A Groningen-style spooky experience

Whilst the first stones of this site were laid before 1300, a number of eerie events have since taken place at the Fraeylemaborg . It is even said that the centuries-old estate is haunted. Several people have reported hearing strange, eerie sounds there.

Long ago, in the Middle Ages, the manor was inhabited by various noble families. Wealthy families with servants, maids and stablehands. Staff who could only dream of their employers’ wealth. One day, a theft took place at the Fraeylemaborg. The lady of the manor already knew who the thief was; it was, in fact, her chambermaid. To protect the girl, the lady of the manor told her husband that the son of a servant had committed the theft. Although she pleaded with her husband for a lenient punishment, he would not listen to her. The boy was arrested immediately and his sentence was set at death by hanging. Before the boy was hanged, he shouted his innocence at the top of his voice. It is said that his cries of supplication still echo across the estate.

One of the most famous residents of the manor house was perhaps Henric Piccardt. Whilst studying in France, it was said that Henric pretended to be a vagrant. At the Pont Neuf in Paris, he played his harp and sang to make ends meet. Here, he graduated as a doctor in 1660 and even became a chamberlain to Louis XVI. But when the Sun King discovered Henric’s wandering double life, he was forced to flee back to the Netherlands. He became lord of the Fraeylemaborg , and people can still occasionally hear his harp playing in the manor’s little tower room.

In the past, the estate was surrounded by peat bogs that had not yet been reclaimed. This meant that venturing outside the estate was strongly discouraged. One day, two young children were playing near the manor house. Whilst playing, they didn’t realise they were getting closer and closer to the marsh. Whilst they were having fun, they ended up in the peat bog and drowned. The story goes that when you take children for a walk through the Slochterbos, you can still hear the two children laughing.

The Aeilsgat is a whirlpool situated near the Slaperdijk, in Groningen’s northernmost village: Oudeschip. The whirlpool was formed when the dyke still served as a sea defence. In 1717, a flood occurred at Christmas, causing a mermaid, a ‘zeewiefke’, to be swept from the sea into the whirlpool. After the flood, the dykes were rebuilt, leaving the zeewiefke with nowhere to go. She was trapped in the whirlpool, which made her furious. In the years that followed, the zeewiefke took her revenge. On quiet, misty evenings, a melodious voice can be heard from the whirlpool: ‘The tide is in, but the man is out’. On several occasions, young men vanished into the whirlpool. Sometimes the men would even ride straight towards the whirlpool at full speed, only to meet their deaths by drowning.

On a rainy autumn evening in November, a man is cycling through the Noorderplantsoen. As he cycles past the Lelievijver, he spots a girl standing at the water’s edge. Her clothes are soaked and her hair is wet. The man stops and gets off his bike. He speaks to the girl: “Are you all right? Can I help you?” The girl looks at him with a blank stare and asks if he can take her home. The man agrees and, with the girl on the back of his bike, cycles to Grote Rozenstraat 21, her address. He drops the shivering, wet girl off at the door and cycles on. A few weeks later, the man happens to be cycling down Grote Rozenstraat. He decides to ring the doorbell at number 21 to ask how the girl is getting on. The door is opened by an elderly couple. “Is your daughter home as well?” the man asks them kindly. The couple look startled, and ask him when he saw the girl. It turns out that that chilly November evening was the very date on which their daughter took her own life in the pond. Apparently, she is seen by the pond every year on that specific day in November.