Castle Grunsfoort | The White Miss - Renkum

On the Grunsfoort meadow there are low stone structures. They indicate the size of the former Grunsfoort Castle, an important castle in the Duchy of Gelre. There lived an unkind, miserly nobleman and his daughter, the "white miss".

The nobleman made people work for him until they literally grew crooked. He did not pay them. Under the guise of so-called 'vroondiensten' or 'herendiensten', it was common for people in the lower classes to work for the noblemen. All day, they had to plough, sow, harrow, chop wood, cut sods and mow the heath. In the evening, when the peasants were exhausted, they had to take care that the cats did not meow and the frogs did not croak, otherwise the nobleman and his family could not sleep. If there was nothing to do in the fields, they had to help with the hunting.

Unfortunately, the daughter had inherited many of his traits. When she went to church on Sunday, the poor peasants had to make sure there was a white linen runner between the castle and the church. She didn't want to get her delicate shoes dirty, especially with the earth from the churchyard surrounding the church.

When she finally died, no one seemed to mourn her. She was buried with grace by six barons because she was a noblewoman, but the next day the white missus stood in her coffin outside the churchyard. She was buried again, this time by the local peasants and a lot deeper than the last time. But the next day the coffin was outside the fence again. When she was alive, she did not want to touch the cemetery, now the cemetery did not want her anymore.

They decided to put the coffin on a cart with a horse in front of it and see what happened. The horse bolted, kicked off the cart at a stream and the coffin disappeared into the stream. But at full moon, when the moon colours the water white like a linen runner, you can see the missus running. Then beware, for she was an evil woman...