Our dear friend, Tatiana told us that, newly wed in Austria, she had meticulously interrogated the descendants of the people linked to the Mayerling case. She had mostly collected testimonies concerning the archduchess that had replaced the empress during her absences. Who at the time held the position of mistress of the house? Was it…
King Rudolf II, an odd fellow and a master of the occult, governed his kingdoms from a magic castle in Prague. He had no legitimate heir. He had a ba stard son, however, Julio, whom he adored. He even gave him the vast Cesky Krumlov castle in Krumau as a home, but Julio proved to be not…
Since times immemorial, one room upstairs seemed to host particularly impressive apparitions. It had remained locked for centuries and no one dared venture there. However, one night, the cries and rattles had reached such violence that the Lord Strathmore of the time had decided to see for himself. He had gone up to the threshold…
“Good thing our hosts are away for the day!” “We will finally be able to share ghost stories, which is an impossible task in their presence!” It was the beginning of spring, the beginning of the 20th century. The count and the countess of Strathmore had invited some twenty guests to enjoy the weekend in…
On November 1st 1285, the King of Scotland, Alexander III, remarried. He had lost his first wife, two sons and a daughter, and the heir to the kingdom was now his young grand-daughter. It was a delicate situation and so he decided to try to have a male heir. He himself had been 8 years…
It was during, or at the end of the World War. A young Austrian pianist arrived on a Greek island. He was handsome, and alone. He was talented. The two sisters belonged to the island’s aristocracy. Among their numerous properties, they prefered one they had called “happiness”. It was situated on top of a hill…
Yanni is the head of the largest family on the island of Spetses. He is also one of the most renowned butterfly experts in the Balkans. He is a contemporary of mine, and a friend. His family has an interesting history. In the early 19th century, his ancestors were shipowners. But at the time, there…
Andrew Perry was furious. On one December morning in 1970, Perry, the owner of the only stable in the region that rented its horses out to holiday-goers, discovered that somebody had broken into his stable during the night, saddled his black horse and went riding with it, exhausting it to such an extent that when…
There is an object that goes by the name of the ‘stone of destiny’. It is a rather large, dark grey stone that has been carved into a block and has no ornamentation or inscription on it. It had been custom to use this stone during the coronation ceremonies of the old Kings of Scotland…
Prince Richard Holkar is the only male heir to Indore’s powerful dynasty of maharajahs. It is by no means an ancient dynasty, but revealed itself to be particularly remarkable and marked by rather original figures. Richard’s great-great-grandfather, the Maharajah of the time, was a local boxing champion. …