In times when Prague’s alleys breathed baroque splendor and the shadow of ancient superstitions, and when the ringing of church bells dictated the rhythm of life and death, a man of high standing lived and worked in our kingdom – Jan Václav Vratislav of Mitrovice. He was the highest chancellor, an imperial diplomat whose name shone in the highest circles of Vienna and Prague. He possessed power, wealth, and respect that few could wish for. His days flowed in a whirlwind of state duties and the glitter of court life, until the fateful year of seventeen twelve.

Then, in Vienna, he was suddenly struck down by illness. Unexpectedly, without prolonged suffering, his spark of life extinguished. Doctors, even the best, merely shrugged their shoulders over his lifeless body. Death came quickly and seemed relentless. The city was engulfed in sorrow, for a man of exceptional abilities had departed. According to his wishes, and in consideration of his importance, it was decided that his remains would be transported to his beloved Prague, to the family tomb in the majestic Church of St. James the Greater in the Old Town.

A long procession with a carriage drawn by black horses crept through the landscape, finally arriving at the gates of Prague. The atmosphere on the day of the funeral was heavy and somber. A gray autumn sky arched over the stone gables of the houses, and only the wind played with the black mourning banners that hung from the windows. In the Church of St. James, whose high vaults absorbed the light, nobility, clergy, and common people gathered to pay their last respects. The air was permeated with the heavy scent of incense and burning candle wax. Funeral music echoed through the vast space, rising upwards to the high windows and fading into silence. Priests recited Latin prayers, their voices echoing from the cold columns. The heavy oak coffin, adorned with golden coats of arms and velvet, was slowly lowered into the family tomb beneath the paving, hidden in one of the side chapels. The last prayers faded, the tomb was sealed, and quietly, with a sense of duty fulfilled, people dispersed to their homes. The earth closed over Mitrovic, and it seemed that silence had departed with him.

But the silence did not last long. The sacristan, old Matěj, a man with a wrinkled face and eyes tired from the eternal cleaning of dust and wax, soon noticed something strange. At first, they were just faint sounds, barely perceptible – like a light scratching, a quiet tapping, which occasionally emanated from where Mitrovic’s tomb lay. Matěj initially attributed it to the work of rats, which always nested in the church walls, or to the settling of old masonry. The Church of St. James was old, and something was always cracking and whispering within it. But the sounds became more frequent and urgent. The light scratching turned into distinct scraping, the quiet tapping into loud banging. And then, in the silence of late evenings, when only Matěj remained in the church and shadows played across the vaults, he also heard muffled moans. Moans that sounded so human, so desperate, that they sent shivers down his spine.

Matěj was a simple man, full of pious reverence for the dead and the living, but also full of fear of the unknown. The thought that something unnatural might be happening in the tomb terrified him to death. He tried to ignore the sounds, attributing them to his vivid imagination, old age, and loneliness. He told no one about it. Who would believe him? That sounds were coming from the tomb of the highest chancellor? They would laugh at him, or send him to the priest for confession to rid himself of sinful thoughts. And so Matěj continued to walk through the church with a key in his hand, but his heart was heavy, and with each passing day, it filled with growing anxiety. The sounds continued, alternately stronger and weaker, but never completely stopped. They were like silent reproaches, like a mute scream that no one heard.

Four years had passed since that gloomy funeral ceremony. Four years during which sunny spring, hot summer, colorful autumn, and frosty winter had alternated over Prague. Life went on. In memory of the important chancellor and diplomat, it was decided that a pompous tombstone, worthy of his position and legacy, would be erected for him in the Church of St. James. Work on the tombstone required access to the tomb to properly place the foundation for the monumental work.

When the workers and stonemasons, assisted by the priest and Matěj the sacristan, finally rolled away the heavy stone slab that covered the entrance to Mitrovic’s tomb, a heavy, musty air rolled out from the depths of the underground. Matěj froze in horror. He knew what was coming. The light of lanterns and torches penetrated the darkness and revealed a terrible sight. The workers gasped, some cried out in terror.

The heavy lid of the coffin, which had once been lowered into the tomb, lay cast aside, overturned with such force that it seemed impossible for a human hand to have done it. And there, in the corner of the crypt, leaning against the damp stone wall, with his legs stretched forward, sat the deceased. The deceased who had once been the noble Jan Václav Vratislav of Mitrovice. His face was contorted in silent horror, empty eye sockets stared into nothingness, and on his bony fingers were visible traces of blood and roughened skin, as if he had desperately tried to scratch at the stone wall, at the coffin lid, at anything that might bring him freedom.

He had been buried alive. In that darkness and silence, surrounded by cold stones, he awoke from his state, which had been mistakenly considered death. He heard the world closing over him, his body being laid to rest. And then, in terrifying solitude, he began his futile struggle for life. He fought with the coffin lid, with the stone walls of the tomb. He scratched, banged, screamed, but no one heard him, or wanted to hear him. His sounds were considered mere whims of the old church or rat scurrying.

Chancellor Mitrovic died a second time. This time definitively. He died of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, after vainly trying to get out of the coffin and the tomb. His second end was slow, agonizing, and full of unimaginable horror. The workers and the priest, shocked by what they saw, scattered in terror. Only old Matěj stood silently, his eyes full of tears and remorse. He knew what had happened. He knew he had heard his cries. But fear had tied his tongue and hands.

Since then, the story of Chancellor Mitrovic, who rose from the grave to die a second time, has been told in Prague. His story is a memento, a reminder of the thin line between life and death, and a warning that sometimes even the strangest sounds in the silence of the night can carry a terrible truth. And in the Church of St. James, it is still said that occasionally, in the late hours, when the hustle and bustle of the Old Town subsides, a faint scratching or muffled moan can be heard emanating from the depths beneath the altar, like an eternal echo of Mitrovic’s desperate struggle.