Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/368

340 Grohmann, p. 70. The white lady of this tale has yet somehow another character; it is the white lady of the castle of Carlstein; she announced the death of the castle citizens, and then the people saw it in the lower castle. Cf. F. V. Zelinka, Sbírka lidového podání z Berounska, p. 7.

The announcement of death and important events belongs to the characteristics of numerous tales in later sections.

7. The White Lady in inhabited places, in walled cities and castles, the White Lady of the Vítkovec family.

Previous tales mention the appearance of a white lady in inhabited places or near them: this is due to enchantment, the unrest of the wandering spirit, a sign of death. Instances of causeless appearances are given from Vyšehrad and elsewhere in Prague, etc. Every "hrad" (fortified enclosure) in Bohemia has its White Lady. A long list from Balbín is given. It is a very simple story, of a mere vision. It also appears in the ruins of a "hrad." So at Tetín. The story is mostly elaborated by accretions from elsewhere. General references to the White Lady usually mean the one of the Rosenberg and Hradec families, the founder of the soft pap. (They claim descent from a mythical ancestor Vítka, hence Vitkovec.) This is in South Bohemia.

The earliest known account is in Gregor Richter's Axiomata Œconomica, printed in 1600 at Görlitz. The next is a Jesuit report of 1604, then a letter of Adalbert Chanovský, 1618. A fuller account is in his posthumous Vestigium Bohemiae piae, 1659, and in Adam Tanner's Amuletum Castrense, 1620, etc. The first compiler and historian of the story is Balbín (Miscellanea).

The details given in Balbín of Slavata's inquiry of the old men as to the soft pap, evidence the following traditions: that the white lady was a widow and the guardian of the orphans of the Vítkovec family, and that the winter was substituted quite late for the autumn as the date of distribution of the soft pap. These points were left out by Sedláček in his effort to restore the live tradition as it was before Balbín. The appearance on great occasions in the castle was a popular tradition: many of the details are purely literary in origin. There is a popular tale of a White Lady showing a treasure to Peter Vok of Rosenberg. Other versions and families are mentioned. Also other countries