During the times of Maria Theresa the White Tower called "Daliborka" in the neighbourhood of the County of Prague got an unusual prisoner: it was a young woman, who couldn't suffer the eternal surliness of her aged husband anymore, and so she found a consolation with a young huntsman who wanted to marry her. Her husband's name was Knight Ign�tz Josef �eho� Zahr�dka Sovnisk� from Aulensfeld, but in the whole district he was known foremost as a skinflint, miser, and a jealous person. His wife tried to resist the temptation for a long time, but in the end she couldn't bear the constant reprimands and arguments, and so in despair she hired a murderer, who one day without a long consideration sent the old man into the other world.

The wrongful act came into light, the woman, crying, confessed to everything, and then one thing followed another quickly: she was put to prison and as the lead architect of the crime she was sentenced to the penalty of death.

The young nobleman rencounced her, so as to save his own skin, and the convicted woman suffered such hard moments in the prison that in the end she lost her mind; the reproaches of conscience had tormented her so strongly that she waited for death like for a liberation. But the verdict was sent to the Empress to be signed, and she in a haste didn't notice the small note, written in a miniature handwriting, that the convicted woman had lost her mind before the verdict was passed; and so it happenned that she sanctioned the decision of the court with one scratch of her pen. Otherwise, the poor woman would probably be imprisoned for the rest of her life, because insane people were not punished by death: it was generally believed then that one does not have the right to punish with the highest punishment where fate itself had already punished. But there was no way out, the verdict was confirmed, the convicted woman was led out to the county's courtyard and there the executioner's sword had ended her suffering.

The Empress found out too late that by her signature she sent to death an insane lady, and she felt very sorry for it; it is said that at that time in repentance she made a decision to never again during her entire lifetime sign another death sentence, so as to avoid making a similar mistake, and she had kept her promise.

But regret came too late - to the murderess as well as to the Empress; and there was only a memory was left about which people used to tell each other stories during the long winter evenings. So that the sad event wouldn't be forgotten, the Count had ordered a little green tree to be planted at the spot where Lady Elisabeth had died - a little walnut tree.

The slender trunk of the tree grew steadily, its branches spread, until it became a big and wide-branched tree. As a show of respect to the memory of the insane lady and her bad fate the people then called it Zahr�dka*, and the walnut tree stood there for many long years thereafter, until it was cut down due to its old age. But it is written elsewhere that because of her insanity the lady got mercy for her death sentence and that as the last prisoner of Daliborka she lived in to be eighty years old in the sad walls of this tower.

It is also told that the unhappy woman drew with churned wood the image of her beloved on the prison wall, so that she wouldn't be so alone, and his heart she coloured with her own blood.