Hochosterwitz Castle (, ) is a castle in Austria, considered one of Austria's most impressive medieval castles. It is on a high dolomite rock near Sankt Georgen am Längsee, east of the town of Sankt Veit an der Glan in Carinthia. The rock castle is one of the state's landmarks and a major tourist attraction. Location Hochosterwitz is above sea level on the rim of the historic Zollfeld plain north of Magdalensberg, about east of Sankt Veit. It can be seen from a distance of up to on a clear day. History A settlement site since the Bronze Age, the rock was first mentioned in an 860 deed issued by Louis the German, King of East Francia, donating several of his properties in the former principality of Carantania to the Archdiocese of Salzburg. It was then named ‘Astarwiza’, its name being of Slavic origin. It remained a Salzburg possession, until in the 11th century Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg ceded the castle to the descendants of Count Siegfried of Sponheim in return for their support during the Investiture Controversy. After Siegfried's grandson Henry IV became Duke of Carinthia in 1122, the Sponheim rulers were able to shake off the Salzburg overlordship. Later they bestowed the fiefdom upon the ministeriales of the Osterwitz noble family, possibly a cadet branch of the Sponheim dynasty. In 1209 one Herman of Osterwitz, who held the hereditary office of the cup-bearer at the ducal court in Sankt Veit, accompanied Duke Bernhard of Carinthia to the coronation of Emperor Otto IV in Rome. In his book Change the Austro-American psychologist Paul Watzlawick (1921–2007) renders a popular tale of the siege of the castle by the troops of Countess Margaret of Tyrol (Margarethe Maultasch). According to legend first noted by the medieval chronicler Jakob Unrest and later by Jacob Grimm, Margaret, cheated by the Austrian House of Habsburg of her inheritance claims to Carinthia upon her father's death in 1335, invaded the duchy; her forces were however deceived and withdrew when the garrison of Hochosterwitz slaughtered its last ox, filled it with corn and threw it over the wall, pretending it still had so many provisions in stock that they could be used as projectiles. The tale is a common topic in the Eastern Alpine region, and it is known in many variations, with different characters. In the 15th century, the last Carinthian cup-bearer, Georg of Osterwitz was