The Haunting of the Frick Stairs: Bern’s Processions of Demise and Ghosts of Murderesses

February 12, 2026

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There may be not a single ghost story in regards to the Frick Stairs in Bern, there’s a plethora. Tales of girls murdering their youngsters and horrible funeral processions that left the spectators in shock is claimed to have walked up and down the steps for hundreds of years.

Between the Matte district and the cathedral heights, the outdated and wood Frick Stairs in Bern seem like nothing greater than one other steep passageway of stone steps, worn by centuries of footsteps. By day, they’re bizarre, a shortcut for locals overlooking the Aare River coming all the way down to the river from Münsterplatz. However when town quiets and the cathedral clock strikes midnight, the steps reveal their darker legacy.

Learn Extra: Try all ghost tales from Switzerland

The place Munsterplatz turns into Herrengasse, at #1, is the Fricktreppe, a lined wood staircase, connecting the higher city with the Matte district. The staircase, with its 183 wood steps, dates again to the 14th century. Ghostly processions, murdered youngsters, and stressed spirits are mentioned to hang-out this slender stairway, the place Bern’s sins of cruelty and bloodshed play out time and again.

Hans Franz Nägeli: (c. 1497 – 9 January 1579) was a Swiss politician, military leader and diplomat who was a prominent force in Bern for four decades. He was the Schultheiß, or the chief magistrate, of Bern from 1540 to 1568. — Supply

The Funeral Procession of the Mutilated

Maybe essentially the most instructed ghost tales from these specific stairs is about The Stressed Spirit of Hans Franz Nägeli, so take a look at the legend about him and who he was in life. He’s actually not the one ghost mentioned to linger on the steps nevertheless, though the others stay anonymous and largely forgotten. .

Some of the chilling tales tells of a laundress returning residence at midnight after a shift of ironing. As she climbed the Frick Stairs, she was all of the sudden surrounded by a silent funeral procession. A policeman led the best way, adopted by six bearers carrying a black coffin. Behind them got here 4 youngsters with horribly mutilated heads, after which adopted an limitless line of what she described as twisted dwarves and cripples, limping and staggering ahead in silence.

The parade of the grotesque appeared to go on perpetually, filling the stairway with a suffocating terror. The laundress set free a scream and collapsed, later falling right into a fever that consumed her for months. And though there are tales about unusual funeral processions which have been seen round Bern, this actually

The Girl With the Severed Head

One other story tells of a poor musician making his manner down the steps at midnight on his strategy to his lodgings. There, he encountered a younger lady in peasant gown, however her head was gone. As an alternative, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, whereas bats whirled and screeched within the bloody house the place her head ought to have been. Horrified, the musician fled to an inn within the Matte and instructed his story. A narrative that was in line with these sources, a well-known one for the locals.

They instructed him that the girl was the ghost of an executed murderess who was convicted of infanticide, condemned to roam perpetually with the souls of her slain youngsters, who took the type of bats. However because the story would have it, she was apparently not the one lady haunting the steps due to murdering youngsters.

The Girl in White Murdering her Baby

On different nights, witnesses have reported seeing a pale, slender lady in white, drifting up the steps with a toddler by her hand. Each baby and mom are mentioned to put on clothes trailing behind them. Might this be the identical lady mentioned to wander the steps together with her head underneath her arms? The 2 tales have actually the identical motive for the haunting.

The 2 transfer in silence, the hems of their lengthy clothes brushing the stone. They vanish by means of a doorway within the outdated monastery wall, however simply earlier than disappearing, the girl stops. She turns to her baby, gazes at it for a protracted, dreadful second, after which twists the kid’s head till it snaps. A scream echoes by means of the evening, adopted by silence. When horrified onlookers rush to the spot, nothing stays.

Some declare the girl was the disgraced daughter of a nobleman, cursed to reenact her unspeakable crime for eternity. Might there be two separate ghosts accused of infacide? Or is it the foundation of the haunting primarily based on the identical horrible tragedy? Reality will maybe by no means be identified utterly, and all we’ve to invest on are tales and rumors.

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