The Černín Palace on Hradčany, one of Prague’s most monumental buildings, hides shadows of pride and family secrets. It is told that when the palace was completed in 1723, Count Černín died suddenly, and his widow refused to pay the builder as there was no written contract. The desperate builder, who had invested all his wealth into the work, asked his brother, a Freemason, for help. In the deep of night, the brother summoned the ghost of the late Count. Without a word, the phantom seized the debt bond and, with his radiating hand, burned an indelible imprint of his palm into the paper. When the Countess saw that terrifying proof from the other world in the morning, she paid back every single coin in horror.

Years later, however, another equally terrifying legend echoed through the palace. A Countess lived there, so vain and heartless that during the cruelest famine, while people died of hunger in the Hradčany alleys, she had shoes made of fresh bread for a ball. Her pride did not escape the notice of infernal powers. In the middle of the dance, nine devils burst into the hall, tore the Countess to pieces, and carried her soul straight to hell, likely through the gate that once opened for the wicked Drahomíra. At night, the phantom of the proud noblewoman appears in the palace, weeping as she looks at her feet—her bread shoes constantly burn with a cold, blue flame as an eternal reminder of the sin against one’s neighbor.