The Lady of the Marsh

The Lady of the Marsh is a story from the region between Wien in Austria & the Avars to the east over the border. The story foes was that some of the Avars that had settled the lands had tried to make make peace with their neighbours, yje Franks. By doing so they had hoped to buy time at least to build up their forces & secure resources from the Franks. The idea was to marry some of their noble daughters to some of the richer male nobles from Wien and its surrounding terrain.
One was a young girl, only 16 years of age, due to marry a nobleman from outside Wien twice her age called Adolf. Her name may not be recorded but she would still live on in local legend creating a cautionary tale, and one to warn of the dangers of of mismatching suitors.
To all who knew him, Adolf was a cruel man with plenty of mistresses and a large fortune as well as lands. Local ladies were forever being offered to him but he always wanted better. He had a temper too, and suspicion fell on him when his first wife, Edel, died. She was from a minor noble family and when she was found battered & bruised in the stables the official line was that she was trampled to death. This was contested by her family saying the marks on her body looked diffrent to hoof prints. Nobody else would agree, and it was suspected Adolf's family had paid off them. Even the family started to change their opinion when small plots of land and slight increases in wealth started to be passed their way.
After a few years, the local council of counts had met to get an idea together to deal with the Avars. Spies & scouts had returned to say that massive waves of the Avars had started to move into the region to the east. The Austrian branch of the Franks decided to try diplomacy first to stall the Avars, sending diplomats to them to try to gauge the numbers & makeup of them. Most returned giving the counts ideas how to best deal with them. All the while the Avars were planning on doing the same. So both sides had decided independently to send gifts & marriage propsals, with the Avars getting the drop on the Franks.
Adolf was one of the local nobles to be chosen to take a new bride, partly for the fact that he was without an heir, and a young enough bride might bear him such. Also, there was the suspicion that he was the sort that preferred younger women.
Sending information back & forth, both sides thought they had found the perfect match between them. They had decided that she should marry Adolf in the middle of summer at his riverside chapel near the Danube. Most of the land had been cultivated in some way by the Franks but the part that sat closer to the border was swampy and kept that way to slow down any invasion coming that way.
What the Avars didn't know was the temper of Adolf and what he was capable of. A day after the wedding Adolf was in his usual foul mood, and had his paranoid belief that his new bride was in love with one of the retinue of Avars. Feeling slighted, he went to the matrimial bedchambers that night and proceeded to beat her to death.
To quickly cover up the crime, those closest to Adolf quickly spread the rumour that the girl had ran away with the Avars who had moved back east earlier that day. They spirited her body away to the swamps and slipped the weighted body into the muck of the centre of it.
What happened a month later terrified everyone involved. Most of the co-conspirators & Adolf himself were dealing with bandits in the swamp, and the odd Avar incursion who had their suspicions about what happened. On the night of the first full moon while they were out in this swamp, a watersoaked spectre of a young lady crawled out of the murky water and started to kill of the group. Over the case of two full days she sucked the lifeforce out of each, leaving Adolf to the last.
Unable to escape, with the swamp appearing to warp & thick fog appearing, the spectre of the lady in the dirty wedding clothes attacked Adolf. Nothing could stop her and Adolf died horrified.
The remaining co-conspiriters were part of the search group, and upon seeing the spectral lady themselves, they fled before she reached them. Returning to safety they admitted what had transpired. Being excuted as punishment for being involved in the murder, and covering it up, Adolf's remaining estate was stripped and a portion of the monies raised from it was sent to the Avars as compensation.
With her body never found and given a proper burial, the young lady still haunts the swamp and looks to kill those she feels betrayed her, her people and those that treat others despicably.

"I've encountered the Lady of the Marsh once, a few months ago. Less active now but still there. Gliding through the marshy land, and unaffected by the waters. At first looking beatiful in her finery & at a distance. Only when she gets closer you see the encrusted muck, and the bruises, and the fact there is an etherealiness about her. Almost as if she's insubstantial. Nobody has found her body, even when those that placed her body in that place pointed out the part. Nothing, nothing whatsoever.
If you have evil in you're heart, and the urge to do harm to those closer to you, never go near that place. She seems to rise now when she senses it. Like an avenging spectre of death, there to draw out your spirit for your sins. That's how I encountered her that one time. Retrieving the remains of one who had been 'absolved' by her.
Suppose you could avoid the region entirely. Just to be sure."
Jarl Hundi Gunthr of Wien, talking to the constable of the peace.