This article was written by Oskar Aanmoen and originally published in 2016. It has been republished in honour of Halloween.
His Royal Highness Prince Joachim of Denmark formerly lived with his family in a dignified villa in the district of Klampenborg in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen. There, the family lived for two years after they moved from Schackenborg Castle in Jylland. Now, the family has moved back to the castle, with mixed feelings, in 2016.
Scandinavian media wrote early last month that the Prince planned to return to the idyllic castle. But Prince Joachim told that he fears meeting the castle’s ghosts. His Royal Highness explained that he is quite sure that it is the Evil Countess who haunts the castle. He says he has never seen the ghost, but he fears to face the Evil Countess when he does return to the castle.
The Evil Countess, also called “The White Lady”, is said to be the wife of the Schackenborg Castle’s third owner. Legend has it that she tied her lazy housemaid to a chair in front of the stove and went to the church one day. When the Countess returned, it was only a skeleton that remained of the housemaid. When the Countess loosened the rope, the skeleton ran up the stairs of the castle, while it screamed. On top of the stairs, the skeleton fell apart.
This is not the only ghost that supposedly exists at the castle. On a guided tour of Schackenborg Castle a few years ago, a boy began running in the hallway. When people asked him what he was doing, he said that he was playing with an older lady who was also in the corridor. However, no other person could see her. This is, perhaps, the same old lady that the Prince has had an experience with.
The Prince has said that they once had friends visiting who brought their young daughter with them. The daughter stood with Prince Joachim and the other guests inside the kitchen of the castle and looked out into the garden. She asked Prince Joachim whom the woman was standing in the garden, but His Royal Highness or none of the other guests could see a lady in the castle’s garden. Other guests said they often felt someone staring at them, even in rooms that no one else was in.
Prince Joachim and his family will not be permanently at Schackenborg Castle. They will move back there for a few months before they return to Copenhagen. Prince Joachim owned the castle from 1978 to 2014, but in 2014, it was transferred to a fund of which Prince Joachim is the protector.
The family is currently residing in Paris as of autumn 2019.
