The Houska Castle, located north of Prague, is an enigmatic location with little-known history and innumerable legends. Even though the lake is only at most 70 ft deep, this myth persists. Houska Castle is said to be the gateway to Hell. Harrington, E.R. These features are called cenotes and are not uncommon. According to legend, the castle which stands today was built over the Houska pit, in order to conceal the gateway to Hell. Located north of Prague, the castle sits on a forested hill, perched atop a limestone cliff, and is fabled to be built upon the gateway to Hell. It might not be the largest or the most beautiful castle, and it does not have a large park, but it is a popular destination for many tourists and adventurers. These legendary spots might hold healing waters or a dragon. Houska Castle. While evidence is scant, some say that a Swedish mercenary and practitioner of black magic named Oronto inhabited Houska Castle in the 1600s. The castle was founded by Czech king Pemysl Otakar I in the 13th century. It is said that underneath the castle is a bottomless pit filled with demons. Its a dangerous feature. When the hole gets blocked it may temporarily hold water until the plug comes loose and the hole drains. No luck. No. Michel Meurger wrote about the tradition of lake monsters in Europe and North America. In the 1940s, the Nazis overtook the castle during their occupation of Czechoslovakia, though their reasons for doing so are unclear, as the castle lacked defenses and was 30 miles from Prague. Earthquakes dont open giant cracks miles deep or with lava pools. It had no source of water or fortification. Houska Castle is an early Gothic castle in the municipality of Blatce in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. Czech poet Karel Hynek Macha visited Houska Castle in 1836, and spent a night there during his walking tour of the region. This folklore was also the basis for the Doctor Who graphic novel Herald of Madness (2019), which is set at Houska Castle and was first published in Doctor Who Magazine 535539. Caligulas stunning 2,000-year-old sapphire ring tells of a dramatic love story, Evidence of a 14,000-year-old settlement found in western Canada, Archaeologists locate earliest known North American settlement, 2,400-year-old baskets still filled with fruit found in the submerged Egyptian city, 9,000-year-old site near Jerusalem is the Big Bang of prehistory settlement, Oldest stone tools ever found were not made by human hands, study suggests, Mysterious skeleton revealed to be that of unusual lady anchoress of York Barbican. The only thing we do know is that there were the bodies of three Nazi soldiers buried on the grounds. There must be thousands of examples of features around the world that have been at one time called bottomless. Some notable features of the castle include a predominantly Gothic chapel, green chamber with late-Gothic paintings, and a knight's drawing room. Workers on a drilling project in an unnamed place in Siberia sunk a hole 14.4 kilometers (8.9mi) deep before breaking through to a cavity from which they heard and recorded screaming voices and measured searing heat. He got to 80,000 feet and gave up. It is not far from Prague (cca 50 km) in the Central Bohemian region. Get notified of the best booming posts weekly. . The lake had formed from a cavern roof collapse after an earthquake some 2000 years ago. Excavations or exploration are strictly forbidden, under the pretense that bombs from World War II may still be hidden inside and might explode if tampered with. Mylroie, J.E., Carew, J.L. The Bottomless Lakes has resident monsters described as giant turtles. The Central Bohemian town of Mlnk. His hair had turned white his skin now wrinkled. New Study Shows Mushrooms Communicate With Each Other Using A Vocabulary Of 50 Words, The Tragic Story Of Harolyn Suzanne Nicholas, Dorothy Dandridge's Mentally Disabled Daughter, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. The seemingly bottomless hole swallows all the seawater that flows in, appearing to drain the ocean! Western Folklore, 19: 4, 278-280. Ive tried using a well probe to test for depth and you start to lose that feeling of hitting bottom at about 300 feet. Houska Castle is a gothic construction dating back to the late 1200s. This mysterious castle near Lake Mchovo in Central Bohemia attracts visitors with the legend on a rift to the Hell and a convict who was lowered down into the rift. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. As a folklore motif, the unfathomable hole is ancient. With World War II resulting in fierce fighting across the continent, the Nazis swept into the Czech Republic, and decided to enrich their knowledge of the occult by studying at Houska Castle. The water conceals the ultimate depth. Mining created the Chuquicamata Copper Mine, in Chile at 2,790, the Kimberley Mine in South Africa at 700 and the Berkeley Pit, in Butte, Montana at 1700. Wabash Valley Visions and Voices Digital Memory Project. He reigned from 1253 to 1278 and ordered the castle to be made as an administration centre for his royal estates. The Spruce Hole in New Hampshire is an ice age bog now recognized as unique by the National Park Service as a Natural Landmark. In Revelation 20, an angel throws Satan or the devil in the form of a serpent or dragon back into the pit and seals it. These water bodies claim people (dead or alive), animals, treasure, transport vehicles, and many secrets. Houska Castle is an early Gothic castle, 47 kilometres north of Prague, in Czechia. A local paranormal group approached Jack for more information. Possibly. This wooden structure was mentioned by Vaclav Hajek in his Czech Chronicle which was published in 1541. It was not water-filled. Is a castle in the present-day Czech Republic guarding us against unimaginable evil? Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. The president of koda Auto would have to abandon it during World War II, however, when the Nazis invaded and took control of the fortress. If you're looking for a one way trip to the underworld, there's no shortage of alleged "gateways to hell" hidden all over the world. Animals were lost in it. Skinner, C.M. Hrad Houska Nature Hiking Adventure An old Gothic style castle that is perfectly hidden in the deep forest and riddled with mystery, come if you dare! Also, Mel Waters was a made-up name. Mammoth cave in Kentucky has a bottomless pit that is 105 feet deep. This list now takes us to a remote part of the Czech Republic's countryside and to an actual port to Hell. If you search for bottomless hole on the internet, youll find this crazy story incorporating the usual tropes with modern supernatural ideas. Those waiting eagerly above pulled the man up frantically, and when he came back into sight, he looked as if he had aged around 30 years, just from spending a few seconds in the darkness of the pit. [6][11], The Travel Channel series "Legendary Locations" covered several sites in Season 2, Episode 4, including the castle "said to protect a portal to hell". Once he had found himself in this technological future, he found himself wandering aimlessly in horror and despair. These screams may be coming from the prisoners of war that were held captive there, or the local villagers that were taken down into the Houska castle pit by the flying demonic entities. Swimmers were warned that an icy cold swell or sucking whirlpool would imperil them. houska castle pit explorationdr phil what happened to colin. However, the locals were so scared of him two hunters broke into the castle and murdered him. [12], Houska Castle was featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters International which aired on SyFy on 22 July 2009. Many of the world's so-called gateways to hell amount to nothing more than a creepy setting with a really spooky urban legend attached, but then there's Houska Castle, a 762-year-old gothic castle that was built to seal shut what locals believe is the real-life entrance to the underworld. American Imago , 4: 1, 20-31. While it was unheard of at the time to include depictions of pagan mythology in a church, even more staggering is the fact that the centaur is using its left hand to shoot an arrow as left-handedness was associated with service to Satan in the Middle Ages. The Houska Castle is located in the forests north of Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, which is bisected by the Vltava River. He succeeded in measuring the depth himself at 102 feet. Apparently, his hair had turned white and he had grown extremely wrinkled. When we cant readily discern the depth, the hole begets additional legendary characteristics, including that of being bottomless. The Prague Daily Monitor reports that many visitors are baffled by its counterintuitive architecture and unnerved by the fresco paintings in the chapel. The bottomlessness of the various pits, lakes and bogs worldwide is not physically accurate but the concept of the unknown abyss is an essential feature of a mythological and enchanted landscape. While he was based there, its said that he was well aware of the stories of the paranormal phenomena that had been reported at the castle. where the devil meets with his minions and a headless ghost circles the pond after being summoned by hobgoblins, where living things and buildings slip in and are forever lost, giant cracks miles deep or with lava pools, There was a legend here that parents disposed of their babies umbilical cords in this vent as a magical ritual to give the child positive qualities, a gruesome legend where a father killed his son and then also drowning himself, Hydrogen sulfide gas in the water is toxic and can cause dizziness and nausea, disorienting divers, Rich Buhler, a radio host for Christianity Today, tracked the story back to the propaganda article that was based on a made-up story, additional features attributed to Mels Hole were bizarre, When he told them the paranormal tales were nonsense but the real hole was a typical mine shaft, The physics of such a hole is quite weird, The Kola Superdeep Borehole is the deepest hole on earth at 40,230 feet. Gas release may also account for the tales of the swamp boiling and bubbling. It is fabled that the hole was so deep that no one could see the bottom of it. Its also pretty fun to imagine they are the gaping mouth of a subterranean creature or that the earth itself is a living thing that would eat us. Centuries-old legends may be able to answer that question.