The Silesian – Ostrava Castle

A great castle used to stand where Lučina river meets wild Ostravice ........

A memorial, which in the past two decades went through a number of insensitive reconstructions and changes in the owner and at the end it was close to demolition. Literally in the „twelfth hour“ it was bought from its last owner and returned to the hands of the Statutory Town Ostrava.

The City cleaned the castle premises and neighborhood, the building and parts of the Rotunda castle restaurant got lost in history and the actual castle building is now secured against uninvited visitors and guarded by a private security service.

The Silesian – Ostrava castle was a three-story building with a protective castle system. In the 16^th century an entrance gate with the tower was built and it remains standing also in the present days. Due to mining activities the building dropped by 16 m and in the 1980´s it went through an unprofessional reconstruction.

The castle was built in the middle of 13^th century by the counts  of Opole or Tesin of Piastov family as a border fortress against the Czech State (Ostravice was a bordering river). In 1540´s the castles was rebuilt to a renaissance castle. In 1872 the castle burned out but was reconstructed. The main cause of its further deterioration was mining directly under it.

A little history

The castle was built in the second half of the 13^th century near crossover at river junction. The purpose of the castle was protection of a route from Opava through Hlučín and Těšín to Krakow and primarily of the Polish state border, which was then formed by Ostravice river. The importance of the castle for its owners is evidenced by the fact that a 4 meter high and 2,5 meter wide wall was built around it already in the 13^th century.

A first written reference on the existence of the Silesian – Ostrava castle is dated August 2, 1297. On that day Moravian and Tesin nobility, led by the count of Tesin  Měšek and a Bishop of Olomouc Detrich of Hradec met in Ostrava to discuss disputes raising from Ostravice river changing its banks due to frequent floods. The dispute was successfully resolved. Since 1327 the Tesin region belonged to the Czech State and the Silesian- Ostrava castle lost it function of a border guarding castle. The Ostravice river ceased being the state border and became the border between the Bishop of Olomouc and the Count of Tesin lands, between Moravia and Silesia. 

Brief data on the Silesian – Ostrava castle history 

Castle legends

Almost about all old castles and citadels there are various legends, and of course there are some also about the Silesian – Ostrava castle. There are a few left, so let’s have a look at least to the most widespread.

It was generally known that under the castle are cellars with a number of passages that allegedly lead to all directions, one of them event through Ostravice to Zábřeh nad Odrou. Great treasures were hidden in these cellars.

So let’s have a look now on the history of the Silesian – Ostrava castle legends, remembered even nowadays.

The Iron Man

One of the most known legend tells that many years ago a steward, very nice and dutiful man, lived in the castle. One a wife of village bailiff from neighboring Heřnanice visited him. It was on the Great Friday when treasures appear to people. That is why the steward invited the woman to accompany him to see the castle treasures. When he opened the door to a cellar, she was frightened to see that an iron man with a great stick stands there to guar the treasure.

The steward entered the cellar and from each box took one coin. There were seven of them, each of different type. They were gold and silver and shone so much that the woman could hardly look at them. He told her „look at these coins and know that anyone can have a look at the treasures gathered in this cellar but if someone takes only a little part of them the iron man will break his head“. Then he returned the coins back to their place, locked the cellar door and return with the woman back.

The White Lady of the Silesian – Ostrava Castle 

The Silesian – Ostrava castle had also its „White Lady“. However not everyone could see her. Only those who went to a confession in a local church, in the day when she was to appear, could see her at night. She was dressed in white, with loose hair, in right hand she carried a golden key and in left hand a lit candle. She walked the halls and rooms and appeared only if a member of the owner’s family was to die. However, in 1573, a Wednesday after Easter, one old servant of lord Sedlnický saw the „White Lady“. She was at a confession that day and in the evening she served the dinner. A guest of lord Sedlnický was lord Otík of Kounice nad Deštném, Moravice, Litulovice and Životice. They sat long into night and talked about the Tesin principate and especially about the count Václav Adam, who enforced new edicts that most nobility disapproved. They consulted convocation of a nobility council of Tesin principate to the Silesian – Ostrava castle. At midnight the old lady had to pickup an item from the knight´s hall. She lit a candle and went there. She hot greatly scared when she saw the White Lady leaving the hall. She wanted to scream but should not. She hardly went back all pale and scared, shaking and shivering. For a long time she could not speak. When she told the nobility what she saw in the knight’s hall the lord Sedlnický of Chotice turned pale and then spoke to his scared wife „But none of us is ill, my dear. You do not have to be afraid“. Late after midnight all went to bed. The second day, n the morning  lord Otík Stoš order to bring him his horse and said goodbye to his loyal friend lord Selnický and went in the direction of Ostravice river. Near woods he spur the horse on. The horse ran, tripped and lord Otík Stoš fell into water and drawn. Since then the White Lady has been seen only a few times in the castle and always the castle owner’s family member died the next day.

Other legends of the Silesian – Ostrava castle:

The red little man and two writers

Vicious red man

How writers looked for a treasure

On vilain harbinger Luňák