Kempe Castle

The ruin of the former refuge and residential tower, located on the Mulde, near the village of Mahlitzsch, is one of the oldest non-ecclesiastical buildings in the district of Döbeln. The early history of the castle ruin is still documented by a charter from the year 1220, which shows that the castle was the ancestral home of the noble family "von Mals". The building, erected in the 12th century, was long left to decay, so that one can now only guess how large the complex with its cellar, middle, and upper floors once was. Possibly, the current ruin, which rises on a 10-meter-high slate rock and was originally separated from the adjacent terrain by a now-filled ditch on the north and east sides, formed the core of an extensive castle and residential area. The castle was originally only accessible via a high-lying door opening into the first upper floor at the southeast corner and probably formerly had a total of three floors, of which the lower one served as a windowless dungeon. The purpose of the complex was to control the trade routes in the Mulde valley and to provide a safe refuge in turbulent times. The castle had an underground water pipe and could therefore withstand longer sieges. As befits a proper castle, several legends naturally surround the ruin, with the legend of the Kempenjule probably being the most beautiful, romantic, and profound: Once upon a time, a rich knight lived on the Kempe. He had a beautiful daughter named Jule, desired by many young men. One day, a gypsy woman appeared before the castle and asked for alms for herself and her children. The rich knight was very harsh towards the needy woman and had her forcibly removed, without giving her the slightest gift. Enraged by the man's heartlessness and coldness, the woman, powerful in magic, transformed the graceful daughter of the knight forever into a repulsive, terrifying snake. Only one chance was to remain for the girl to escape her eternal fate. Every hundred years, on New Year's Eve from one century to the next, she could be redeemed by a kiss from a brave young man, if he met the snake exactly at midnight and approached her fearlessly. Meanwhile, many centuries have passed since the girl was transformed into a snake, and many young men have failed. Each time the snake coiled up one of the young heroes and hissed at him with her forked tongue in the pale moonlight, he was so frightened that he fled the eerie place. The failed men were reluctant to talk about their failure. But the snake is said to still exist in the castle walls today. The area around the ruin is now also called the "Kempenjule".