The White Lady is one of Germany's most famous ghosts. The heavily weathered Gothic Martyrdom stands at the site of her death.
According to legend, Kunigunde von Orlamünde, who was widowed early on, heard that Albrecht, Burgrave of Nuremberg, was interested in her. However, he had objected: "Four eyes stand between us." From this, Kunigunde deduced that she had two children from her first marriage and killed them by stabbing them in the brain. Now Albrecht turned away in horror, he had meant his parents. Kunigunde then made a pilgrimage to Rome to seek absolution from the Pope. He granted it with one condition: Kunigunde should found a monastery and enter it himself. So she founded the Himmelkron monastery and slid down from her home, the Plassenburg, to her foundation on her knees. Shortly before she reached her destination, she died at the spot where the torture is today. After that, Kunigunde appeared as a white woman on the castles of the Hohenzollerns, the descendants of Burgrave Albrecht, to announce an imminent misfortune. It is said to have appeared at the Plassenburg, in Ansbach, in Berlin and Rudolstadt, and is also associated with Lauenstein Castle.
The actual Kunigunde von Orlamünde (circa 1303 to 1382) was actually a widow after the death of her husband Otto. And she spent her last years in the monastery. There are no more similarities with the legend. Kunigunde had no children and did not found the Himmelkron Monastery - which had existed since 1279 - but rather the Himmelthron, which she entered and became an abbess. Her tombstone can still be found there.