The Chamberlain They Had to Burn

The imperial chamberlain Kašpar Rucký, as ill-famed as his predecessor, hanged himself here in the prison in 1612 because he dreaded torture. The executioner threw his corpse out of the tower window and carted it away beyond Strahov; there he hacked off its legs and arms, tore the heart out of the body and beat the corpse about the head with it, and at last chopped the body into pieces and threw it into a pit. And because word then spread that Rucký's ghost was haunting the castle, the executioner had to dig his body up again and burn it.