The Black Cockerel of Kazimierz Dolny

In the days when the grain boatmen made Kazimierz Dolny rich, rumour had it that beneath the castle ruin lay a chest full of gold, left behind by an old lord who had died without an heir. Many dreamed of finding it.

But the treasure was not unguarded. Whoever dared to dig among the walls at night suddenly heard a cockerel crow, black as soot, with eyes that glowed like coals. The creature appeared from nowhere and vanished again, and each time the pits caved in.

A man of the town, who wanted more than he needed, resolved to try all the same. At the new moon he climbed to the tower with spade and lantern and dug until he struck something hard, a lid of wood. His heart pounded: the chest.

At that moment the black cockerel crowed right behind him. The ground groaned, the walls of the pit slid shut, and the man barely worked himself back to the surface. When he came to, the pit had vanished as if no one had ever dug, and of the chest there was no trace.

The man returned empty-handed and badly frightened. Ever since, no one has dared to dig in the ruin out of greed. The black cockerel, the old people say, yields the treasure only to one who does not covet it for himself, and such people do not go digging.

The true wealth of Kazimierz Dolny, in any case, lay not beneath the tower but in the granaries by the river: the grain, honestly earned and traded down the Vistula. That gold could be carried off, and no cockerel guarded it.