Some Castles Are Just Ruins.
Some castles remain intact.
Others become ruins.
Mirów Castle belongs to the second group. What stands today are broken walls, exposed stone, and gaps where structure once existed. Around those remains, a story has continued to circulate.
The legend takes place during the Swedish invasions of Poland in the 17th century, when castles and churches across the region were looted. According to the story, a nobleman named Count Hieronim Kreutz chose not to flee Mirów Castle. Instead, he prepared for the invasion.
The legend says he gathered a small group of trusted men, sworn to silence, and had underground chambers carved beneath the castle. These spaces were filled with valuables: gold, silver, precious stones, and family heirlooms — everything he was unwilling to lose. When Swedish forces arrived, the castle was taken and left to decay. The chambers, however, were sealed.
The count either died or disappeared. If a map existed, it vanished with him.
What followed is central to the legend. The treasure was never found. People searched. People continue to search. But the underground chambers — if they exist — have never been uncovered.
There is, however, a critical detail. No historical records confirm that Count Hieronim Kreutz ever lived. His name doesn’t appear in archives, family trees, or contemporary documents. From a historical perspective, he seems to be a fictional figure — a character created by the story itself.
What is historically confirmed is that Mirów Castle existed, that Swedish troops passed through the region, and that the castle was damaged and eventually abandoned. The rest occupies the space between documented history and collective imagination.
That may be why the legend survives. With the castle already reduced to ruins, the story becomes what remains. The possibility that something valuable still lies beneath the stone gives the site a different kind of presence.
At a certain point, the legend stops being about gold. It becomes about belief — about the need to imagine that something endures beneath collapse. The treasure matters less than the idea that it might still be there.
That is what drew me in. The image of a nobleman sealing away his possessions — a man who may never have existed, protecting something that may never have been real — feels less like folklore and more like a reflection of how stories function. We hold onto them even when proof is missing. We return to places not for certainty, but for the possibility that something remains hidden.
Mirów Castle stands as it always has in recent centuries — unfinished, fragmented, silent.
And the legend continues to sit beneath it, unresolved.
text by nOT
References:
