The Bloody Baron

                                        Picture credit goes to Signe Røntved Jeppesen.

The Bloody Baron

When Leslie first told me about The Bloody Baron, I just rolled my eyes and let her jab on, as my mum always told me to at least pretend to listen because it would give me an advantage with the ladies. Bless her! Anyway, I learned that this lad was in fact no baron at all; he was an Italian duke, but for some reason, the Dreadful Duke just never really caught on. He was known for his bad temper and many marriages, with several of his wives suffering mysterious and premature deaths, and it has long been speculated that he murdered them in fits of jealous rage. Allegedly, he poisoned one of his wives simply because she was too flirty, and then mixed her blood with the paint that went into her memorial painting. The legend goes that, if you stand in front of the painting and say ‘il barone rosso’ three times, his spirit will appear, angry at being called baron instead of duke. Though, other sources claim that it is the spirit of the murdered wife that appears, which I guess makes more sense since it is her blood. In any case, the deal with the blood cannot be agreed upon because the current owner refuses to have it tested because she likes the mystery surrounding the painting and the hordes of tourists and money it brings. I remember thinking that that was a fucking clever way to exploit gullible twats.

So, when Leslie, a sucker for all things supernatural, found out I was going to Italy on holiday, she convinced my mum that we should stay at the Ferrara Mansion, now a bed and breakfast, because of the “amazing scenery and local cuisine”. She then made me promise to film myself testing the legend for her blog. Because I'm a sceptic and the only thing that brings me joy is to debunk that stupid girl’s nonsense, I agreed and promptly received a lesson in ghost etiquette. Not joking, the girl was serious! Apparently, politeness is top priority when dealing with the supernatural... Jesus!

Admittedly, as I was sneaking out of my room, feeling like one of those gullible twats, adrenaline started to kick in – not because I was scared of ghosts, I was more nervous about being discovered in the dining room at night in my boxers. The owner already hated me because I ALMOST knocked over some stupid old vase, and I did not want to add lurking creep to her list. As I stood in front of the painting - pretty gal by the way - I laughed at the thought of how the fuck I would even communicate with an Italian ghost with my limited language skills, let alone be polite. Nevertheless, I turned on my camera and cleared my throat;

“Il barone rosso, il barone rosso… il barone rosso”.

I waited a few minutes. Nothing. What a waste of time I could have spent sleeping. I turned off the camera and turned away from the painting, but as I did so, I heard a faint creaking noise and I nearly fucking pissed myself.

“Buona sera, signore”.