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Goldemar is the invisible guest of Hardenstein Castle, beside the Ruhr at Witten. In the surviving folklore he shares a nobleman’s domestic life, plays music, exposes concealed wrongdoing and, in one version, leaves a curse after a servant tries to reveal him. The case concerns a place-specific household-spirit tradition. The reviewed sources do not establish a contemporary investigation, an authenticated killing or a dated supernatural encounter.
The distinction between versions is central. H. Stahl’s 1831 collection prints a friendly Goldemar story followed by another account about King Vollmar. The first ends with an uneventful departure; the second ends in violence. They should not be flattened into one eyewitness narrative. Later German and English collections preserve much the same contrast, while modern local storytelling combines elements into a more continuous dramatic tale.
The invisible companion in the 1831 collection
H. Stahl was the pen name of Jodocus Temme. His Westphälische Sagen und Geschichten includes the complete Hardenstein entry on pages 113–115. Its first narrative places the story in the time of Emperor Wenceslaus and names the castle’s knight as Neveling von Hardenberg. This is the tale’s historical setting, rather than a date independently established for Goldemar’s arrival.
Goldemar introduces himself as a king and becomes an intimate companion. He converses with people, plays the harp, wagers money at dice, drinks wine and sometimes shares Neveling’s bed. His relationship with the household is unusually familiar for an unseen presence: he calls the knight his brother-in-law and warns him about enemies. The narrator also mentions speculation that Neveling’s attractive sister explains the guest’s attachment to the castle.
The visitor can apparently disclose secrets, embarrassing clerical guests with their hidden sins. He teaches Neveling a religious formula. Yet the account offers no independently recorded test of this knowledge. His hands may be touched and are described through comparisons with small animals, cold and soft, while his body remains invisible. After three years, this Goldemar goes away without harming anyone. That ending belongs to the printed story as much as its marvellous details do.
Vollmar and the forbidden experiment
Temme then explicitly introduces a different telling. Here the guest is King Vollmar, with a chamber bearing his name. He requires a place at table and a stall for his horse. Food, oats and hay disappear, although the account says only shadows of the guest and animal are seen. Consumption supplies a narrative sign of presence, not a controlled measurement with an identified observer and recorded exclusions.
A curious kitchen boy scatters peas and ashes, hoping to make the visitor fall and expose his footprints. The attempted revelation provokes a gruesome retaliation. The boy is killed and his remains cooked, then carried to Vollmar’s chamber, where sounds of celebration are heard. The spirit is no longer sensed afterwards. These are narrated acts within a legend; the reviewed collection supplies no victim’s name, inquest or corroborating criminal record.
An inscription over the chamber door announces that the household’s fortunes will reverse. Its scattered property will be reunited only when three Hardenbergs of Hardenstein are alive together. The story also attaches itself to objects: a spit and grate reportedly survived until they were taken in 1651, while a pot was said to remain built into the kitchen. The precise year concerns the narrated loss of relics, not a verified date for the spirit’s residence or the boy’s death.
What repeated publication establishes
Temme cites von Steinen, volume IV, pages 777–779, at the end of the entry. That is an important lead towards an earlier textual source. The underlying von Steinen pages have not been independently examined for this article, so their citation is not presented as a separate verified witness account. The directly reviewed evidence is the complete 1831 entry, with its two narratives and its stated reference.
Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, in the discussion of household spirits within the chapter on Wichte und Elbe, also preserves the peaceful three-year companionship and then the Vollmar alternative. It repeats the table, horse, attempted footprint trap, violent departure and household curse, and refers to von Steinen. Grimm places the story among wider beliefs about helpful domestic beings that can turn destructive when offended. That classification is his comparative interpretation of folklore.
Thomas Keightley’s The Fairy Mythology provides an English retelling under King Goldemar, on pages 256–257 of the reviewed 1892 edition. It likewise moves from the friendly companion to the darker Vollmar story. Small wording differences remain: its trap uses ashes and tares, where the reviewed German accounts specify peas and ashes. This is a reason to retain the identity and wording of each source rather than silently treating every rendering as identical.
The recurrence of the same unusual sequence is evidence of literary transmission and the durability of a local tradition. It does not turn three collectors into three independent witnesses to an invisible guest. Nor does the loss of supposed relics authenticate the relics’ original connection with the tale. The reviewed texts describe objects within the story; no surviving pot or utensil has been examined here as forensic evidence.
The story at the modern ruin
The Burgfreunde Hardenstein association reproduces a later telling credited to Dirk Sondermann’s Das große Bochumer Sagenbuch. It combines the friendly companion with the kitchen revenge and adds a theatrical scene involving a concealed boy, a fall and an invisibility cap. Its curse is explained through three generations living together. This is useful evidence of the legend’s later presentation, not an additional medieval deposition.
The NRW-Stiftung describes a castle developed from around the middle of the fourteenth century, altered over time and increasingly ruined in later centuries. It credits the preservation association with securing the remains, and records further repairs after a wall collapsed in 2010. This documented history of a building has its own causes and chronology. A story explaining decline through a supernatural curse should not replace that account of occupation, abandonment and conservation.
Location, access and assessment
Stadtmarketing Witten lists the ruin at Hardensteiner Weg as freely accessible. This identifies a public heritage destination, rather than a private household open for investigation. The association’s current visitor notice prohibits camping, fires, barbecues and private celebrations and requires dogs to be kept on leads. Its posted rules and any local restrictions should be followed; the tourist office’s opening hours are not castle opening hours.
The map uses an approximate castle reference at 51.421°N, 7.301°E, rounded from the Commons monument coordinates. It does not locate an authenticated kitchen, bedchamber, footprint trap or apparition. The photograph shows the lower gate in June 2025 and serves as modern architectural context. Neither the photograph nor the pin supplies evidence for the legendary events.
The supported conclusion is insufficient evidence for a historical supernatural occurrence, alongside strong evidence for a recorded Hardenstein folklore tradition. Its most revealing feature is the unresolved difference between a harmless departing companion and a murderous offended guest. Preserving both makes the source history clearer than assigning the tale a precise incident year or presenting the curse as an established explanation of the castle’s fate.
Sources and further reading
Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, 1892 edition, pp256–257: complete King Goldemar section
Burgfreunde Hardenstein: later Goldemar retelling credited to Dirk Sondermann
NRW-Stiftung: castle history, conservation and restoration
Stadtmarketing Witten: public castle destination and access
Burgfreunde Hardenstein: current visitor rules for the protected ruin
Wikimedia Commons, Burg Hardenstein: monument coordinates and geography
DiAuras, Burg Hardenstein lower gate, 17June2025: own photograph, CC BY-SA4.0
Visit Hardenstein Castle ruins, Witten
Stadtmarketing Witten lists the ruin at Hardensteiner Weg as freely accessible. Follow current on-site restrictions and the preservation association’s rules: no camping, fires, barbecues or private celebrations; dogs on leads. No access to a specific legendary room is authenticated. Tourist-office hours are not castle opening hours.
Official visitor information → · Access information checked 2026-11-13. Check current opening and booking details before travelling.
Share an experience here →Experiences at Hardenstein Castle ruins, Witten
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