A Tale of Love from Birinu Castle

  • 2005-08-03
There were three children in the family of Alexander and Eleanor Pistolkorss - a daughter and two sons. Both boys were close friends from early childhood. They studied together at the local school and later at university.

The elder son, Erik, loved a party and gathered around him lively friends and people who shared his interest in a good time. But Max left for the Caucasus to participate in army maneuvers. One day, the family received a tragic message that Max had committed suicide at the place where he was serving in the Caucasus. His brother's death shook Erik to his core and he fell into a deep depression. Only through the care of his relatives and the peace of his home at Birini Castle was he able to slowly get better.

Erik's sister Renate had a lovely maid whose primary task during Erik's illness was to care for him. Soon his family noticed that the relationship between both young people went further than simple friendship. When Erik announced his wish to marry the servant girl, his family could not believe it. His mother would not even consider the possibility that her son could marry a girl from a lower class, and hoping the girl would leave the manor in shame, decided to use lies and treachery against her. She wrote a fake letter supposedly composed by Erik which told the servant girl that he had decided to marry a woman of his own class. Unfortunately, no one knew that the girl was pregnant. Unable to endure the bitter disappointment and oncoming hardships that a child out of wedlock would involve, she hung herself in one of the rooms of the castle. This tragedy almost drove Erik insane. Not able to imagine his life without his beloved, he shot himself in the manor park in the winter of 1912.

At that time men who had taken their own lives were not allowed to be buried in the cemetery, but since the young baron belonged to a higher class, he was buried in the family crypt and a priest read the service for the dead. No service was held for the young maid. Perhaps for this reason, to this day when there is a full moon, her ghost is said to wander through the castle searching for her beloved.