Riegersburg — the 'flower witch', 1675

OVERVIEW

Riegersburg Castle stands on the basalt neck of an extinct volcano above the town of Riegersburg in Styria. Its history begins in 1122. Between 1637 and 1653 Katharina Elisabeth von Wechsler, the 'Gallerin' — 'wicked Liesl' to the locals — made it one of the strongest castles in the land: 3 km of walls, five gates, two ditches and 108 rooms, 'the strongest fortress in Christendom' in Field Marshal Montecuccoli's words. It has belonged to the Liechtensteins since 1822.

HISTORY

Katharina Paldauf, née Fondell, born about 1625 in Fürstenfeld, entered the Gallerin's service at 20 and married the castle's steward, Johann Simon Paldauf. In spring 1675, aged about 50, she was drawn into the great Feldbach witch trial (1673–1675): a baker's wife of Riegersburg, a friend, named her as a hail- and weather-maker and a guest at the witches' sabbath, and a tailoress accused her of killing one of her children and throwing it in the castle well. She was imprisoned with the others in Feldbach's 'witch cellar'. Before torture she said the Devil pursued her at night in animal form; under torture she raged and blasphemed but did not confess, until, broken, she named others — among them the priests of Fehring, Hartmannsdorf and Paldau and Riegersburg's late parish priest. In August 1675 she was brought under guard to the Riegersburg to confront the arrested clergy; the outcome, and their fate, are lost with part of the trial records. She died, probably on 23 September 1675 — killed, as a 'mercy' for her rank, before her body was burned.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Tradition says she could make flowers bloom even in winter, which is why she is remembered as the 'Blumenhexe' (flower witch); the trial records contain no hint of it. Nor can the familiar oil painting of an elderly, finely dressed woman holding flowers be verified as her portrait. A record of the witch-hunt, filed as such.

VISITING

The castle is a museum: 25 of its 108 rooms are open, nine of them on witches and sorcerers.