POLISH LEGENDS

Prince Popiel ruled Kruszwica. As a child he behaved very badly. It didn't changed when he grew up. As an adult he drank. He was very lazy and always avoided fighting. His wife, Gerda German princess, was the beauty and greedy.. He didn’t listen to good advisers. When two sons, Lech and Popiel, were born, Duke lost his head. Great hatred flamed up between Popiel’s uncles and his wife. Gerda wanted to kill them. She was afraid to will elect to the throne someone else, instead of her sons.She was smart, so she prepared a terrible plan. She informed about the grave illness Popiel’s uncles and invited them to the castle to say goodbye. They come.

Prince asked them to drink honey. The drink was poisoning. After a few moments uncles fell without life. Popiel announced that they wanted to kill him, and it wast heir punishment. Popiel celebrated, and next to the abandoned bodies mice hatched. Finding the food, they went in the direction of the castle. The couple took refuge in a tower near the lake. Mice and rats (feeding on the rushed into the tower, chewed through the walls, and devoured Popiel and his wife alive.

The Wawel Dragon, also known as the Dragon of Wawel Hill, is a famous dragon in Polish folklore. He laired in a cave at the foot of Wawel Hill on the bank of the Vistula River.The dragon especially enjoyed eating young maidens. The King certainly wanted to put a stop to the dragon. Every girl in the city was eventually sacrificed except one, the King's daughter Wanda.The King promised his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage to anyone who could defeat the dragon.

Great warriors from near and far fought for the prize and failed. One day a poor cobbler's apprentice named Skuba accepted the challenge. He stuffed a lamb with sulphurand set it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and soon became incredibly thirsty. He turned to the Vistula River for relief and drank and drank. But no amount of water could quench his aching stomach, and after swelling up from drinking half the Vistula river, he exploded. Skuba married the King's daughter as promised, and they lived happily ever after.

Long ago, a young fisherman Wars lived in a small settlement by the border of the river Vistula. One night, Wars went to a catch. When he was taking out the net, he noticed a beautiful girl surfacing from the water. He went into raptures. The girl had long, gold hair and a fishy tail. The young fisherman realized that it was a mermaid. She swam up to him and started singing. When Wars had heard her voice, he fell in love.

One day later, when he was looking at her, she noticed it. Surprised by seeing him, she swam up and asked why he was spying her. Confused Wars started to explain that he was amorous of her. They looked at each other and understood that it was their destination. The mermaid Sawa remembered a secret: when a mermaid falls in love in a man with reciprocity, she can lose her fishy tail and become a woman. Wars immediately asked her to get married and she agreed joyfully. She lost her fishy tail and legs appeared at its place. Wars and Sawa lived happily long time. After many years, there was a big fishing settlement around their chalet, and people in memory of it, decided to call it Warszawa.

A thousand years ago, or maybe even more, there lived three brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus. For many years they had been content in their villages, but the families grew larger and they needed more room to live. The brothers decided to travel in different directions to search for new homes. Lech, Czech, and Rus traveled with their troops for many days. They rode their horses over mountains and rivers, through forests and wild country. There were no people to be found anywhere, not a town or tiny village. On the crest of a mountain top, they separated, each going in a different direction. Czech went to the left, Rus went to the right and Lech rode straight ahead, down the mountain and across vast plains.

One day Lech saw a spendid sight. He and his troops had come to a place where a meadow surrounded a small lake. They stopped at the edge of the meadow as a great eagle flew over their heads. It flew around in great swooping circles, then perched on its nest, high on a craggy rock. Lech stared in awe at the beautiful sight. As the eagle spread its wings and soared into the heavens again, a ray of sunshine from the red setting sun fell on the eagle's wings, so they appeared tipped with gold, the rest of the bird was pure white.

"Here is where we will stay!" declared Lech. "Here is our new home, and we will call this place GNIEZNO ... (the eagle's nest). He and his people built many houses and it became the center of his territory. They called themselves Polonians, which means "People of the Field". They made a banner with a white eagle on a red field and flew it over the town of Gniezno, which became the first historical capital of Poland. And, now you know how Poland began . . .