Chapter Whistle to White Lady of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

White King, the title of the emperor of Muscovy, from the white robes which these kings were accustomed to use.

Sunt qui principem Moscoviæ Album Regem nuncupant. Ego quidem causam diligenter quærebam, cur regis albi nomine appellaretur cum nemo principum Moscoviæ eo titulo antea [Basilius Ivanwick] esset usus.…Credo autem ut Persam nunc propter rubea tegumenta capitis “Kissilpassa” (i.e rubeum cuput) vocant; ita reges Moscoviæ propter alba tegumenta “Albos Reges” appellari.—Sigismund.

(Perhaps it may be explained thus: Muscovy is always called “Russia Alba,” as Poland is called “Black Russia.”)

White King (The). Charles I. is so called by Herbert. His robe of state was white instead of purple. At his funeral the snow fell so thick upon the pall that it was quite white.—Herbert: Memoirs (1764).

White Lady (The), “La Dame d’Aprigny,” a Norman fée, who used to occupy the site of the present Rue de St. Quentin; at Bayeux.

La Dame Abonde, also a Norman fée.

Vocant dominam Abundiam pro eo quod domibus, quas frequentant, abundantiam bonorum temporalium præstare putantur non aliter tibi sentiendum est neque aliter quam quemadmodum de illis audivisti.—William of Auvergne (1248).

White Lady (The), a ghost seen in different castles and palaces belonging to the royal family of Prussia, and supposed to forebode the death of some of the royal family, especially one of the children. The last appearance was in 1879, just prior to the death of prince Waldemar. Twice she has been heard to speak, e.g.: In December, 1628, she appeared in the palace at Berlin, and said in Latin, “I wait for judgment;” and once at the castle of Neuhaus, in Bohemia, when she said to the princess, in German, “It is ten o’clock;” and the lady addressed died in a few weeks.

There are, in fact, two white ladies: one the countess Agnes of Orlamunde; and the other the princess Bertha von Rosenberg, who lived in the fifteenth century. The former was buried alive in a vault in the palace. She was the mistress of a margrave of Brandenburgh, by whom she had two sons. When the prince became a widower, Agnes thought he would marry her, but he made the sons an objection, and she poisoned them, for which crime she was buried alive. Another version is that she fell in love with the prince of Parma, and made away with her two daughters, who were an obstacle to her marriage, for which crime she was doomed to “walk the earth” as an apparition.

The princess Bertha is troubled because an annual gift, which she left to the poor, has been discontinued. She appears dressed in white, and carrying at her side a bunch of keys.

It may interest those who happen to be learned in Berli-legends, to know that the White Lady, whose visits always precede the death of some member of the royal family, was seen on the eve of prince Waldemar’s death. A soldier on guard at the old castle was the witness of the apparition, and in his fright fled to the guard-room, where he was at once arrested for deserting his post.—Brief, April 4, 1879.