m talking to I am. I am imagining you wailing and gnashing your teeth full of despair in the gutter as it rains on you. Yep. Because you did not get that thing that you wanted from our shop.

Sheryl: Anyway, onto today’s item. This is artifact number 38, the horse and wagon. We found this item on a trip out of town and I knew it needed to come home with us. It is a ceramic Clydesdale and it’s hooked up to a wooden cart with plastic wheels. Google tells me this type of ceramic horse was popular during the 1970s and 1980s. But it can’t give an accurate date. It also points out that it was likely made in Hong Kong. Now it seems pretty fitting because February was Lunar New Year and this year is the year of the horse.

Chris: Nice, nice touch there what you did. Ah. Releasing it.

Sheryl: Yeah, I mean I got I got I’m on a dragon boat team. Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year are important to the people that I impractice that. Yeah, you’re in the know.

Yep. The horse and wagon is probably one of our least creepy items in the Probably Cursed Museum and gift shop. It appears it was played with at some point because the bridle and the hitch are made out of leather and appear to be quite brittle and it looks like the bridle snapped in a couple places. Because of this damage, the horse’s blinders are not on its face revealing that the horse has no eyes. He’s got no eyes. Yeah, they didn’t paint them on because I guess they were expecting them to be covered. But now that it’s busted, it just is an eyeless horse.

Chris: They put blinders on a blind horse.

Sheryl: Yeah, rude. It’s just not to scare the children that it’s a psychic horse that’s pulling the cart without seeing anything.

Chris: It knows what you’re doing. It knows what you’re thinking.

Sheryl: There’s also a small chip out of the horse’s ear and one foot is lifted up to reveal a horseshoe on that foot. The other thing that’s a bit weird about the horse is that it is dark brown with four white boots. And apparently there is a superstition from Devon in the UK, not Devon Alberta.

Although maybe Devon Alberta has it, we don’t know. That a horse with four white boots is considered bad luck, which makes it a weird choice for a horse ornament. So the poem itself was from the 1800s and it says, If you have a horse with four white legs, keep him not a day. If you have a horse with three white legs, send him far away. If you have a horse with two white legs, send him to a friend, which rude. If you have a horse with one white leg, keep him to his end.

Chris: I wonder if this is the sort of knowledge you get from experience. Maybe.

Sheryl: I have no idea, but I feel like it’s very weird that it’s relegated to one corner or one area in the UK, and not all of the UK believes in the white horse in the white leg horse theory.

Chris: Maybe it was the neighbouring communities. Spread that as a rumour so they could get some horses cheaper than others. Maybe. I like that one with four boots. Let’s just tell him it’s bad luck and he’s got to get rid of it. And he can get it on a steal of a deal.

Sheryl: Apparently when I was looking online, it’s something that actually Napoleon Bonaparte believed. Really?

Chris: Yeah. Was he from Devon?

Sheryl: I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think he must have just, maybe it started someplace else and made its way to Devon, but the poem was from Devon. He must have passed through Devon. Either way, maybe you’re a horse on the Chinese zodiac, or maybe you love horses. Or maybe you just want someone to have a bit of bad luck and feel like sending them a horse with four white legs.

Whenever you’re read isn’t for wanting this item, this horse is for you. You can go check it out on the Probably Cursed Etsy shop at ProbablyCursed.Etsy.com.

Chris: Sale of each of our items helps go to fund this podcast and help us towards our future dream of owning an actual factual real world, Probably Cursed Museum, preferably in an old abandoned church.

Sheryl: Mm-hmm. If you happen to have an old abandoned church that you just kind of want to give to someone, we’re also accepting that. You can send us an email. We’ll be appreciative.

Chris: I do have to insert a bit of a downer here. We were looking into how the whole tariff thing works in the States. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to sell to our American friends artifacts. In order to be tariffed properly, they have to be tariffed on the country of origin, which these are things from like all over the place.

Like we don’t know where they’re originally from, a lot of them. Unfortunately, there’s just no way we can send them to you and have them priced properly. Mm-hmm. But yeah, until further notice, I’m gonna have to say that we cannot sell our items to American customers. At least our artifacts. We do have artwork on the website, which artwork is available to be sold elsewhere because we can claim that’s from Canada where we are making it.

Sheryl: Mm-hmm. And if you’re looking at the shop and you’re confused as to whether or not there’s tariffs, you can always reach out message our shop on the Etsy website.

Chris: Alternatively, drive to the border and then find the first post office and we’ll arrange with you for it to be sent there. Yeah, that’s correct. That wraps up the Probably Cursed Museum and gift shop segment. One more stop before our main topic. We’re going to our haunted house update.

Sheryl: A few weeks back, I was sick and I came downstairs to make coffee at the coffee maker in the kitchen. And while I was standing near the sink, I could see in the reflection of the window that there was a white mist behind me. I was a bit startled when I noticed it and I saw that it was moving pretty quickly from behind my right shoulder out the kitchen to the left of me. So I quickly turned around to see if there’s anything I could see with just my eyes.

But when I spun around to look, nothing was behind me. The weird thing about it is that Freddy was in the living room and he didn’t even react. Like he didn’t- He didn’t save you from the ghost? No, he did zero things. Man’s worst friend. I know. Our dog is just unfortunately lazy or not brave. I’m not sure.

Chris: Did the mist have a form?

Sheryl: Not really that I could see. And it’s funny because at first my eyes when I saw it, I thought it was actually outside in her yard. Like walking through the yard. Hmm. But then when it got behind where like my head was, it just disappeared and then reappeared on the other side.

Chris: Oh, so it was definitely behind you? I think so, yeah. It was inside the house?

Sheryl: Uh-huh. This is the first time we’ve seen anything like that in the house. So never know. I did see the weird shadow figure running up the stairs at me at one point, but the white mist is different.

Chris: So- Maybe it’s come to do battle with the shadow figure. White versus dark. That’s right. Or light versus dark.

Sheryl: Maybe we’ve got an evil entity in the basement and then the one on this floor is like a good entity.

Chris: Who knows? Your guardian angel is coming. It’s rolling up the sleeves, cracking its knuckles.

Sheryl: Uh-huh. I was on cough syrup that had codeine in it, so for those of you who don’t believe it could have just been a codeine-induced hallucination, but I don’t usually react like that to codeine, so who knows?

Chris: If you’ve taken codeine and have also seen Misty Beings, please comment on our various social medias.

Sheryl: We would love to hear a story about that.

Chris: Maybe you’ve seen the Mist being too and you thought no one would believe you. We believe you.

Sheryl: Uh-huh. And now that’s our haunted house update and it’s time for the main topic.

Chris: We all know that there are certain evils in this world. Some people can only flee these evils. Some can only succeed in helping others avoid the evil. And some, with the means to do so, strive to contain and trap the threat.

And the latter is what I’m talking about today. The Ghostbusters? The Ghostbusters could also. Okay, just joking. The Ghostbusters didn’t have to do it. These people did. That’s fair. In the letters what I’m talking about today, a castle constructed almost 800 years ago to contain an entrance to hell. That castle called Houska Castle.

Sheryl: Why can’t we have a cool castle like that?

Chris: I think we have two Alberta castles, but I don’t think they’re built on a gateway to hell. No. This topic was suggested quite a while ago by friend of the podcast CS McDonald. And I had to wait to make this episode because the themes in this parallel very closely with not only our Stull Cemetery episode, that one with the gateway to hell inside of a cemetery, but also our three-part series on Mel’s Hole, which involve a deep mysterious pit with even more mysterious properties.

Sheryl: So what we’re finding out is Chris likes holes to hell and I like boats. Yep.

Chris: Hell Hole and boat. Yeah. So yeah, a little separation felt appropriate to help keep these topics from blending together in everybody’s minds. My sources for today’s episode are numerous. A book called The Scariest Places in the World has a chapter dedicated to it. Also the website’s Grave Art, Atlas Obscura, Obscurbin Legend, Darktail Blog, Factum Obscure, the official Houska Castle website, and of course Wikipedia.

Sheryl: Well John, in keeping track of that, I am not that organized. I just pull random things from random locations and it makes an episode.

Chris: Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do. But I usually like make a list of like all the sources that I have when I’m ready to read them. And then yeah, whatever ones actually have useful information on I keep those links. There’s a lot of variations of the strange tales surrounding the castle. And I tried to distill it into the most definitive version of the story. My struggle in finding an authoritative version of events could be an intended result of so many legends. If there was a gateway to hell, maybe it’s better to have the facts obfuscated to deter curious people from wandering into it.

But the curious, like myself, are tenacious in their search for the strange and unusual. So, Houska Castle is located about 50 ish kilometers north of Prague. The official story is that it was built as an administrative building. However, the setting of the castle makes it quite a strange construction. It was built in a place with no obvious importance. It’s not a fortified castle. There’s no outer wall or watchtowers. It’s surrounded by wilderness.

And at the time of construction, it was built far away from roads or water sources, making it very hard to keep food and water stocked. It’s a Cold War bunker. This is like way before the Cold War. Doesn’t matter. Could have been another Cold War.

Sheryl: I was going to say, or Nostradamus predicted the future and people were like, whoa, we’re going to need a castle in the middle of nowhere.

Chris: Let’s get this started now. If you look into the dark legends from before the castle was built, they describe an extremely deep, black, perhaps bottomless pit in the limestone cliffs where Houska Castle now stands. And depending on the story you find, the pit either was always there or suddenly appeared one day belching fire and black smoke.

Sheryl: They must have underground mining. Underground mining? Yeah, like the Centralia in the states where there’s like the perpetual coal fire burning underneath.

Chris: Oh, right. Yeah. Coal miners? Uh-huh. Who were smoking on the job?

Sheryl: Yeah. And now everything is on fire.

Chris: Either way, people had a deep feeling the pit was an ungodly and evil thing and the area was shunned by the locals. It’s even been said animals wouldn’t go near it, very much like Mel’s Hole in the USA. And it wasn’t just the feeling of dread around the pit that made it so evil in the minds of the neighboring communities. In the Black of Night, horrible creatures would emerge from the hole, described as bat-winged, half-human, half-animal monstrosities with clawed hands and soulless black eyes. The monstrous creatures would hunt around the area devouring livestock. Sometimes they would also terrorize nearby villages and occasionally drag some villagers back to the pits.

Sheryl: Is the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz? Oh yeah.

Chris: Fly, my prettys.

Chris: And this is what people lived with every day until the mid-1200s when King Ottokar II comes to power. He was a good king and one of the greatest rulers that part of the world had ever seen. He’s uniting territories, improving trade, and he’s fortifying the land, building defensive walls, watchtowers, and of course, castles. And King Ottokar hears of this evil, bottomless pit and decides that will be the new site of a new castle.

Sheryl: He really just wanted to throw things down into the hole like with Mel’s pit episode. We’re gonna get to that. Oh, excellent.

Chris: Now you might be wondering why on earth would you want to build a castle on top of the gates of hell? And I did too, which took me down quite the rabbit hole, and there are whole essays written about this era, describing how kings were making a huge effort to develop the land. It was seen as a demonstration of their power to bring order to the chaos of nature.

Sheryl: It’s just really a wage not to see your relatives. You just go live at the hell castle and then your family doesn’t want to come visit you. They’re like, I don’t want to have to deal with hell.

Chris: It’s true. Or you’re just like, because he’s building so many castles, you just have to be like, oh, I can’t come to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m building a castle on the other side of the country. So with that explanation in mind, what better demonstration of a king’s power than to blockade the gateway to hell?

Sheryl: If he made a flying machine, it would have been more impressive, I think.

Chris: I think Da Vinci had already done that by then. Oh, yeah, fair. I forget. When was it Renaissance? Actually, yeah, this, if he built a flying machine, this would be before Da Vinci, I think.

Chris: King Ottokar was also curious about the gateway to hell, as you and I would be. And he wanted to understand it in an almost scientific way. He was going to experiment with it. And for his experiments, he needed guinea pigs. And the best kind you had in those days were, of course, prisoners.

Sheryl: When you said guinea pigs, I was like real guinea pigs. And I was like, oh no, wait, those are in Peru.

Chris: Yeah, I don’t know what you, what scientists had for guinea pigs before they discovered guinea pigs. Sheep. It doesn’t have quite the ring to it. No. You’re going to be my sheep. So he offered those prisoners a deal. Let us lower you into the pit. And when we pull you out, tell us what you saw and you will receive a full pardon. Seems like a good deal.

Sheryl: It depends on how long you plan to be in prison for.

Chris: That’s true. Yeah. If you’re getting released the next day, probably wait. But if you have like a 10 year sentence, you can get that shortened in one afternoon worth of work. Yeah. So he got his willing subjects and most lowered into the blackness of the pit did not return. The few who did return completely lost their senses and were insane. The most recounted story was of a man who after being lowered a generous distance into the hole started screaming either out of agony or terror.

He was hoisted out of the hole in a hurry and his appearance shocked everyone present. The prisoners’ hair had turned white. And not only that, he looked aged at least 30 years older like the years had been stolen from him. He was probably set on fire.

Sheryl: Set on fire? Yeah. Ash in his hair. Oh yeah. His skin’s all melty.

Chris: They did say fire and ash flew out of this hole at some point. Now this being a rare opportunity where someone had actually been removed from the pit alive, he was of course interrogated. They demanded to know what he saw, what happened in the hole, what made him scream. However, the man absolutely refused to speak anything about what happened in the hole. Over time, everyone could tell that not only had this man’s appearance changed, but also his mind. He was deemed completely insane from the experience and some days later, he died.

Sheryl: Well see then that wasn’t worth shortening your sentence.

Chris: Well you know, if these people made good decisions, they wouldn’t be in prison in the first place.

Sheryl: Probably true. I don’t know, back then I feel like you could be put in prison for forgetting to go to church on a Sunday.

Chris: That’s also another mistake that you could have avoided. Not that I go to church. Or have for a very long time. A very long time. It’s not described how long the prisoner experiments went on for, but a king’s a busy guy and he had to get a move on. Heavy stone slabs were placed over the gate to hell. The castle is built over the area with access to the Hell Gate entrance accessible in the lower levels to only a select few. A chapel is built on the space above the Hell Gate and is adorned with bizarre creatures and a mural of Archangel Michael fighting a dragon.

Sheryl: Why not St. George? Maybe St. George isn’t alive yet.

Chris: Perhaps, yeah. Yeah. Michael had a flaming sword, didn’t he? Yup. What better than to fight fire with fire? Despite being capped, the strange phenomena surrounding the Hell Gate did not seem to be contained. Dead birds were being constantly found on the courtyards. On one occasion in the middle of the night a tremendous noise was heard in the lower levels, and when it was investigated it was seen that the giant stone slabs were moved out of place over the hole. At other times, the sound of crying, screaming and cries can be heard coming from the lower levels. Visitors will have their clothing tugged or their feet randomly tripped up. Doors suddenly open and close, mirrors fall off the walls, chairs will move, crockery will smash.

Sheryl: They’re just having a party, a very, very rowdy party.

Chris: It’s true. And speaking of parties, on one occasion a group enjoying drinks on the third floor suddenly had all of their glasses rise off the table and set themselves slowly back down. See, they were drinking. They were cheers- cheers-ing each other. Nice. It’s also presumed that some of the denizens of Hell were left locked outside the pit before it was sealed.

Sheryl: Well, you know, you don’t want to let everyone in.

Chris: A headless horse gushing blood has been frequently spotted near the main gates. One eyewitness account described, There was a sound like a distant galloping, a horse approaching at great speed, perhaps. And we turned to see this massive black shape come hurtling towards us. In a moment and before we could really make out what it was, it was past us. I thought that it was an animal of some kind, a horse maybe, but it seemed to have no head. And then it was gone into the wall and had vanished without a trace.

Sheryl: A poor horse. Even more fitting because we’re selling the horse.

Chris: It’s the year of the horse, people! Headless horses count. Some sometimes see a large black hound that transforms itself into a black-robed and cowled figure. Those brave enough to approach the figure will see it disappear, leaving an overwhelming stink behind it. It’s Freddy. He does do that. He’ll wander up and burp on you.

Sheryl: He hasn’t yet turned into a cloaked figure, but he’s working on it.

Chris: It’s true. I’ve put my jacket on him a couple times. It doesn’t fit. Others have seen long lines of spectral prisoners chained together, each with mortal injuries, and some even carrying their own heads. And one account from a priest describes a half-man, half-frog with very red eyes, squatting on top of the church altar. The frog man would then fade away like a cloud of thick black smoke, thinking of like Mr. Toad from Wind in the Willows.

Sheryl: Oh, I was thinking of Toad from X-Men.

Chris: Oh yeah. I like that reference. A wandering headless monk has also been witnessed, as well as shadow people and most frightening of all, an old woman.

Sheryl: Yeah, that is frightening. I’m getting there.

Chris: I just thought it was funny. Every site where they list off the beings seen around the castle, they describe all these horrible bloody things, and they always also include, oh, and there’s an old woman who’s sometimes crying.

Sheryl: Most people get really uncomfortable when they see people crying, let alone an old woman.

Chris: You think like the frog man would make everyone forget about the old woman? Depends on the time. I suppose so. Maybe frog men were damn a dozen back then.

Sheryl: I was going to say, I mean, how many people live to be old women back in the 1200s? Oh yeah. What would that… they got to be a witch.

Chris: They just had a different definition of old back then.

Sheryl: Yeah, then I definitely qualify as this. Four-year-old woman crying somewhere.

Chris: It’s like, do you have one crow’s foot? Incredibly old. One of the worst monsters of all appearing at the castle, although appearing quite a bit later, were the Nazis. Yep, fair. Their presence at the castle had no officially recorded explanation, but some surmise they were investigating the site as a possible interdimensional portal. Others claim Nazi occult ceremonies were held to use the Hellgate powers for their own ends. Whatever they were up to, later on in the 1960s, three skeletons were found and exhumed from Houska Castle. All Nazis all bore the marks of an execution.

Sheryl: I mean, they were going to kill someone. You may as well throw them down a pit to hell.

Chris: I think they just buried them. Why didn’t they throw them into the bottomless Hellgate? Oh, maybe they were worried they would come back for them. Maybe. And it’s somewhat unrelated, but it’s also interesting to note that the Nazi Heimlich Himmler, who was obsessed with the occult and wanted to use it to advance the whole Aryan supremacy malarkey, had enmasse a giant collection of books on the occult and witchcraft. It was called the Witches Library and was supposed to be all transported to Germany, but never made it due to the Nazis losing the war and the collection was lost. However, that Witches Library was recently discovered in 2016, about 30 miles south of Houska Castle in Prague.

Sheryl: Ah, cool. I hope you can still take books out of that library.

Chris: I hope so too. We’ll have to go. Mm-hmm. We’re going to the library.

Sheryl: Yeah, your mom would be so proud. We went on vacation to a library.

Chris: That’s true. Mm-hmm. But I don’t think the Witches Library is related to Houska Castle. I just thought it was interesting that a treasure trove of occult books were left so close to the gates of Hell.

Sheryl: I mean, if we’re going to store them somewhere, that seems like a logical place.

Chris: After World War II, the castle fell into disuse and was mainly used for storage until the communist government fell in the 90s. At that point, ownership of the castle was returned to the family that owned it pre-war. They restored it and opened it for the public in 1999 where they offered tours. The big selling point of the tour are the dark legends and tales of the gateway to Hell. And if we wanted to go today, admission is about $10 per person. And it’s just a couple hours’ drive north of Prague.

Sheryl: Ah, nice. I would gladly do that. Sounds like a date. Mm-hmm. A very, very expensive date because you have to fly there to start.

Chris: And then we got to rent a car. There’s no easy transportation to get to the castle. Nope, but not. And I thought, what if we just turn it into a road trip where we go from there to Dracula’s Castle? It’s a 13-hour drive between the two. That’s fine. We’ve done worse. That is the story of Houska Castle.

Sheryl: Yeah, nice job. That was a fun story.

Chris: Thank you. We’ll get the Curse-O-Meter to take the legends of Houska Castle and tell us exactly how cursed it is. Activating Curse-O-Meter. Please stand by.

Sheryl: And the Curse-O-Meter says, definitely cursed.

Chris: There’s a frog man and an old lady.

Sheryl: And it turns people into old people and makes them go mad.

Chris: If you needed to suddenly be older, it does have a practical use.

Sheryl: I mean, they didn’t put any children down there. So it would be interesting to see if they went from being children to being 30 years old.

Chris: If you’re in high school and you need to buy beer for your friends, just get dipped in the hole. Come out 30 years older. You can buy all the beer. The problem is you can’t really party with a bunch of 16-year-olds when you look like you’re 40.

Sheryl: Yeah, yeah, maybe make sure that whoever does it is your friend is single.

Chris: But it definitely sounds like a place that would be fun to travel to. Even though it’s definitely cursed. Like, I know you can hold a cup up to a wall to hear conversations in the next room. We can go in the chapel and put a cup on the floor and see if we can hear the scratching and wailing noise of the damned in the lower levels.

That’d be very interesting. Well, that about wraps up today’s episode. Be sure to tune in on the first day of next month for the release of Sheryl’s next episode where she introduces her topic.

Sheryl: If you have a topic that you would like us to cover, feel free to email us at probablycursepodcast.gmail .com.

Chris: Also, remember that we have our Friday the 13th sale happening this month. The next Friday the 13th sale I think is not even till November, so if you want 13% off some of the spookiest objects around anywhere, don’t even bother looking somewhere else, do our shop at probablycursed.etsy.com and get yourself a new artifact for your own cabinet of curiosities.

Sheryl: You can follow us on various social media. We have Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok, YouTube. Anything else, Chris?

Chris: We have a Tumblr, but I’m thinking about not posting on there anymore. This seems to be robots on there now. Yeah, that’s fair. Robots are taking over. They keep commenting on all of our posts about how they need help with money. It’s very annoying. I have to keep deleting those posts.

Sheryl: We also need help with money. That’s why you need to buy stuff from our shop.

Chris: It’s true. Give us the money first and if you have some leftover, give it to the bots. And that wraps up today’s episode. Until next month, stay spooky.

Sheryl: Enjoy Friday the 13th, everyone.

VP: There’ll be food and drink and ghosts and perhaps even a few murders.