Houska Castle, Czech Republic

Houska Castle is shrouded in nightmarish myth, and occultist legend.

Located about an hour north of Prague, and hidden by thick forestry, Houska Castle has no fortifications, no kitchen, and had no occupants when it was built.

It does, however, have something within its walls that no other castle in the world has ~ a large hole in the ground that many consider is the gateway to hell.....

Locals believed this gateway to Hell, allowed demonic beings to emerge and feed on the villagers.
It would drag them into the abyss, never to be seen again.

Locals were so terrified of the half-human hybrids that began to crawl out of the hole at night, and fearful of turning into these demonic entities themselves, the villagers avoided the rocky entrance altogether.

They tried to block it with stones, but the abyss allegedly gobbled up anything they dropped into it, refusing to be filled.

King Ottokar II of Bohemia, had the gothic castle built sometime between 1253 and 1278.

Oddly, the original construction omitted stairs from the courtyard to the upper floors, and most of the structure's defenses were built facing inwards.

It was as if the purpose of the castle wasn't to keep invaders out but rather to keep something trapped within......

The king had the gateway to Hell sealed with stone plates, and had a chapel built above it.

The chapel was dedicated to the Archangel Michael, who led God's armies against Lucifer's fallen angels.

This led some to believe the gateway truly existed.....and still does.

Here's where the story gets really creepy:
Before sealing it off, nearby prisoners were granted pardons if they would agree to be lowered into the hole by a rope, and report back what they saw.

When the first prisoner was lowered, he started screaming after a few seconds.

The story goes, that when he was raised back up, his hair had turned white, and he appeared to have aged 30 years!!!

The prisoner's traumatising descent allegedly saw him taken into an insane asylum, where died a few days later.

 The castle has been open to the public since 1999.
Many visitors are baffled by its counterintuitive architecture, and unnerved by the fresco paintings in the chapel.

The strangest of these paintings depicts a creature with the upper body of a human woman, and the lower body of a horse.

It was virtually unheard of at the time, to include depictions of pagan mythology in a church.
Even more sinister, is the fact that the centaur is using its left hand to shoot an arrow.

Left-handedness was associated with service to Satan in the Middle Ages.

Historians believe the painting is a hint to the creatures that lurk beneath the church.
To this day, visitors claim to hear screams and scratching noises, coming from beneath the chapel floor......