From last Saturday, Burg Berwartstein in the Rheinpfalz:
This was the seat of Hans von Trotha, who had a feud with the monastery of Wissembourg, a local town. He once damned the river that flowed through the town, about 8 km upstream from it. When the abbot complained he simply removed the dam, flooding half the town and drowning many of its inhabitants. To this day he's remembered as Hans Trapp, a bogeyman figure who's supposed to do nasty things to naughty children at Christmas.
He was excommunicated for immorality by a Borgia pope (which must have taken some doing), and so when he died he should have been buried outside church precincts; but since he was a member of the nobility he was accorded burial in a small wayside chapel, the Sankt-Anna-Kapelle near the local village of Niederschlettenbach. However, the pope ordered that the door be kept locked all year round with the exception of 26th July, the anniversary of his opening the sluices.
Along with me on this ride was our club prez, who used to look after electrics and electronics for Wissembourg Theatre. One 26th July they put on an open-air performance centred around the flooding story. It was a blazing hot summer before and after that day, but just as the performance was due to start a storm rolled up (shades of
The Witches of Eastwick) and drenched everything.
This is what all our local castles would look like if Louis XIV hadn't ordered their destruction.
