Our Little Polish CousinMendel, Florence Emma Voigt
General
Our Little Polish Cousin
Mendel, Florence Emma Voigt
Children -- Poland -- Juvenile literature
But you must not believe that the sports are all confined to the
country-side. Indeed not. The city folks have their own form of
entertainment, and in the City of Cracow there is observed a most
peculiar custom known as Renkawka or the Sleeve.
In very olden times, I believe about the year 560 A. D., there lived in
the south, among the Carpathian Mountains, a very unimportant chief
named Krakus. He was a good man, a most unusual thing in that age;
therefore everybody loved him, and that was a great honor, because the
times were warlike and people cared more for a chief who showed himself
brave but fierce than they did about one who was gentle and kind. It so
happened that Krakus made a journey to the north. He came to a fine
hill, about whose foot ran a broad, clear river called the Vistula. As
he was looking for a site upon which to build himself a fortress, he
decided this was just the very place for his. But he found it one thing
to wish and quite another thing to obtain. The hill was guarded by a
fierce dragon who kept watch, day and night, that no one might take it
away. However, Krakus was a brave man, and he longed so intensely for
the hill, especially now that he knew he ought not to have it, that he
decided to fight the dreadful dragon. Therefore, he took his trusty
sword and shield, mounted the hill, fought the monster and conquered it.
Had he not done so, there would have been no story. He then set to work
to build his castle upon the very top of that impregnable hill, with the
beautiful river running around its base. He called the fortress-castle
the Wawel, because that was the name of the hill upon which it stood.
This castle of Krakus still is standing, but it is in a sad state of
ruin. However, the Russian government, to whom it now belongs, is
putting it in repair, so that it may present the same appearance of
grandeur and splendor that it did in the days of good King Krakus.
You all know what a castle is; but perhaps there are few of you who
understand what it means when applied to an ancient stronghold. The
Wawel castle really included quite a small village inside its massive
walls, for here the chief or king, with his retainers and his army, were
wont to lock themselves safely in at close of day, that the enemy, who
was always lurking in wait in those times, could do them no harm. It is
here, to this Wawel, that Mrs. Ostrowska had promised to take the
children in the June time, upon St. John's Eve, to witness the ceremony
of the Wianki.
Now, when King Krakus died, his people mourned him exceedingly. They
erected a huge mound outside the city on the further side of the river
in his honor. The peasants wore a sort of tunic, at that time, with very
wide sleeves, much like the sleeves worn by Japanese women. It was in
these convenient sleeves they carried the earth with which to erect the
mound, hence the ceremony takes its name Renkawka or Sleeve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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