Mr. Twardowski, Polish Legend

The Cloth Hall in Krakow, Poland, is one of the city’s most recognizable icons. It is the central feature of the main market square in the Old Town and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978. It was once a major center of international trade. Traveling merchants met there to discuss business and to barter. This brings us to a legend of one of the nobleman from the city.

Mr. Twardowski was a nobleman from Krakow who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for magical powers and vast knowledge. Twardowski made sure to add that the only condition under which the Devil may claim his soul was when Twardowski set foot in Rome, which the nobleman had no intention of doing. Henceforth, Twardwoski gained fame as a powerful sorcerer, even becoming one of King Sigismund Augustus’ favored subjects after conjuring the spirit of the grieving ruler’s deceased wife. Twardowski continued to perform his magic for many years until the Devil lured him to an inn, supposedly to save a dying man. As soon as he stepped inside, the Devil grabbed hold of him and said the inn was called Rome. As Twardowski was being carried away, he prayed to the Virgin Mary for mercy; the Devil dropped him onto the Moon, where he remains to this day.

                                         The Cloth Hall

 

Raven King, Polish Legend

The city of Poznan located in western Poland is proud of its Town Hall decorating the Old Town. The Town Hall has a long tradition of a trumpeter call, which is connected with a legend.

Long ago, there lived a boy in Poznan named Bolko, whose father was a city guard. One day, Bolko happened upon an injured raven. He took the bird home, fixed its broken wing and nursed it back to health.

One night, he noticed a gnome sitting on the stool where the raven’s cage had been. The gnome thanked the boy for saving his life, saying he was the Raven King. In gratitude, he gave Bolko a silver trumpet with which he could call him whenever he was in dire need of help. With that, the gnome turned back into a raven and flew away.

Years went by, and one night a foreign army laid siege to Poznan. Bolko, now himself a city guard, remembered the Raven King’s gift. He blew the trumpet and suddenly flocks of ravens befell the city, pecking and clawing at the invading army until it retreated in defeat. To commemorate this event, city guards play the same trumpet signal with which Bolko once called the ravens.

The Queen of the Baltic, Polish Legend

Gdansk is a Polish port city 4 miles from the Baltic Sea. It lies on the Vistula River. In the 10th century, when Poland was firmly establishing its prominence on the Baltic shores, Gdansk became a defense stronghold. The harbor was ideally located. It was connected with the trade route called the "Amber Road", which was used by the merchants from the Mediterranean countries seeking amber from the Baltic shores and this leads us to a legend from the Baltic shores.

Long, long ago, the Baltic Sea was ruled by Jurata, a beautiful queen. She had long golden hair and sea green eyes. Her loveliness caused Perkun, the fierce God of thunder and lightning, to fall in love with her. He would not let his storms disturb the waters of her kingdom.

Jurata was a kind queen. She established laws to protect her sea creatures. One law did not allow anyone to set traps that caught too many fish at one time. Though Jurata liked to eat flounder and had it served at the palace, she ordered her servants to keep only half of each fish and to throw the other half back to the sea. These fish-halves stayed alive because of her magical powers.

On the Baltic Coast lived a bold, free spirited young fisherman who had very little common sense. He knew about Queen Jurata's law, but disobeyed it. He set many traps and caught many, many fish which he sold to people who lived far from the sea. He spent most of his money on fine clothes.

The Queen found out about this fisherman and was very angry with him. Her plan was to swim close to the shore, get the fisherman to go in the water and drown him. Instead, when she saw him in his beautiful clothes, she fell in love with him as he did with her. Every night she would swim to the shore and see her new sweetheart.

Jurata herself had broken a law. The gods said that magical beings could love only magical beings. Perkun got very very mad about this. He went into a rage and with thunderbolts destroyed the amber colored palace while the Queen was inside and chained the young fisherman to the bottom of the sea. They were never seen again. The fisherman can sometimes be heard calling for his love. The only things that remain from Jurata's palace are pieces of amber that sometimes wash up on the beaches of the Baltic Sea.

 

Note: Another version of the Queen Jurata – March post 2015.

Source: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/legends/QB.html

Janosik, Polish Legend

Long ago, the people living in the Tatra Mountain area were poor and hungry, because they were charged unfair rents by greedy landlords. The landlords hired soldiers to take the sheep and crops from the people who could not pay their rent.

One day, a young man named Janosik, met a rich man climbing a mountain with two of his soldiers. One of the soldiers tried to push him off the mountain path. Janosik would not get off the path. He hit the bully and the bully fell off the slope. As the second soldier came to attack him, Janosik tripped him and he too fell off the mountain. Then, Janosik took the rich man's heavy bag, which was full of money the man had collected from the poor people, and pushed him off the path, too. The three men were lying at the bottom of the ravine!

Janosik gave the money to poor starving families. He had to hide in the mountains, because he knew that other soldiers would be looking for him. As he climbed the mountain, he noticed three witches walking silently behind him.

The witches told Janosik that they had been watching him and that they knew that he had pushed the soldiers off the mountain and had stolen the money. But they saw him give the money to poor families and considered him a hero. They also said he was now considered a thief because he stole a landlord's money. They offered to help him become the most famous thief who ever lived.

Each of the witches gave him a magical gift - the first was a woolen shirt that would stop any bullet or arrow, the second was a red leather belt that would help him run more swiftly than any other man and the third gift was a long handled mountaineer's axe that would allow him to climb steep cliffs and peaks where no one could follow.

Janosik soon became the chief of a group of bandits who robbed the rich and gave the money and the stolen treasures to the poor people. He was thought of as a hero by them. The landlords, who were afraid of Janosik, offered enormous rewards for his capture, but the gifts of the witches made it impossible for him to be caught.

A woman, who lived in the mountains and knew Janosik, told the soldiers about the three gifts the witches had given him. One night the woman stole the gifts and built a fire on the mountainside to signal the soldiers that she had burned them.

When the enemies arrived, Janosik no longer had the magic power. He fought bravely but was taken to prison. The soldiers promised the woman some money if she helped them capture Janosik, but they were dishonest soldiers and kept alt the reward. The woman had to run away. She died in poverty in another land. Janosik escaped and still lives in the mountains robbing the rich and giving to the poor.

Note: Janosik was a famous Slovak outlaw, who lived between the 17^th-18^th centuries and grew up in Terchova (NW Slovakia). Another version of Legendary Slovak Outlaw – March post 2015.

 

Source: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/legends/J.html

The Sleeping Knights, Polish Legend

The outline of Giewont mountain massif is dominant over Zakopane (a town at the foot of the Tatra Mountains), south Poland. Many legends and tales associated with Giewont reflect the similarity between its outline and that of a sleeping knight.

Poland has always been a land of strong and courageous knights. Many old tales claim that the bravest of the knights never died, but have been asleep for centuries in a cavern beneath Mount Pisana.

Once, in a mountain village, a stranger entered a blacksmith shop. He told the blacksmith that he could earn a rich reward for doing a special job, but he must promise not to tell anyone. The blacksmith agreed. The stranger took a gold bar from under his coat and asked the blacksmith to make a horseshoe from it. When this was done, the stranger led him to the Koscieliska Valley. After hours of walking, they came to a cave hidden by rocks and trees.

There was a bright golden light inside the cave. On the floor was an army of knights in full armor, resting their helmeted heads on saddles as if they were pillows. In their hands were battle axes and spears. Along the walls of the cave stood beautiful sleeping horses covered with blankets made of delicate fabric and horseshoes made of gold.

The stranger told the amazed blacksmith to replace the broken shoe of a great stallion with the golden horseshoe he had made. The horse did not get up even when the blacksmith nailed the horseshoe to the stallion's hoof.

Of course, the curious blacksmith asked many questions, but this was all the stranger would tell him: the knights had been in a deep sleep for hundreds of years and they would not wake until the time came for a great battle. On that day, thunder would shake the earth and the sky, giant pine trees would break like little sticks, and boulders would crash down the mountainsides.

The knights would then gallop out of the cave to fight for Poland once more.

When the job was done, the stranger led the blacksmith back to his village and made him swear never to tell a living soul about what he had seen. Then, the stranger paid the blacksmith with a bag of gold and vanished.

The foolish blacksmith could not keep from telling anyone about what he saw. First, he told his wife and then his neighbors. Soon everyone knew his secret. However, the moment the blacksmith broke his word, his bag of gold turned to sand and although he searched for the cave many times, he was never able to find it.

 

Source: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/legends/SK.html

 

 

Zakopane - the Winter Capital of Poland

Zakopane is a town located at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, which is the highest range in the Carpathian Chain and the most beautiful stretch of mountains between the Alps and the Caucasus. It is Poland’s best known place of recreation, as well as a center for culture and sport. No other place with so relatively few inhabitants (30,000) brings in so many visitors (3 million a year).  

It has been accepted that Zakopane appeared in 1578, on the strength of privileges extended by King Stefan Batory. However, the oldest document in which the name appears is one issued by King Zygmunt III Vasa in 1630. The oldest part of the town is Kuznice, where the working of iron ore began in the second half of the 18the century. However, the world only ‘discovered’ the place in the 1870s, thanks to the effort of physician and naturalist Dr. Tytus Chalubinski. In the late 19^th century and early 20^th centuries, Zakopane – still a small village of highland people – became a fashionable resort and spa town, a known center for the treatment of tuberculosis, a stopover for artists and a cradle of cultural life.

 

There are more than one hundred talents living here today, many of whom open their studios up to the public. Many creative talents include: Stanislaw Witkiewicz developed the Zakopianski architectural style so characteristic of Zakopane; Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz – writer, painter, philosopher; Tadeusz Brzozowski – painter; Wladyslaw Hasior and Antoni Rzasa – both sculptors; Ewelina Peksowa – painter on glass.

The Makuszynski Muzeum (above) is frequented by schoolchildren on visits to the mountains.

Time has stood still here, as if the writer had only left his desk for a moment or two. Standing in front of the Opolanka Villa on Tetmajera St is Andrzej Renes’s Monument to Kornel Makuszynksi. At his feet is the best-known hero from his books, namely the goat Koziolek Matolek (which stands on his desk in red shorts and shoes).

The town and surrounding villages are connected with still-visible styles of clothing, dance, folk music and song. There are several regional folk ensembles active in the area, with dozens of highlander music groups. A similar number of folk artists and craftsmen are resident and it is here that skill in painted glass, sculpture, woodcarving and violin-making reach their peak.

Source: Zakopane by Parma Press

 

Roland and Oliver, French Folklore

This story takes place in France over a thousand years ago when Charlemagne was king. At a high festival to celebrate his recent military victories, Charlemagne became angry with one of the most powerful barons in France, old Count Gerard. Outraged, Count Gerard renounced his loyalty to the king and declared he would no longer pay taxes. Knowing Charlemagne would likely attack his home, Count Gerard returned to his stronghold castle in Viana to fortify it and prepare for a long siege.

Indeed, King Charlemagne embarked on a great siege against Count Gerard's stronghold castle of Viana. The king vowed he would never leave until the proud Count Gerard was humbled in the dust before him. For nine weeks Charlemagne besieged the castle and allowed no one to come in or to go out. Yet so well supplied was the garrison with all food, drink, and comforts needed for life that they cared but little for the blockade.

Both the besiegers and the besieged took every opportunity to annoy one another. If Charlemagne's warriors dared approach too near the walls, they were driven back by a shower of arrows from crossbows. If the men of Viana ventured outside the gates or beyond the moat, a troop of Charlemagne's horsemen drove them back at the point of the lance.

Weeks passed. Still the wearisome siege continued. Some say that Charlemagne was encamped around Viana for seven months; others say it was seven years. In any event, during the siege the whole country for miles on every side was laid waste. What had once been blooming meadows, fields and gardens was now trodden into a desert. The vineyards were destroyed, the orchards cut down, the houses of the country folk burned and destroyed. Great indeed was the distress caused by this quarrel between the king and the count.

Yet both the king and Count Gerard remained steadfast. All winter long Charlemagne's men sat by their campfires and guarded the approaches to Viana. By spring, the woods began to brighten with greenish hues and flowers sprang up in the meadows and birds sang soft and sweet. Many knights thought of how their time was being wasted in this fruitless war against one of their own countrymen, and they longed to ride away in quest of other, more worthy adventures. The king tried hard to press the siege and to bring it to a speedy close, but in vain.

One day a party of strange knights rode into the camp and brought stirring news to the king. The king of Spain, they said, had crossed the Pyrenees and was carrying fire and sword and dire distress into southern France. Unless Charlemagne left quickly, the rich provinces of Aquitaine and Gascony could be lost!

The king was much troubled when he heard this news and he called his advisors together to ask their advice. All declared at once in favor of ending the siege of Viana, finding some sort of peace with Count Gerard, and marching without delay against the invaders. But Charlemagne could not abandon his vow.

"Which is better," cautiously said one duke, "to forsake a vow which may have been made too hastily, or to sit here helpless and surrender a precious part of our homeland to invaders?"

"It seems to me," said another duke, "that the present business might be brought to a close another way. Let two knights be chosen, one from each side, and let the combat between them decide the question between you and Count Gerard."

Charlemagne and his advisors were much pleased with this plan. A messenger with a truce flag was sent into the fortress to propose the plan to Count Gerard. On the other side, the men inside the castle of Viana were likewise arguing with one another how best to end the stalemate. They, too, were tired of fighting against the king, and knew that their food supplies and provisions would run out, indeed, they were already beginning to run low. So they very gladly agreed to the terms.

Charlemagne and his advisors selected Charlemagne's valiant nephew Roland to represent the side of the king. Count Gerard selected his grandson, the formidable Oliver, to represent his interests.

Early the following morning, King Charlemagne's nephew Roland was ferried over to an island in the river Rhône where Oliver was already waiting. The signal was given. The two knights put spurs to their steeds and dashed toward each other with the fury of tigers and the speed of the wind. The lances of both were shivered in pieces against the opposing shields, but neither was moved from his place in his saddle. Quickly they dismounted and drew their swords.

For more than two hours the two knights thrusted and parried, warding and striking, but neither gained an advantage over the other. At last, however, Oliver's sword broke after striking Roland's helmet with a too-hearty blow; his shield, too, was split from top to bottom. Left with no weapon to defend himself, Oliver made up his mind to die fighting, and he stood ready to fight with his fists. Roland was pleased to see such pluck.

"Friend," he said, "great is your pride, and I love you for it. I may be the nephew to the king of France and his champion today, but great shame would be upon me were I to slay an unarmed man. Choose for yourself another sword and a more trusty shield, and meet me again as my equal."

So Oliver bade his squires to bring him another sword from the castle, and Roland sat down upon the grass and rested. Three swords were sent over to Oliver, and the knight chose one. Roland rose from the grass and the fierce fight began again. Never were weapons wielded with greater skill. The sun rose high in the heavens, and still each knight stood firmly in his place, thrusting and parrying, striking and warding, and gaining no advantage over his foe. After a time, however, Roland struck his sword with such a force into Oliver's shield that he could not withdraw it.

Now it was Oliver's turn to face an unarmed enemy. "My worthy foe," said he, "it is not our fate for one of us to vanquish the other through the use of swords and shields. Let us decide this matter hand to hand." He threw his own sword and shield aside, and the two of them rushed together to seize each other and to throw one another down.

Moved by the same thought, each snatched the other's helmet and lifted it from his head. At that moment they stood there, bareheaded and face to face. Perhaps it was something they recognized in one another's eyes, perhaps a ray of light settled down between them, but at once they rushed into one another's arms.

Great was the wonder of King Charlemagne and his advisors, and equally great was the astonishment of Oliver's kinsmen, the Vianese of Count Gerard's castle. Knights and warriors from both sides of the river hastened to cross to the island. They were eager to know the meaning of conduct seemingly so unknightly. But when they came nearer they saw the men, who had fought each other so long and so valiantly, now standing hand in hand and pledging their faith as brothers-in-arms. And with one voice all joined in declaring that both were equally deserving of the victory.

Charlemagne's heart was touched by the spectacle. "Count Gerard of Viana," he cried, "all this trouble between you and me is ended and forgotten. If you have harmed me, I freely forgive you. No penny of taxes shall you pay for land or castle. I ask only that your pledge of loyalty be restored."

Then Count Gerard ungirt his sword from his side and uncovered his head, and knelt before the king. He placed both his hands between those of the king and said, "From this day forward I become your man of life and limb, and of all worldly reverence, and unto you I will be loyal and true. To no other lord will I grant obedience."

Then the king raised him gently from the ground and kissed him, and answered, "Count Gerard of Viana, I grant you the lands and the castle of Viana, to have and to hold without any payment of taxes, or any other service except that which is called for in an honorable war."

Then the other knights, in the order of their rank, came and knelt likewise before the king, and each in his turn promised his loyalty. And the king forgave each one all the wrong that he had ever done him, and gave back to each all the lands and all the honors that he had held before.

"And now," said King Charlemagne to Count Gerard, "I will sup with you tonight in your lordly castle of Viana."

Great was the wonder of the Viannese when they saw the king enter their halls, not as the prisoner but as the friend and guest of the count. And great, indeed, was the joy when it was known that peace had been made and that the wearisome siege was at an end. In the broad feast hall a rich banquet was spread, and the night was devoted to feasting, music and merrymaking. From the moment they refused to continue fighting each other, Roland and Oliver were inseparable.

Source: http://www.storiestogrowby.com/stories/roland_oliver_france.html