Haunted Castle

Luxury castle for sale! Fixer upper, plenty of dungeon space, calming ambient whispers, paid rent from vampire tenant!

"Last Chance Not To Go Near The Castle!"

— Sign outside Dontgonearthe Castle in Carpe Jugulum, a Discworld novel set in Überwald

This is the article for the trope Haunted Castle. For the Castlevania game of the same name, click here.

On a foggy mountain peak in forsaken mountain chain or a haunted forest wilderland looms the Haunted Castle. Its masonry is crumbling, the iron gates are red with rust and the lonely towers, winding stone corridors and deep dungeons have witnessed so much treachery and evil that, even if long abandonded, evil spirits and creatures still lurk within its walls. Many such castles however remain fully in use by their dread inhabitants, be they some sort of vampire, Frankenstein's Monster, a Mad Scientist, the Wolf Man, a Wicked Witch, or even Bugs Bunny. Or maybe all of them at once.

The protagonist will be driven to the castle by a thunderstorm, or by running out of gas, or by his own curiosity. In the valley below, the Ruritanian villagers will have warned the hero against spending the night in the castle, but he presses on into the night. His beautiful bride will question his decision, but will reluctantly accompany him.

Once the couple have arrived at the castle, the count, Mad Scientist or monster will take a liking for the bride. Perhaps she resembles some long-lost love of the monster, or he desires her for some devious experiment.

It will also typically be Always Night, with the sun never rising until the evil is vanquished. Expect Dramatic Thunder and Spooky Animal Sounds in the background, Grave Clouds with a Chance of Rain, Ominous Fog, Cobweb of Disuse, Falling Chandelier of Doom, and your typical Dark and Stormy Night.

In a North American setting, instead of a haunted castle, the Haunted House will be the monster's home or old mansion, since actual castles are in short supply in the United States and Canada. They are plentiful in Überwald.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Monster Cereals: Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry live in a haunted castle, or, more accurately, they haunt a castle. Supplemental material says that the castle belongs to Chocula, the other two just live there.

Anime & Manga

• Berserk: Every castle Guts comes across is either filled with some monstrosity or just filled with assholes.
• Digimon V-Tamer 01: The Castle of Illusions, "haunted" by the lingering data of monsters improperly deleted.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Castle McDuck. When first introduced in Carl Barks' "The Old Castle's Secret," it was purportedly haunted by the ghost of Sir Quackly McDuck, who sealed himself in its walls along with a chest full of treasure. In Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, it's apparently haunted by every member of the McDuck clan, who watch over their descendants and help scare off enemies; Sir Quackly is the one who shows himself the most often. There was also a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax launched by their rival clan the Whiskervilles involving a ghostly hound.
• Fantastic Four: Doctor Doom's castle in Latveria. The only monster is the human monster of Doctor Doom (and his creations).
• Johan and Peewit: Baufort Castle in "The War of the Seven Springs" (and its Animated Adaptation counterpart "The Haunted Castle") is haunted by its ancestor Aldebert Baufort, because he had caused the seven springs surrounding his castle to dry up due to his selfish desire for more wine to drink, and thus is Barred from the Afterlife until the seven springs are restored and a true Baufort descendant who carries the family seal comes to reclaim the castle.
• Superman vs. Shazam!: Karmang Castle is a twisted, solitary castle, squatting on Mount Olympus -Mars' highest peak- and inhabited by an Evil Sorcerer and one billion of mad ghosts.
• Zip Comics: Rueben Rueben stumbled on a haunted castle with benevolent ghosts who gave him powers.

Fairy Tales

• "Jorinde and Joringel": A lonely castle in the woods is home to a cruel witch who puts hexes on trespassers and innocent intruders.
• "The Soldier And Death": The tsar's former palace has been taken over by a band of demons who enjoy partying and gambling rowdily every night, killing whoever tries to stay in the building.
• "The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" features a youngster spending three nights in a haunted castle to try and learn what fear is.

Fan Works

• The King Nobody Wanted: Castle Spyne, the ancestral castle of House Gaunt, is described as having impossibly extensive and insanity-inducing lower levels, "strange things [that] come up from below", and "rooms with enigmatic bloody handprints." The Gaunts, sensibly, haven't actually lived there for centuries.

Films — Animation

• Beauty and the Beast: The Beast's castle. As the Beast gradually gets nicer, the action takes us further and further into the section of the castle that has pretty neo-classical architecture, until the curse is cured at the end and the whole building is like that.
• The Pagemaster: Richard Tyler has to go through Dr. Jekyll's spooky mansion (complete with dark clouds, lightning, bats, a full moon, and a kind of gravestone in the front saying that it belongs to him).

Films — Live-Action

• The Black Cat: The establishing shot shows the fictitious Hungarian mansion is illuminated by flashes of lightning, looming amid drifting fog above leaning crosses and twisted trees. However, it is an example of then-latest avant-garde architecture, "A masterpiece of construction built upon the ruins of the masterpiece of destruction." Fittingly, in a variation of the mad scientist, the villain is a mad architect.
• Castle Of Blood depicts Edgar Allan Poe being challenged to reveal the inspiration of his stories. Big mistake — it leads to a night in a haunted castle. The film claims to be based on a story of the real Poe but nothing he wrote in our world really fits the bill. The movie was remade in 1971, titled Web of the Spider and was allegedly based on Poe's famous story Night of the Living Dead. Uh, yeah.
• Manos: The Hands of Fate plays this exact trope, except they couldn't get a castle, so they used a smallish house.
• Many of Vincent Price's movies are set in haunted (or supposedly haunted) castles.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an Affectionate Parody of this trope, the movie is mostly set in one that turns out to be a spaceship.
• Underworld (2003): A gothic mansion and a haunted castle both make appearances.
• Van Helsing plays this straight but also kind of lampshades it since the whole movie is a deliberate mash-up/tribute to Universal Horror Classics.

Literature

• The 13 Clocks: The Duke finds his castle haunted by the children he locked in the tower: that is, he hears their laughter, and children's balls come bouncing down the stairs. Cold as he is, he finds this more horrifying than the ordinary sort of ghosts.
• Aunt Dimity: The neo-Gothic Wyrdhurst Hall in Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil. It comes complete with local villagers who tell visitors the place is haunted.
• The Castle of Otranto (1764) initially gave rise to this trope in popular culture, not to mention to Gothic Fiction in general.
• Discworld: Played with in Carpe Jugulum, where the ancestral Uberwaldean home of the Magpyrs is actually called Dontgonearthe Castle, and the Old Count would advertise it as if it were a tourist trap using Reverse Psychology ("Last Chance to Not Go Near The Castle"). It worked terrifically; people would come in for miles just so that they could Notgonearthe castle. And when, every few decades, the vampire there rose again (and was quickly quelled, of course), it just added to the interest... and the local economy. It helps even more that there's something with the roads that causes all traveling coaches to break a wheel as they near it.
• Dracula: Dracula's castle is located in a remote land, and is inhabited by vampires.
• Dragon and Damsel: The children in Edmonton are convinced the castle not far from town is this. It turns out there aren't any ghosts there, but a living dragon is.
• Harry Potter: Hogwarts Castle is indeed haunted by several ghosts, but most are perfectly nice (well, except Peeves, but he's a pest rather than an actual threat, and not even really a ghost but a poltergeist; the Bloody Baron is pretty terrifying but harmless), and the castle is, of course, also a school. Most of the ghosts just hang around and give advice when asked, but one of them is actually teaching classes, and no-one's sure if he's even noticed he died.
• Hurog: Hurog castle is this. However, what most people think is the ghost is actually more something like a Genius Loci, and is not there out of his own free will, he was magically bound to the castle, to make it Powered by a Forsaken Child. Despite all this, Oreg is quite friendly to the inhabitants, that is, unless they slap the mute daughter of the family. It is never mentioned what he did to the person who did that, but it is mentioned that she never visited again.
• Jirel of Joiry: Hellsgarde, Jirel’s final solo adventure, features a castle in an eerie swamp that can only be accessed at sunset, haunted by the ghost of a vicious man who was slaughtered two hundred years ago for a treasure that was never recovered and that Jirel, naturally, needs to steal.
• The Reynard Cycle: The palace of Carduel has this reputation due to all the horrible things that happened there over the years: Mass poisonings, cannibalism both accidental and deliberate, people being entombed alive behind the walls, etc., etc. Even Madam Corte, a born skeptic, is convinced the place is haunted.
• Septimus Heap: The Palace is inhabited by mostly benign ghosts and has a generally run-down appearance, also because the Heap family is too small for it.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Most castles, keeps, and holdfasts in the series are old enough to have a legendary ghost or two knocking about somewhere on their grounds.
  • Harrenhal has this reputation, partially because the Targaryens used dragons to roast the castle's holders alive centuries ago, and partially because most of the people who have held the castle since have ended up experiencing both underlying chronic and terminally acute misfortunes. Janos Slynt got sent up to join the Night's Watch, Amory Lorch got thrown in the bear pit when the castle was taken, Vargo Hoat had his limbs chopped off and fed to him by Gregor Clegane, and so on: and, these are just the newest. There are tales of the ghost of Harren the Black and his sons roaming the castle, all looking like charred corpses — possibly capable of setting others ablaze to join them. Not to mention whatever House Lothston as a whole managed to do while living in it to still get used as scary stories to get children across the Riverlands into staying indoors when it starts to get dark, ostensibly for fear of what could come out of the castle on batwings. They've been extinct for decades by the start of the series, but they left a mark.
  • The Nightfort of the Wall has had a decidedly nasty reputation for ages. Partially for which it was eventually abandoned centuries ago. The Rat Cook, Brave Danny Flint, the Night's King and his maybe-Other Queen, the Seventy-Nine Sentinels... Many horror stories of blood, betrayal and ghostly goings on are attached to this castle. Either rightly or wrongly. The magic weirwoody Black Gate it contains, however, isn't just a story. And, that's creepy enough on its own to count.
• Sonic the Hedgehog in Castle Robotnik: The eponymous building is a purpose-built one so that Robotnik can shoot a film. It was apparently constructed in under four months.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • The Lord of the Rings have Minas Morgul and Dol Guldur and Barad-dûr. They are literally haunted, being the lairs of the Ringwraiths and the Necromancer.
  • Beren and Lúthien: When Sauron captures Minas Tirith (no, not the one in Gondor) on Tol Sirion, he turns it into Tol-in-Gaurhoth (the Isle of Werewolves) with a similar reputation for unquiet souls.
• Les Voyageurs Sans Souci: Subverted. When Sébastien and Agathe are dragged to an abandoned castle, they spot a sign on the gate which reads: "No trespassing. Warning: Haunted castle". Later, both children find out the castle is not haunted at all. The former owner believed in ghosts and was convinced that they were responsible for the noises in the garret, no matter how many times her grandson assured a flock of owls were causing the noise.
• Warlock of Gramarye: In The Warlock's Companion, it's the location where half the story takes place. The other half is flashbacks, including one that plays with the trope by referring to an ancestor a few centuries ago who, seeing that haunted houses were becoming all the rage, but owning only a fairly recent mansion, instructed the house butler/majordomo to go out and buy an ancestral ghost from somewhere.
• Thank You for Taking Care of our Enchanted and Haunted Castle is set in one. Luckily, the ghosts contained within the castle are harmless enough — it's the curse that one should be wary of...

Live-Action TV

• Game of Thrones:
  • The Riverlands are home to Harrenhal, a castle built by the Ironborn during their occupation of the region. Though now a ruin, it remains the largest castle built in Westeros, but the day it was completed, the Targaryens invaded and roasted the Ironborn royal family inside. The Histories and Lore bonus material explains that since then every family to hold it has met with misfortune. This holds mostly true even in the present day: Janos Slynt was banished and later executed, Locke had his neck broken by a Bran-controlled Hodor, Gregor Clegane was gravely wounded (it is unclear if the show's version was brought back from the dead as Ser Robert Strong apparently was or merely returned from the brink), Robb Stark, Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton, and Littlefinger were murdered.
    
    The sequel series House of the Dragon adds on this by portraying the fate of the then-current owner House Strong, whose lord and heir Lord Lyonel and Ser Harwin (respectively) were burnt to death under the auspices of their own kin, Lord Confessor Larys. Larys would even invoke the curse of Harrenhal as Plausible Deniability to evade his crimes, especially as they were nominally done in service to the politically-embattled Queen Consort Alicent Hightower.
  • The Nightfort, where Bran and company pass the Wall, is supposedly haunted by the Rat Cook, who violated Sacred Hospitality.
• Subverted and played for laughs in an episode of the Canadian reality series Kenny vs. Spenny. The two title characters have a competition to see who can stay inside an abandoned house the longest without getting scared. Kenny (the member of the duo that always cheats) tries a number of tactics to scare his friend Spenny, who's easily manipulated. In the end, Kenny is spooked out of the house by a loud noise, which he believed to be a ghost. It was actually a construction crane that fell on the house, making Spenny win the competition.
• Mystery Hunters: Some of the places that the hunters investigate are castles that are believed by some to be haunted.

Pinballs

• 3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night takes place in and around a castle that's infested with ghosts, goblins, and other supernatural creatures.

Roleplay

• The Gamer's Alliance: The palace of Daisuke Hyuga in Yamato is covered by a dark forest and becomes haunted after Lord Daisuke, in despair after having lost his wife Matami in a raider attack, makes a blood pact with the demon Yurius.
• Grave Academy is a Forum/RPG that centers on a school for monsters which is based in such a castle.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons has too many examples to list, but the Ravenloft campaign is setting is especially full of them, due to its Gothic horror inspirations. Most notable is Castle Ravenloft, after which the setting is named.
• Godforsaken: In Flevame, the undead dwell in dark castles of cold stone here and there in the Wilderness of Krym. Each is usually ruled by a vampire who commands a variety of undead soldiers and servants.
• Pathfinder: Castle Scarwall in the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path is a huge one of these, chock-full of nasty undead.
• Warhammer has several of these scattered around. The most famous of them include Castle Drachenfels in the Grey Mountains (lair of Evil Overlord Constant Drachenfels) and Castle Drakenhof in Sylvania (seat of the Von Carstein vampire clan, who are quite fond of ruling their fiefs from such castles). There's also the Brass Keep, a fortress in the desolate Middle Mountains that has been used as a lair by one evil faction after another since the time of Sigmar; and Nagashizzar far to the south, a hollowed-out mountain that was once the domain of Nagash the Necromancer, one of the setting's most prominent Predecessor Villains.

Theater

• Doris Castle, home of the titular countess Raymonda from the ballet Raymonda, is a normal, lived in castle that happens to be haunted by a helpful, if strict, family ghost called the White Lady.

Theme Parks

• Efteling has a haunted castle called Spookslot as one of its oldest attractions.

Video Games

• The Adventures of Square has one in the underground of cheesy yellow moon. It has many ghost enemies that use magic attacks, pools of blood, a monsterous eldrich ghost and the warp gate.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent: Castle Brennenburg is located in thick Prussian forests which the locals are afraid to enter as it is supposedly haunted by the deserters of wars. And that's before the Shadow shows up...
• Bloodborne: Cainhurst Castle is a creepy frozen castle in the snowy mountains. It's infested with ghosts and crazed servants and lorded over by the long-dead Logarius, a scythe-wielding skeleton. You even get there by way of a black carriage without a driver after finding an invitation — addressed specifically to your player character — on a dead body in the local clinic.
• Castlevania: Fighting your way through such castles is the very premise of the series. In fact, Haunted Castle is the actual title of one of the arcade games in the series.
• The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark: Played with. Castle Dooley is initially presented as one, complete with omnipresent rain storm and a local warning the protagonists not to go any closer to the "cursed castle". However, if pressed for more information, he admits he's just putting on a show because the tourists appreciate it, the rain clears up after a while, and it turns out the inhabitants of the castle are all perfectly nice.
• Dark Souls: The ruins of New Londo, the remains of a once-great city flooded to seal away the Darkwraiths. It's now filled with ghosts, who are quite nasty, requiring the player to either be cursed or use special weapons to hurt them.
• Devil May Cry mostly takes place inside the ancient castle of Mallet Island (a.k.a. Mundus's castle). Dante's not spooked easily, but the place is filled with eerie contraptions and horrific demons. The backstory and lore indicate that it used to have proper occupants as well, but now it's taken over by evil spirits.
• Donkey Kong 64: Creepy Castle, complete with Bedsheet Ghosts and Skeleton Kremlings.
• Dragon Age: Origins:
  • Soldier's Peak, the former headquarters of the Grey Warden Order in Ferelden as seen in the Warden's Keep DLC expansion, is an abandoned fortress inhabited by roaming undead, demons, ghosts and a centuries-old blood mage, trying desperately to hold back a demonic invasion from the Fade.
  • The Adamant Fortress mentioned in Asunder, a Grey Warden outpost built into the side of the Abyssal Rift, a chasm believed to lead right down to the Deep Roads. After being abandoned by the Wardens, it fell under the control of the Tranquil Pharamond, who's experiments accidentally tore the Veil, leading to every building but the Keep being burnt to the ground, the inhabitants killed and their corpses possessed by demons.
• Dragon Quest II: Moonbrooke is haunted by the flaming spirits of those slain by Hargon's forces. This includes the King himself. Talking to him after saving the Princess leads to a rather depressing conversation.
• Fatal Frame features Himuro Mansion for the first game and the Mansion of Sleep for the third. Both are big. Both are spooky. Both are designed to make sure you never come out again, dead or alive.
• Ghostbusters (1990) features a crumbling old castle overrun with plants and ghosts as the fifth and penultimate stage, inexplicably located just on the outskirts of New York.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: The scenario that AM sets up for Ted. It has everything: banners portraying Ellen as a princess and Ted as her Knight in Shining Armor, a British maid who'd like nothing more than a night with him, the surrounding forest is dark and infested with wolves, and the witch who owns the castle is into dark arts and has a secret room with a pentagram for summoning demons. Ted himself doesn't think too highly of the place, though.:
  Ted: "So typical of the castles I've visited in Europe. A beautiful facade disguising ordinary stone."
• Kingdom Hearts: While no actual ghosts are present, Hollow Bastion is a strange, supernatural castle abandoned by the original inhabitants in a state of disrepair/mid-repair, mysterious and still-working Magitek, floating platforms, an ocean that flows upward, and is being used as a Evil Tower of Ominousness by Maleficent and her crew of villains. It does not help that the world is essentially ground-zero for the Heartless infestation that has been destroying the universe.
• Kuon features a cursed medieval Japanese mansion.
• La Tale: Foe Mansion, complete with Frankenstein-esque monsters and ghosts.
• Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: It's not so much "haunted" as it is "run by, inhabited by, infested with, and patrolled by undead monsters and demons" but same difference.
• Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Almia Castle is completely devoid of human life and crawling with Ghost and Psychic-type Pokémon. It's also covered in ice.
• Quest for Glory IV has Castle Borgov, home to ghosts, vampires, ogres, and Toby.
• Resident Evil 4 has Ramon Salazar's castle, ostensibly in Spain. It's not actually haunted, in the sense that there are no ghosts, but it does have dangerous cultists infected with a monstrous plague, deadly monsters that can turn invisible, two murderous giants, and a crazed leader escorted by two durable monsters.
• Shadow Hearts: Keith's castle is both a straight example and a subversion. It is haunted, as is only appropriate for a castle owned by a vampire, but the owner himself is a very nice guy; all the real trouble in the area is being caused by the mayor of nearby Bistriz.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Tails' Skypatrol: DarkCastle is the castle where Witchcart lives. It serves as the game's fifth and final level.
  • Sonic Heroes: Hang Castle is filled with pumpkin-headed ghosts and robotic wizards and witches and sprawls out as far as the eye can see. The following stage, Mystic Mansion, is set on the inside, with the final area on the roof at dawn, having survived the many traps within. The reason Sonic is here is because he's spotted a Chaos Emerald in the castle.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog: Cryptic Castle is a haunted castle owned by Dr. Eggman. Shadow can either choose to help Amy rescue Cream and Cheese, who are trapped inside the castle, or help Eggman defend the castle from the Black Arms by lighting the giant lanterns.
• Spelunky has a bonus level titled this, filled with vampires and (human) knights in armor.
• Sylvain Castle in Terranigma has an Acid Pool outside, and inside has skeletons, Giant Spiders, Undead Knights and some grim records of its former inhabitants.
• Wario: Master of Disguise has Blowhole Castle. In addition to Bedsheet Ghosts, it's also haunted by ghost dolphins.
• Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey: Wishbone runs into what appears to be one in Hades. While he doesn't actually go in or see any ghosts around it, he comments on its general spookiness.
• World of Warcraft:
  • The original game/Classic has Shadowfang Keep, which is filled with ghosts and worgen; Scholomance, a castle that the Cult of the Damned turned into a necromancy school, filled with undead creatures of the Scourge; Naxxramas, a Nerubian citadel the Scourge turned into a hovering fortress filled with undead creatures and with the spirits of the living that they tortured and meshed into flesh golems screaming in pain in the afterlife.
  • The expansion The Burning Crusade adds Karazhan, the abandoned tower of Medivh, which is filled with ghosts and arcane magic creatures. The spirit of Death Knight Teron Gorefiend also haunts the Black Temple citadel.
  • Wrath of the Lich King: Icecrown Citadel can be considered as one too, although it's been built by the undead at the middle of a Mordor-like land in the first place.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius has Castle Heterodyne. The ruined steampunk castle may not actually be haunted, but it's stuffed full of deathtraps, and its broken artificial intelligence tends to kill the people who enter, and/or press-gangs them into repairing it.
• Schwarz Kreuz: Harker, whose training in being a vampire probably comes from Hammer Horrors, sets his base in a suitably ruined one.

Web Originals

• The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids: Frankenstein-818 resides in a "notoriously booby-trapped", creepy castle which is one of the most notable landmarks in the Cupids' pocket dimension. He evidently built it himself as part of his dedication to his Frankenstein-based persona.

Western Animation

• Futurama: Bender's uncle Vlad's castle in "The Honking". Near the village of Thermostadt, it's "haunted" by holograms of his dead ancestors.
• Gargoyles: Castle Wyvern has this reputation, although we never see any ghosts within the castle itself. Though the nearby caverns do contain the ghosts of Hakon and the Captain of the Guard.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: "Chi of the Vampire" is set in a haunted castle (as pictured above). Jackie, Jade, Uncle, and Tohru visit an abandoned mountain castle located somewhere in China, hoping to buy and sell the antiques it contains. But they later find out the hard way that this wasn't really such a good deal; as they were not warned that a sleeping Jiangshi resided here.
• Looney Tunes: In "Transylvania 6-5000", Bugs Bunny enters a castle that he mistakes for a hotel, which belongs to a vampire who seeks to feast on his blood.
• Mr Krbec and his Animals: Castle Kulikov is haunted by its previous owner Duke Ruprecht. He's mischievous and troublesome, but fairly harmless and occasionally even helpful. He scared away most of previous castellans who had been employed to work there, but he happily coexists with Mr Krbec and his animals. Ruprecht's tricks provide some additional entertainment to tourists as he can make his portrait sway; he can move objects like books or clothes; he happily delivers his mysterious evil laugh; he often appears to others as a white or occasionally see-through ghost and he can even temporarily gain "body and colour". He's also happy to scare away major jerks who deserve it.
• The Real Ghostbusters: Ghosts always seemed to love that old haunted castle on the outskirts of town.
• Van Beuren Studios: Two cartoons are set in haunted castles full of skeletons and ghosts respectively — one of their Tom and Jerry shorts "Wot A Night", and one of their Felix the Cat cartoons "Bold King Cole".

Real Life

• Given that castles' whole purpose was to provide strongholds for military authority, the abundance of ghost stories which arise from their typically bloody histories is hardly a surprise.
• Windsor Castle is supposed to be haunted by the sad and shabby ghost of King George III who spent his last years there chatting up the shrubbery under the impression it was brother monarchs and being tormented by the doctors trying to cure him. And the ghost of Queen Elizabeth I still briskly walks the gallery she built for exercise on rainy days which is now the library.
• The Tower of London is even more haunted for obvious reasons. The allegedly murdered princes Edward V and Richard Duke of York are seen playing around the White Tower, the headless ghost of Anne Boleyn stalks the halls terrifying the Yeoman Warders and so on.
• Scotland is full of them. Most Scottish castles seem to have at least one ghost, though three standouts are Edinburgh, Glamis and Fyvie. Here is a very incomplete list.
• The Kremlin is no less fun, being perhaps the one castle in Europe with the bloodiest history. The ghost of Ivan the Terrible is said to appear before terrible catastrophes; two last alleged sightings are before Red October and just before WWII. Other recognizable ghosts in these stories are of Pseudo-Demetrius (last sighting: just before the fall of the Union), the ill-fated Tsar Boris Godunov, Nikolay Yezhov (the Peoples' Commissar of NKVD, who enacted the Great Purge of 1937-1939), Fanny Kaplan (Lenin's assassin) and Lenin himself. The oldest ghost allegedly seen in the Kremlin is the medieval prince Ivan the Moneybag, and the youngest is Marshal of the Union Sergey Akhromeev, who committed suicide there during the fall of the Union (1991).
• The Tuileries palace in Paris according to legend was haunted by "the Little Red Man", the ghost of a butcher whom Queen Catherine of Medici (spouse of Henry II) had murdered because he knew some of her dark secrets. As he died he cursed those responsible for his death and vowed to return. Which he is said to have done many times, usually just before deaths significant to the royal family, such as before Catherine's death, the assassination of Henry IV, and the deaths of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV. Marie-Antoinette is said to have seen him a few times a few days before the storming of the palace by revolutionaries in 1792, and later he supposedly made a habit of visiting Napoléon Bonaparte before important turning points, the last time in 1815 before he set off for the Waterloo campaign. The Count of Artois and his brother Louis XVIII are said to have seen the Little Red Man shortly before Louis' death in 1824, and in 1870 Empress Eugénie saw him pointing to the way out as she fled from the palace on her way into exile in England. The last time when the Little Red Man is said to have been seen was when the Communards set fire to the Tuileries Palace in 1871. After the palace burned down it was demolished and the Little Red Man was never seen again.
• The Hohenzollern family, especially their main branch, the royal house of Prussia, was haunted by the White Lady (Weiße Frau), who would often appear shortly before the death of a king or important family member. Mostly she haunted the royal palace in Berlin (the Stadtschloss), however in some cases she also is reported to have been seen in other castles and palaces belonging to the Hohenzollerns, e. g. in Bayreuth, where she allegedly caused Napoleon a sleepless night in 1812.
• Bhangarh. Reputedly India's most haunted place, this abandoned fort was reportedly cursed by an evil magician whose advances were rejected by the local princess, but another legend states it was cursed because its shadow touched a monk's home. Over the years, there have been reported sightings of ghosts appearing in the castle during nighttime. Out of concern for public safety, the Indian government posted a sign warning trespassers of jail time if they are caught loitering around the fort after sundown.

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