KRAKOW’S PIGEONS
Why do you think Cracovians treat Krakow’s Pigeons with such respect?
To start telling you the legend about Krakow’s Pigeons I need to go back to the XII century, when Kingdom of Poland was under the reign of Boleslaw Wrymouth.
Boleslaw Wrymouth had five sons and before his death he wanted to give each one of them his own piece of land to reign, that is why he wrote his last will and decided to divide his kingdom between his five sons. Krakow became the major land and was to be reigned by the oldest son.
It took almost 2 centuries to reunite the Kingdom of Poland but before it was done by our king Władyslaw the Elbow (XIV century) there were many others who tried but with no success.
One of them was Prince of Krakow named Henryk Probius (XIII century). In order to reunite the kingdom Henryk Probius had to make a journey to Rome to gain the approval of the Pope but unfortunately he had not enough money to do that as the treasury in Krakow was almost empty!
As nobody wanted to lend him the money for the journey ,the Prince decided to ask for help a very old witch who lived in the wilds beyond the city .The witch agreed to help him to enter the city of Rome with all the glamour that was due a powerful prince but under one condition.
Her condition was that the Prince travels to Rome only on his own, without his most trusted knights , who would remain transformed into pigeons until his return to Krakow. At first the Prince was not going to accept such a rough term but then he realized that he had no other choice.
The next morning the witch appeared in the Main Market Square, where the Prince was already awaiting her , and with a blink of an eye , she transformed all the knights into pigeons. The pigeons flew up onto the roof of St. Mary’s Basilica and as they settled there, they dislodged thousands of tiny stones, which while hitting the ground were instantly changing into golden coins.
The Prince was so amazed and thrilled that decided to start his journey to Rome on the very same day. Unfortunately on his route to Rome , he somehow forgot about his mission of reuniting his kingdom and instead of going forward he was throwing parties and spend the golden coins in every town he passed by on his route.
By the time that he noticed that his sacks are empty it was much too late. He never managed to get to Rome and full of shame had to return to Krakow.
As soon as he came back he started to look for the old witch to beg her so she removed the spell from the knights but with no results …
As you can see Krakow’s Pigeons are no average birds but the enchanted knights of Prince Henryk Probius, which are still awaiting the arrival of their Prince with the crown of a King of united Kingdom of Poland .
