Austrian sex dungeon victim Elisabeth Fritzl is 'teaching her children to play'

Incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl is teaching her children to how to play after they spent their entire lives imprisoned in their underground dungeon.

Psychiatrists found Elisabeth's three 'cellar children' had no concept of 'play' after a lifetime spent in the cell constructed by their sick father.

So brave Elisabeth is showing them how to swim, run and even rollerblade, hospital staff revealed today.

And her son Stefan has been so overwhelmed by the natural world that he wants to become a gardener, explained one of his police bodyguards.

Elisabeth spent 24 years in the dungeon in Amstetten, Austria, where she was repeatedly raped by her evil father Josef Fritzl, who fathered seven children, one of whom died days after birth, with her.

Three were taken to live upstairs with him while the others - Felix, five, Kerstin, 19, and Stefan, 18 - were condemned to a life in their mother's cell.

Now Elisabeth is teaching them how to do all the things normal children take for granted as they live together in a specially adapted villa in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital.

One of the family's police bodyguards revealed how Stefan would simply stop and stare at trees when he saw them for the first time.

'I remember when we went for a walk on the clinic premises for the first time.

'When Stefan stood under the massive trees there, he looked up into the treetops and said he wants to become a gardener.

Dungeon: Elisabeth spent 24 years imprisoned in this cellar in Amstetten, Austria

'He was simply so fascinated by them and could not believe how huge they grew.

'He was fascinated by the fact that the branches loom so high in the air,' one of their protection team Franz Prankl told Austrian media.

And Elisabeth often startles patients and staff at the clinic when she races around the grounds with her children on rollerblade skates.

Monster: Josef Fritzl was the father of Elisabeth's seven children

Hospital official Fritz Lengauer told Austrian media: 'She does a lot of inline skating and they're always overtaking people walking in the grounds and they usually have no idea who they are.'

Passers-by at the family's villa say they can hear the sound of children laughing and screaming with delight as they play together.

'It lifts your heart to hear these children playing and having so much fun after such a sad start in life. Their mother is a miracle worker.

'You can hear them splashing and just screaming their heads off at the thrill of being outside,' said one.

Bodyguard Prankl said Elisabeth's courage has been passed on to all her children.

'I always asked myself how she can be so strong. Where does she get this energy which gets carried over to the children?

'I think Elisabeth was always sure she would be released from her torture imprisonment one day.'